The Xander Bogaerts Overhaul
Even if you’re not a Boston Red Sox fan, you’re probably familiar with the Xander Bogaerts story. Big-time top prospect. Shortstop who has power. Pretty good plate discipline. Did some nice things right after his debut. Got off to a strong start in his first full season. Then: the collapse. I don’t need to give you the numbers — just imagine really terrible numbers. You’re there! So went Bogaerts, prior to his 2015.
This, though, has been a year of far more consistency. And far more promise.
It’s also been a year of change. Of significant change. Of major super massive change. We talk about players making adjustments all the time, but seldom do players make adjustments as big as Bogaerts has. If you’ve been paying attention, this isn’t exactly anything new. Owen hit on some of this in June. A player like Bogaerts, on a team like the Red Sox, doesn’t make a big change without a bunch of people noticing. But it’s one thing to notice what’s happened. It’s another to understand how dramatic this is.
Evidence of Bogaerts making changes isn’t hidden. It’s slathered all over his player page, and you’d have to be an idiot not to notice. I mean, for example, he’s lifted his wOBA from last year by 40 points. He’s cut his strikeout rate by nine points. His ground-ball rate has spiked to something more in line with what he did in the minors. So many signs are there. One could argue all the possible signs are there. There are lights and alarms and people scurrying in a panic.
Pick any individual statistical change, and you can write about the year Bogaerts has had. But I’ve settled on my favorite indicator. I’ve written a little bit about pulled grounder rate. You have to kind of dig for it on our leaderboards, but I like it because it’s a tricky thing to fake. Certain hitters with certain swings are going to pull a certain amount of their grounders, and while there’s room for some noise, the numbers are very much swing-specific. Over a big-enough sample, pulled grounder rate isn’t going to lie. If it stays the same, the hitter might not have changed much. More importantly, if it doesn’t stay the same, the hitter probably did something.
So, a plot. We have information going back to 2002. Below, you’ll see pulled ground rates for hitters who hit at least 100 grounders in consecutive seasons. This gives you some idea of the number’s “stickiness.” Quite obviously, Bogaerts is highlighted.
Two years ago, Bogaerts pulled more than two-thirds of his grounders. This year, he’s just above two out of five. If you just think about that for a moment, maybe it doesn’t mean much to you — this isn’t a normal, popular statistic. So let me put it in some context. I have a sample of 2,433. That’s 2,433 cases of a player hitting at least 100 grounders in consecutive seasons between 2002 and 2015. Here are the biggest season-to-season drops:
- Xander Bogaerts, 2014-2015, -25.9 percentage points
- Dave Roberts, 2005-2006, -20.4
- Brett Gardner, 2009-2010, -20.3
- Mike Aviles, 2014-2015, -18.6
- Will Venable, 2014-2015, -18.6
Bogaerts has the biggest decline, and he has the biggest decline by an awful lot. While I know his season isn’t over, it’s close enough that this shouldn’t change very much at all. This doesn’t happen without a major change in swing or approach. Bogaerts has almost forced himself to go the other way. And while the Red Sox haven’t tried to make too many tweaks to Bogaerts’ highly-regarded swing, they have worked on his timing, his balance and his tendency to get ahead of himself. Bogaerts has been a Chili Davis project since spring training. Davis likes where Bogaerts has gotten.
Borrowing from Brooks Baseball, here’s Bogaerts’ 2014 spray chart:
Here’s 2015:
And in case that doesn’t help too much, here’s a .gif of the same images:
Bogaerts did hit balls to the opposite field in 2014, but many of those were accidents, mis-hits or mis-swings. So those balls weren’t hit very well, and they turned into easy outs. The focus this year has been on making sure to stay back and drive more pitches up the middle or the other way, if called for. More balls have been not pulled, on purpose. That’s how you end up with a table like this:
| Location | 2014 | 2015 |
| Pull | 178 | 132 |
| Center | 91 | 135 |
| Opposite | 26 | 137 |
Someone like the first guy can be successful. Someone can be successful and extremely pull-heavy; Brian Dozier makes that work. But the recent version of Bogaerts is a lot more balanced, and if last year’s approach were the right one for him, it would’ve been a better season. This has been about discovering, or re-discovering, the opposite field. For a while, Mike Moustakas was drawing the bulk of the attention for learning how to go the other way. He’s increased his hit total to the opposite field from 17 to 46. Bogaerts has increased his from 17 to 59. Not that Moustakas doesn’t deserve credit, but this adjustment isn’t his and his alone.
