Baseball notebook: Red Sox defy theory that size matters – Boston Herald

A standoff on Aug. 10 crystallized the difference for Jackie Bradley Jr.

Rick Porcello said something to Chase Headley, apparently an accusation the Yankees third baseman was looking at signs. A punch-less, benches-clearing soiree ensued at Fenway Park.

“We’re smaller guys,” Bradley said. “Especially when we, um, our little get-together scrum with the Yankees, we noticed how we were a lot shorter than a majority of their guys.”

This is before the Yankees called up 6-foot-7, 275-pound outfielder Aaron Judge, mind you.

Not that height is the determining factor.

“You know it,” Bradley Jr. said with a laugh when asked if the Sox could win a hypothetical tussle. “You know height doesn’t measure that.”

(Relax, Yankees fans. He wasn’t issuing a challenge.)

Around baseball, Dustin Pedroia still is the flag-bearer, the shorter guy who gives hope to others, but he’s not alone.

Today, two of the four best position players in the major leagues are small dudes.

Jose Altuve of the Houston Astros is 5-6, and the 26-year-old might be on his way to an MVP award. (Last year’s MVP Josh Donaldson and runner-up Mike Trout are leading candidates again this year, but they’re not tiny.)

The other one in the mix, a relatively late insert in the race, is 5-9 Mookie Betts.

The Red Sox must lead the league in production-to-height ratio, OPS-to-inches, however you want to term it. There’s Betts and Pedroia. Then there’s newcomer Andrew Benintendi, who’s listed at 5-10, same as Bradley.

“I don’t think size really matters when it comes to power,” Sox hitting coach Chili Davis said. “If you’re talking about tape-measure home runs, maybe. But just hitting the ball over the fence, I don’t think size matters. I think with (pitching velocity) and everything that’s in today’s game, if you’ve got good hand speed and you square baseballs up, that pitch is providing some (velocity) out there, too.”

Bradley doesn’t really appear that small. He’s thick. His wingspan is about 75 inches. But Benintendi weighs just 170 pounds, about 30 less than Bradley.

“I grew up watching Pedroia play,” said Benintendi, who was 14 when Pedroia won his 2008 MVP.

Betts is the one who shocks the most people with his ability.

“Because here’s a guy that for two seasons led the organization in slugging percentage, extra-base hits,” Sox manager John Farrell said. “And when he first came over to games before coming to the big leagues in spring training, I was (like), ‘This is (him)?’”

Betts had a .923 OPS in 2013, ahead of his major league debut the next season.

“Your basic layman’s first look is going to say, ‘He does?’” Farrell said. “Because traditionally, you think it’s going to be someone more physical.”

Scouts have noticed how small Benintendi is. Benintendi said he did hear doubts growing up, but about his weight, not his height, and he’s made every effort to ignore them.

“They haven’t directly told me, but I mean, I didn’t grow up going to (many) showcases and stuff like that,” Benintendi said.

Being small has long been known to carry an advantage for hitters. What’s happening, though, is that smaller hitters no longer are restricted to the classic pesky, singles profile.

“Hitters can actually hit in two productive types of ways,” Sox pitching expert Brian Bannister said. “(One) is like your classic Tony Gwynn, Wade Boggs, Jose Altuve way, where if a smaller hitter has extremely good judgment of the smaller strike zone, and has an approach where (he’s) shorter (going) bat to ball and doesn’t try to do too much with the ball, I think they have an edge over the bigger hitters.

“Not with regards to slugging percentage, but just having a higher batting average and protecting the plate and making the pitcher throw more pitches. . . . Mookie actually has the rare ability to have a smaller strike zone, with the power to hit it to that second tier, where he’s actually creating the power.”

Farrell couldn’t remember being part of a shorter team. But not all the Sox are small, of course.

There’s a guy nicknamed Big Papi, and some pitchers are tall: Porcello and David Price are 6-5.

That outfield, though . . .

“The traditional scouting methods are always probably going to start with body type and are always going to side with the larger frame,” Farrell said. “When you start to get into performance-based scouting, does that keep you from overlooking the smaller-stature guy?

“I think a lot of our guys have popped up in that approach.”

Justice to be served?

Why would the Red Sox care how commissioner Rob Manfred handles the fallout from the 46-month prison sentence a former Cardinals executive, Christopher Correa, received last month because he hacked into the Astros’ computer system and accessed files like scouting reports?

Because the Red Sox were punished by MLB for skirting international amateur signing rules, and because part of their punishment hung on a notion of “organizational responsibility.”

The two situations are different, and the likelihood the Cardinals will receive a stiffer punishment is high because the nature of the violation was much greater.

