[Chrupzilla]

Reddick put up impressive .340/.397/.491 and .343/.375/.593 lines in Greenville and Lancaster (notice a trend with hitters who play in Lancaster?) respectively. Since being promoted to Portland, he has struggled. In 32 at-bats, he has a .219/.286/.406 line. He is a wiry contact hitter with good power, but if he fills out his frame and gets stronger, he could put up some serious numbers at the higher levels.


"If we need a guy on base in the late innings, I will be an average hitter. I can also hit for power in situations, but making contact has always been my best attribute."

[cpredsox]

Reddick now has 4 homeruns in his first 5 games played this season.

[cpredsox]

Quote

The Line: After missing the month of May with an oblique strain and feeling his way back into the batter’s box in June, Reddick has found his stride again in July, posting a .291/.350/.582 line, good for a .932 OPS. Of Reddick’s 16 hits in the month, 8 have gone for extra bases while he has batted lead off and manned centerfield for Portland. His 12 home runs on the season put him in the top ten in the Eastern League despite missing a month of the season, and his .883 OPS would rank him sixth in the league if he had enough qualifying at-bats. Reddick went 2 for 4 on July 10 against New Hampshire with 2 runs batted in, and he followed that up on July 13 by cracking 2 home runs in the final game of the first half.

The View: Reddick came back slowly from his injury, struggling to find his timing. As a whole, his pitch recognition on off-speed pitches and his discipline at the plate have been much improved this season. This was a key need for Reddick after his stint in Double-A last season, when his over-aggressiveness was exposed by advanced pitching. Adept at turning on the ball, he crushes fastballs middle in and has been disciplined enough to keep himself from chasing off-speed pitches down and in. With his excellent batspeed, Reddick generates a lot of torque and lift with his swing, which produces consistent, hard contact with plenty backspin on the ball. His strikeouts have increased since he arrived in Portland, but he is also walking more and has been staying back on the ball well the entire season. One area where Reddick could stand to improve is with his tendency to over-pull balls, especially fastballs on the outer third of the plate. Driving those pitches to left field with a little more frequency, rather than trying to yank them, would round out Reddick as a more complete threat at the plate, and this will be something of a need as he moves up to the next level to prevent pitchers from living on the outer third of the plate against him. After playing more right field in the lower minors, he’s continued to prove his center-field skills this season, flashing some nice range and reads on balls, while showing off his plus plus throwing arm. Needing to make improvements in his approach at the plate coming into the season, Reddick has made some excellent strides in this area and with some more fine tuning looks to be rounding into a complete and dangerous hitter at the plate.

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