It’s done wonders for Bogaerts’ plate coverage. Against inside pitches, he’s improved his batting average by 115 points. Against outside pitches, he’s improved his batting average by 71 points. That isn’t all signal. I mean, that isn’t all real, legitimate improvement. Bogaerts has probably had a few too many balls in play drop for hits. But the adjustment is real, quite obviously real, and the really interesting part is what this sets him up to do in the future.
See, Bogaerts turns 23 in a couple weeks. He hit for power in the minors, and on the year he’s sitting on five home runs. This isn’t how people envisioned the Xander Bogaerts finished product, but then, this probably isn’t the Xander Bogaerts finished product. This is a transition state. This is Bogaerts learning pitchers, and learning to stay back. If things go according to plan, the next step is pouncing. Controlled pouncing. From this Baseball Savant tool, Bogaerts’ top exit velocity matches Andrew McCutchen and Kris Bryant, among others. We know the power is in there, but hitters don’t make a lot of changes on the fly, mid-season. This year has been about staying back, and it’s been successful. Next year might be about putting everything together.
From the better approach can come the power. From the power can come the walks. That’s what people envisioned, and though that guy doesn’t exist yet, he’s closer than he ever was a year ago. Bogaerts has made a dramatic adjustment, learning to drive the ball the other way. Now that he’s done that, he can start to hunt for the right pitches to pull. That’ll be 2016’s project.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Starlin Castro 2.0
Mic drop.
wonder if he will pull a Machado-esque doubling of his walk rate next year.
He could easily go from 4.2 to 8.4% BB rate. His minor league numbers were all above 8% except for a 23 game assignment to Double A where I guess he swung at and hit everything….
What am I missing here? If his pull/center/oppo wrc+ is 132/135/137, how is his overall wrc+ only (about) 107?
Ground Balls
That is his wRC by location on balls in play. You need to take into account the balls he doesn’t put in play as well to get his overall wRC+.
Strikeouts. You’re missing strikeouts.
370 BABIP, 4% walk rate and little power are all kind of alarming if you think this is a break out year offensively.
“Pick any individual statistical change, and you can write about the year Bogaerts has had.”
Except BABIP. Let’s ignore that elephant in the room and focus on pulled grounders instead.
Sure the BABIP is high and going to come back to earth. But I don’t think that means he hasn’t taken a step forward. He duplicated his 2014 but hit 50+ more singles this year. That is not nothing. With his defense that makes him an incredibly valuable player.
PS How abberational his BABIP is,is an interesting question. He ran very high numbers in the minors and as Jeff noted his exit velocity is super high.
.370 is beyond abberational, but even if it settles at a generous .320 (eliminates about half of those extra hits), his decrease in K% gives his AVG/OBP a better floor now. If anything, the K% is the possible step forward, however, only his soft and medium contact percentages have increased, so while his TOP exit velocity is up there, his decreased K% has seemingly resulted in less strong contact. That’s more of a power thing than a BABIP thing, though.
And by UZR splits, his good fielding grades are a result of not making errors and positional adjustment–his range is a -4 for the year (and a -5 last year). He’s not the “rangey plus defender” that Fangraphs loves to overemphasize. He has defensive value as far as we can tell, but it’s not because he covers ground.
Good points. Especially about the effect of a reasonable BABIP on his production… He is all possibility at this point.
It’s aberrant, not abberational.