A large sum of money and/or players could be awarded to the Astros when the time comes, with the decision in Manfred’s hands.

But the Sox likely will be incredulous if the Cardinals are not also found to have “organizational responsibility” and are not punished accordingly.

At the All-Star Game, Manfred noted how the Red Sox “accepted organizational responsibility” for finding a way to work around a limit of a $300,000 signing bonus per international amateur player in 2015. But with the Cardinals, Manfred said there was “no indication that this was an organizational problem.”

MLB is conducting its own investigation into the Cardinals and has yet to punish them in any way, even though Correa is to report to a Maryland federal prison by the end of this month.

Correa said in court, when he entered his guilty plea, that he told Cardinals colleagues of what he found in the Astros’ system.

MLB believes the Cardinals benefited from Correa’s transgressions, a source said. Whether that alone proves organizational responsibility is to be seen.

“Manfred, that’s what he’s interested in finding out,” a person familiar with the situation said. “He wants to know who knew over there.”

If the Department of Justice had enough evidence to bring charges against someone else with the Cardinals, it would have.

It didn’t.

But there’s doubt as to whether the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office will share their full investigation with MLB — whether any potential information authorities gathered about others with the Cardinals will make its way to the league.

What it might come down to, then, is whether Correa is willing to talk to MLB. Considering he’s already on his way to prison and has friends in the Cardinals organization, he has no incentive except perhaps to help clear his name.

The Sox will be watching to see if MLB determines Correa to be a lone wolf, and how badly the Cards are punished.

Less info is more

The advancements in baseball information aren’t limited to cameras and digital modeling of on-field actions.

Sensors, like those made by Zepp, can now be placed on a bat to learn more about a swing. Wearable technology is available, too. A company called Motus offers a device that can keep track of a pitcher’s workload, for example — ideally helping to prevent injuries.

But information is power in baseball, and different teams make different amounts of information easily available to players.

“Players around the league now have a thirst for this kind of information,” Bannister said. “You look at golf, it’s such an interactive learning tool now. I mean, you go take a golf lesson anywhere, your local club, and they already have a Trackman system there. You hit a ball and they’re giving you all the instant feedback, and yet at the highest level of baseball, that’s still not implemented in a very big way. Then you have other organizations that are extremely transparent with it.”

Part of that is not bogging down players with unnecessary info.

But it also comes down to leverage and valuations — and that works in both directions.

“There’s one stumbling block to the idea of wearable technology,” Cubs baseball operations assistant John Baker said at Saberseminar 2016 in Boston last weekend. “And it’s that we (as an organization) can’t force anybody to wear it. And I think that’s a problem that’s come up, is this kind of fear of an Orwellian environment where we’re watching everything you do.

“And it’s happened in the NFL already with the force plate technology on the ground. Guys before the NFL combine are not participating in some of these studies because they show a propensity for an injury risk. So now the agents are advising against it.

“This is going to be battle that’s going to be fought between Major League Baseball and the Players Association, or perhaps agents and teams. . . . Agents are going to immediately look at, ‘What’s the inherent risk of my player’s future contract?’”

The same thinking applies to baseball’s draft medical system.

Amateur players, pitchers included, do not have to go for an MRI on their arms until after they are drafted. That was a huge contributor to the Brady Aiken debacle in 2014, when the Houston Astros did not sign their No. 1 pick after an MRI revealed risk in the left-hander’s elbow. He later had Tommy John surgery.

But it remains a hard sell: Why would players (and agents) want to provide more information to teams when all it could serve to do is knock their potential draft position down?

That’s just one set of issues to watch in the new collective bargaining agreement, which if agreed upon on time, comes into play starting next season.

New issues afoot

Fresh eyes might need fresh kicks.

On the subject of making baseball more appealing to kids, Dave Dombrowski recalled the most recent homestand against Arizona. He was sitting next to his 16-year-old son Landon watching the Diamondbacks play in unconventional dark gray uniforms with teal trim.

“He said, ‘Gosh, look at those (teal) shoes that Rickie Weeks is wearing,’” the Sox president of baseball operations said at Saberseminar. “And I said, ‘Gosh, yeah, they don’t look too good with that uniform, do they?’

“He said, ‘Oh they look great, Dad. Are you kidding me?’

“He said, ‘I don’t understand why guys . . . can’t wear any color spikes they want,” Dombrowski said.

Landon was talking only about shoes that matched team colors.

“Like they do in the NBA. Right?” Dombrowski continued. “It’s a great point. Because actually, that’s one of the topics that are part of appealing to youngsters that we don’t do right now in our game.”