His exit velocity is anything but “super-high.” In fact, it was absurdly low (bad) for the first two months of the season, recently improving. Overall, YTD as of Sep 16, he ranks 161st (out of 253) in exit velo out of all hitters with >= 150 recorded AB. I.e., as of right now, he is a slap hitter with mediocre speed and a .370 BABIP.
http://baseballsavant.com/apps/hit_leader.php?game_date=&abs=150&type=batter&sort=5,1
Never called it a breakout year. The term “transition state” is right there. This is about a change in approach, and the magnitude of the approach change is independent of BABIP.
You clearly did not get the memo that every Xander article must either prove he is the ultimate shortstop of the future or an utter bust who was overhyped because he plays for Boston.
Go for a walk.
but then why didn’t you note that this change in approach has just as arguably been directly responsible for his complete loss of power?
Read the entire article: “He hit for power in the minors, and on the year he’s sitting on five home runs. This isn’t how people envisioned the Xander Bogaerts finished product, but then, this probably isn’t the Xander Bogaerts finished product. This is a transition state.”
Bogart’s change of direction is rare. Does it impact power? Seemed to this year, but he is still hitting the ball very hard. So maybe it’s not SUCH a stretch to imagine those HR numbers climbing.
@flightrisk No, he is not hitting it hard, unless an 88 mph avg. exit velocity is somehow considered “hard”:
http://baseballsavant.com/apps/hit_leader.php?game_date=&abs=150&type=batter&sort=5,1
I see a lot of a young Derek Jeter in Bogaerts. Jeter had a career BABIP of 350. Bogearts has all 5 things I look for in BABIP. He goes the other way, which is the most under rated BABIP factor. He hits the ball on the ground. He hits the ball hard. He is above average speed home to first. And he plays in a BABIP park[Fenway or Coors], which adds an average of 10 points to BABIP.
A 370 BABIP is unsustainable, but don’t think he will have an average 300 BABIP either.
yea if you need a .370 BABIP to rock a 107 wRC+, i’m not sure that’s a bullish sign.
his K% and BB% are reminiscent of Kevin Pillar, who no one would ever confuse with a good hitter, but if you gave him a .370 BABIP he could probably fake it too. 2:1 GB:FB ratio severely limits any power potential he might have, as does the new opposite field approach.
overall the picture still looks like maybe a 90 wRC+ and average defense.
If you can hit the ball to all fields with that kind of consistency, you can have an above-average BABIP. Maybe not .370, but quite a bit above average.
.370 BABIP, sub-.100 ISO, sub-5% BB rate. Looks like he has the Jon Jay starter kit going. This profile is not sustainable unless he runs a really high BABIP year in and out. If the BABIP slips to .300, this profile is not even playable at SS unless he has plus-plus D (which he may have, but we don’t have near enough defensive sample size to say that).
Also, we should not cite exit velo at all because the data is incomplete. Exit velo is effectively a useless tool to measure performance right now. If Bogaerts is a true high exit velo guy, we would expect much more power.
So what separates Bogaerts from Didi Gregorious besides 70 points of BABIP?
Well for one thing, when Gregorious was this age he was a bad hitter in AAA ball.
Bogaerts has hit for power before
I don’t understand how some people are not understanding the point of this story.
If you’ve spent much time in the Fangraphs comments, especially lately, it’s not at all surprising. The discussions here aren’t nearly what they used to be.
Yeah, I think Xander is a proxy for other things at this point. The early hype and the fact that he plays in Boston have made looking at him as he actually is impossible. And that is too bad because he is really interesting: as Jeff so ably pointed out in this article.
funny, jason bourne, but the comments sections of red sox articles have been much more accurate than the articles, for a while now.
but that was before he completely overhauled his approach to become a slappy oppo hitter, as you just described in detail.
He may be a more of a slappy oppo hitter now, but consensus based on MiLB numbers and scouting reports is that Bogaerts has power. But you can only hit for power if you can actually hit in the first place. This article was about Bogaerts proving he can hit and make adjustments. We’ll see if he can add power before he hits his prime in around five years or so.
but how can we talk about this kind of “overhaul” and claim the positive effects are real and the negative effects are temporary? especially when there’s better evidence that the opposite is true?
taken to the extreme, he could start bunting all the time, increasing his contact rate to nearly 100% and reducing his power to zero. Would it then be logical to conclude he has improved his contact skill and his former power skill is still there waiting to show itself?
And now, in order to make contact with the ball, he hits for less power than Didi Gregorious. Imagine hitting for less power than Didi Gregorious! For perspective, a pitcher from the Giants has hit as many home runs as Bogaerts in only 73 plate appearances.
2.5 years of development time and much better raw tools.
216.1 miles and a chance at playing into October.
A world series ring.
One thing that does not seperate the two – possession of an entirely badass name.
Not sure how Didi is a badass name.
Xander > Didi, slightly
but Gregorious > Bogaerts, by a lot.
His birth name is Sir Mariekson Julius Gregorius.
On a scale of 1 to totally badass, that ranks somewhere well above Steve or Tim.
You’re right… birth name FTW!
Sir Mariekson Julius Gregorius is easily an 80 grade name…
Offensive potential?
And I’m actually optimistic that Didi can settle in as a 3 win guy.
I doubt Didi will ever be much of a hitter. He definitely has the defensive potential though. If he can stop making silly defensive mistakes he would be quite valuable. His range and arm are elite.
It probably doesn’t have much to do with it, but I feel like this off season was about focusing on being a better defender and contact, and keeping that focus throughout the season. This next season the focus will be on harder contact, in the right situations. At least, that is the narrative I am convincing myself of.
He certainly is an extremely interesting case to study. He could be a great variety of things next year and it wouldn’t surprise, as there would likely one key stat that would support that trend from this year. There are several signs that point to future success, and several others that point to an uninspiring player. Probably just remain a weird player next year too, just to keep us on our feet. Weird name. Weird player profile.
Player A: .320/.351/.413, 5 HR, 29 2B, 4.2 BB%, 14.2 K%, .093 ISO, .370 BABIP, .333 wOBA, 107 wRC+, 3.8 WAR
Player B: .288/.330/.385, 4 HR, 29 2B, 5.5 BB%, 11.7 K%, .097 ISO, .323 BABIP, .320 wOBA, 93 wRC+, 2.8 WAR
Player A, obviously, is 2015 Bogaerts. Player B? 1985 Kirby Puckett, playing in his second full season in the majors. Puckett walked a little more, struck out less, and had a lower BABIP, but the numbers are still pretty similar (and generally favor Bogaerts).
I bring up Puckett b/c he jumped to 31 HRs next season, and ended up hitting 20+ HRs six times. Part of this was due to how he changed his approach a bit and tweaked his mechanics to create more power once he felt confident enough in his hit tool (Pretty good break down of that here, with gifs!–> http://twinsdaily.com/_/minnesota-twins-news/how-did-kirby-puckett-become-a-power-hitter-r3387 ). Bogaerts pretty clearly changed his approach at the plate to fix what his major weaknesses were last season(breakdown of those mechanics here: http://boston.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2015/09/03/breaking-down-xander-bogaerts-new-swing/ ), and having successfully done so he can build on that foundation in the future, especially when he’s shown a good SS power tool throughout his minor league career.
It’s not guaranteed he reaches his full power potential, but to act like there’s no shot and that this season has been entirely chalked up to luck/sequencing like some of the comments on here imply is foolish.
Kirby Puckett was also 25 years old in 1985, three years older than Bogaerts.
All the more reason to believe that this is just the start of something bigger for Bogaerts and that this version of X is far from the finished product.
You are probably watching too much Red Sox baseball -I do the same! lol
Way to compare stats separated by 30 years of context and produced by two players that couldn’t look any more different.
One is fairly slim, and has gone from moderate power to no power. The other was a 25-year-old bowling ball in the making who added weight consciously (let’s assume by natural methods) and changed his formerly slappy approach to add more raw power. Pretty much the anti-Bogaerts.
What was the similarity again?
Lindor’s better
Yea, that’s what this is about – who’s the best shortstop…
I understand the premise of the article… but that’s not what my comment is about.
Your comment is about nothing on topic and is worthless.
Go back to ESPN
I agree, we don’t want people posting their off-topic opinions without any supporting evidence on these internet pages!
That’s fair, I’ll play the stats game.
in 2013 Bogaerts’ ISO was .114, BAPIP was 323 and his RC+ was 85
in 2014 it was .123, 296, 81
in 2015 it is .093, 370, 107
Lindor in 2015, .153, 345, 124
There are a couple of high BAPIPs in there, but Lindor could very well be the better hitter.
Bogaerts has really improved his defense this year to his credit, he’s been plus this year when it years past it was a negative. But he’s improved by limiting mistakes where Lindor has great range and should be the better defender going forward.
I prefer Lindor, but any team that doesn’t already have Correa, Lindor, Russell, or Bogaerts would take any one of the four in a heartbeat.
It is acceptable to have a differing opinion.
You don’t play the stats game by quoting the first three months of a career.
When Bogaerts was at the point Lindor is at in his major league career, he looked like the next Tulowitzki (offensively). Might wanna wait a few hundred PA before gloating.
Who’s gloating? I’m a Cubs fan, and if I had to chose a second favorite team it would be the Red Sox… but when I see Lindor play, that’s the guy I want.
I am a Cards fan and I’d take Russell over them all but Correa. Russell has nice defense and put in a great first season at the plate despite hitting in the brutal 9 hole. The BB rate will come up and the strike rate will come down. The ISO is very nice and the BABIP is appropriate.
When Bogaerts was the same age as Lindor is now, he was struggalling (said in your best Joe Namath voice) through a 0.3 WAR season, striking out 23% of the time and getting on base at a .297 clip.
Yeah…I love X, but c’mon.
To be fair I think that guy means the first couple months of their age 21 year. Bogaerts was running an OPS in the mid 800s until his season fell apart in June.
Thank you for your opinion.
Watching him this year and last year is like night and day. Last year he often looked bewildered. This year, you can see he has a plan.
With the power he possess, I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all to see next year go as Jeff has foreshadowed here, with Xander jumping on balls he can crush and spiking his power numbers.
On reflection, I really liked this article. But I am not sure you addressed what it means that he was able to make this change. Is that not itself an encouraging sign and proof of an elite underlying skill? How many players can do what he did? It would be great to see if there were any players who were able to make a similar adjustment and did not succeed or even make the additional improvements you anticipate.
Are you sure the Lindor article that makes him seem like a potential bust wasn’t meant to be about Xander? The profile you you mention looks awfully familiar. Why does the change to the lack of pulled ground balls warrant what amounts to positive spin about Xander, while doubles/triples power with the same profile of grounders, at the same or better velocity, warrant a negative spin article about Lindor?
Judging from the comments above, I don’t think we’re aloud to talk about Lindor here.
*allowed
If I could venture a guess, I would say the Lindor article points to his batted ball profile (of spraying grounders around) as evidence that his .ISO is running a bit higher than we should expect, especially because Lindor does not have a history of hitting for much power. Bogaerts, on the other hand, has drastically overhauled his batted ball profile in such a way that he has markedly improved production his since last year, suggesting that there is still adaptability and projection in his approach.
I would also note that while the tone was slightly more positive in this article, I don’t think the Lindor article was particularly negative, only more cautionary.
Power is also the last skill to show up, so this could be real for Lindor. I’ve watched him closely for the last couple of years and he’s seemed (IMHO) like a high average, good OB hitter with doubles power. Maybe some of those doubles turn into HR. Projecting his current season over a full season, he’d hit ~15 hr… that’s not an outrageous total if he’s someone with a good hit tool. There’s a bunch of young shortstops right now and it looks like Correa, Lindor, Russell,and Bogaerts are the best of them. Should be fascinating to follow them the next few years.
Bogaerts has shown much more power potential. I expect he’ll be good enough to tap into that. I think Lindor has less to gain from opportunistically trying to pull the ball. He’s probably better as a spray hitter. I also think you missed the part about how Lindor still profiles as a special all-around player. It was in the conclusion.
I took these few sentences as damning with faint praise:
“But at least given how he looks today, he’s more of a BABIP hitter than a power hitter, a contact bat unlikely to walk or strike out very much. Put another way, Lindor looks like his scouting reports. Just like, you know, you’d think. Lindor doesn’t profile to have a special bat. He does still profile to be a special player. For that, he has his true strength to thank.”
Baseball America and Keith Law had Lindor at one of the best hit tools in the minors after last year. If you don’t think he’s anything special, that’s fine, but I would hardly call the words “special player” in the above text the impression of the overall piece.
No one will ever forgive Fangraphs for Xander being a Red Sock and not being Correa or a young Arod.
I’m sorry, Jeff, but this is just special treatment of a boston player, nothing more, nothing less.
1. Ignoring BABIP.
2. Implying that a change in approach is real and accounts for his improved contact numbers and then not only ignoring that it has just as clearly been responsible for a loss in power but actually implying that there is a good chance this change in approach will result in MORE power going forward.
These are inexcusable, egregious points which unfortunately play right into a continuing narrative about fangraphs’ treatment of the red sox.
WAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
solid point.
Better than yours.
I don’t like Boston
Look, you and Damaso have something in common!
bias is not dependent on liking a player’s uniform.
I just want to make sure you understand the irony of you crying bias all the time.
meh. i’ll stand by my record. when it comes to the red sox, my predictions have been much less consistently skewed in one direction than fangraphs’ have.
i mean come on – what good does it do for fangraphs, you, or me to have an article on Xander this year and a) completely ignore one of fangraphs’ fundamental explanations for partial-season statistical variance? and b) discuss an overhauled swing and look at only the positive effects and ignore the negative ones?
this literally might be the first article ever on fangraphs to analyze a young player’s small sample surge and completely ignore his outlier babip. we could even make an easy argument that Xander’s line would be the perfect foundation for a classic fangraphs’ post describing a surge that is most likely unsustainable.
and if we are going to write an article explaining why it is sustainable despite the babip – isn’t it crucial to explain specifically why his outlier babip might not be fluke? not just ignore it?
My hunch is that Xander will go 15-20/80/15 next season with a .270-.290 avg., 8-10% BB rate – seems like pretty good production from a SS that age.
Sometimes I think people get too stuck on what players have done (especially with regards to young players) and ignore/forget it is possible that some players change and become very good. If all young players simply followed nothing but their past/present trajectories, well… we wouldn’t have any Trout’s, Machado’s, Arenado’s, Goldy’s, Donaldson’s, Bautista’s, E5’s.
Trout’s, Machado’s, Arenado’s, Goldy’s, Donaldson’s, Bautista’s, E5’s what… or were you intending to pluralize their last names?
Why are people harping on Bogaerts’ BABIP? I mean, do people not understand the concept of a delta value? If Bogaerts was hitting .300 and had a BABIP of .400 that would be concerning. As it stands now he’s hitting .320 with a BABIP of .370, a .050 delta. The entirety of baseball this season is hitting .255 with a BABIP of .299, a delta of .044. I’d assume someone with upper end exit velocity would be able to manage a meager .006 BABIP jump over the rest of the league.
Stop assuming that everyone is a .300 BABIP hitter waiting to regress. If that were the case no one would have a career batting average over .300.
nobody is saying that he is necessarily a .300babip hitter. (though it’s not impossible, and would render his current offense unplayable.)
but we are saying that .370 is absolutely unsustainable, that even a babip 30-50pts lower than that (which would reduce his offensive contributions to borderline) is rarely sustainable…..and that stabilization for babip requires a much much larger sample to believe xander is a true babip outlier.
this literally might be the first article on fangraphs ever talking about a kid’s small sample offensive surge to simply ignore his outlier babip entirely.
He has 573 plate appearances of .320 average and .370 BABIP. We’re getting out of small sample territory here.
http://www.fangraphs.com/library/principles/sample-size/
this year he has approx half of the bare minimum sample to start seeing his babip and avg as anything but small sample noise.
on the other hand, his sample this year is well big enough to start looking at things like his bb%, k%, and iso as somewhat real.
For his 1200+ career PAs, Bogaerts is at .336 BABIP, .280 avg.
You totally misread this article. It has nothing to do with BABIP and BABIP has nothing to do with it. They are two separate and independent things. Sullivan’s point would still be valid were the BABIP .290. The article is not about outcomes. It is about a change in approach.
That’s not all Sullivan said:
“This, though, has been a year of far more consistency. And far more promise.”
Has it really though? I’d argue not. Perhaps it’s been better strikeout wise.
But other than that his power has decreased, his walk rate has decreased, his hard hit% has decreased, his soft hit% has increased.
None of those things suggest “far more” consistency or promise than last season.
it is not just about a change in approach – but about saying that change in approach is GOOD.
we don’t know if it’s good. the decline in BB% and ISO is alarming, and it’s not clear that a babip-fuelled increase in AVG is enough of a result to praise Xander for overhauling his studly power swing – which his elite prospect status was built on – into a more slappy oppo swing.
He has lower-end exit velocity. How is this so hard to understand?
http://baseballsavant.com/apps/hit_leader.php?game_date=&abs=150&type=batter&sort=5,1
I think Bogaerts will eventually be a good player, simply because a 94 career wRC+ as a 20-22 year old shortstop in the AL East is extremely impressive, and he has the minor league numbers to except his offensive output to improve.
With that said, I still don’t buy his 2015 improvement. While I think his strikeout improvement was extremely important, there’s nothing to suggest that his BABIP improvement.
His Hard Hit% has gone down from 2014. His Soft Hit% has gone up. If anything, his BABIP should have decreased. Nothing to suggest a .370 BABIP.
Again, I’m NOT saying that Bogaerts is a bust. I think his ISO will eventually improve, and his Hard Hit% and ISO will hopefully rebound next year. But in terms of the root cause for his 2015 breakout, it’s clear that BABIP randomness is the main factor at play.
*expect in the first stanza
You’re wrong about the BABIP. I’ve got a team BABIP predictor that (despite the confound of park effects) has r = .63 and p = 2^-37. It’s obviously conservative when applied to an individual player, which is nice. It pegs Xander (park-adjusted) as going from .308 last year to .329. The increase in Oppo% and reduction in popups way more than offsets the decrease in Hard%.
Now, the more we see of defensive shifts, the more important Oppo% will become in driving BABIP. This study used 2002 to 2014. At the end of this year I’ll mess around with it and see if I can’t include a factor for defensive shifts, and I bet Xander’s xBABIP for this year will go up.
Ok, fair enough. That’s really a minor detail in my comment.
The larger point still stands: there’s nothing in Bogaerts’ profile that suggests a .370 BABIP is sustainable.
Oh, if you have a p-value, it must be good…
Lol, Xander’s a good player right now.
I wonder, if someone had a fully verified, time-stamped video of his birth, what the fair market would be on Bogaerts’ actual age birthdate being 10/1/92? I am a huge buyer of the under (him being older than advertised) at even money.
What is the basis of your speculation? I mean, other than naked prejudice?
He was discovered by a scout (Mike Lord) who was in Aruba seeking to sign his *twin brother*, currently in the Cubs organization. Are you suggesting both players massaged their birthdate?