Xander Bogaerts and the Uneven Road to Success
We haven’t spoken about Xander Bogaerts at length in these digital pages for some time, so let’s remedy that situation. It seems like a good time to check in on the young shortstop’s development as a major-league hitter: Bogaerts is posting a wRC+ north of 100 in the first two months of the season, and he’s also almost cut his strikeout rate in half compared to last year. There’s also this group, which is an interesting subset of players, of which Boston’s shortstop is the leader — hitters with the highest increase in batted balls to the opposite field this season over last season:
Though it’s still perhaps a little early to be putting a ton of confidence in these numbers, changes as large as these in a hitter’s opposite-field tendencies merit attention. Opposite-field approach is often a good place to look when searching for a reason behind a change in type of production, and, given the drop in Bogaert’s ISO numbers from last year — .123 in 2014 vs. .106 this year — plus the fact that we’re over the ISO stabilization point, it’s one of the spots we’re going to focus on.
To begin with, we’ll talk about Bogaert’s previous vulnerabilities. He struck out just over 23% of the time in 2014, with 30% of those strikeouts coming on sliders. Take a look at his overall strikeout heat map for 2014 (courtesy of Baseball Savant), and you can probably pick out the trouble spot:
As many hitters do, Bogaerts struggled with the slider (and pitches in general) low and away last season. As we can see, he also showed a general weakness in pitches down in the zone. That’s now the book on him, in fact: 59.3% of pitches he’s seen in 2015 have been in the bottom third of the strike zone or lower, compared to 53.4% in 2014. Many hitters would adjust by trying to lay off those pitches, especially the ones out of the zone, tightening up their swing area to make themselves less prone to striking out.
Not Bogaerts. He’s taken the opposite tack; he’s adjusted by starting to hit those pitches, even off the plate. Here are his plate discipline numbers between last year and this year (I’ve omitted 2013 because he only played 18 games):
| Season | O-Swing% | Z-Swing% | Swing% | O-Contact% | Z-Contact% | Contact% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 28.5% | 60.5% | 44.8% | 59.2% | 86.4% | 77.9% |
| 2015 | 33.3% | 62.2% | 47.6% | 72.4% | 88.9% | 83.1% |
His O-Contact% has taken an especially huge jump, coupled with a higher tendency to swing at pitches out of the zone. He’s now swinging at pitches he struggled against far more often in 2015 than last year, and he’s hitting them at a much higher rate. In a way, you have to admire this strategy; he’s taken the road less traveled, and is confronting the areas of his previous struggles head-on. Let’s look at his swing rates in different parts of the zone between last year and this year — pay special attention to the area just below the bottom of the strike zone:
Those areas below the zone have seen an increase of between 5-15 percentage points in swing rate this season, and he’s now swinging at low pitches out of the zone almost 50% of the time. If he wasn’t making so much more contact, this would probably be seen as a disastrous development; however, as we’ve seen in his plate-discipline stats, he is making more contact — significantly more in some cases. So what is he doing with that contact?
This is where we return to our original graphic about his increased opposite-field tendencies. We know a few things about hitting to the opposite field. First, it is very difficult to do consistently with a lot of power. Second, players often see a little jump in batting average when they move toward hitting to the opposite field more often.
And, in case you couldn’t guess what I’m getting at, Bogaerts has shown both of those developments in his batting line this year. He’s going the other way more often, and he’s hitting singles more often. Overall, it has made him a more productive offensive player, but it has also done what pitchers intended to do by throwing him pitches away and out of the zone — take away his power. Look at his spray chart this year to see his hit tendencies:
Source: FanGraphs
That blob of singles to right field? They are almost entirely ground ball singles. By swinging at so many pitches low and out of the zone, he’s hitting a lot more grounders this year (48.2% in 2015 vs. 38.1% last year), effectively sapping his ability to hit for extra bases. He has just two extra-base hits to the opposite field this season, and they’re both triples. Triples are often pretty flukey — here’s one of them this year:
This is where we start to discuss the nature of adjustments players make. Bogaerts obviously has realized how he’s being pitched, and he’s made an adjustment, one which has resulted in less power and a few more singles than last year. Whether that adjustment will keep resulting in these sorts of outcomes remains to be seen — it’s still too early to know for sure. However, this is obviously an overall positive change he’s made; it may not be the final, ideal version of Bogaerts, but it is a better one than before. Combined with his above-average defensive play at shortstop this year, he’s now one of the best players on his team, and he’s currently a top-five shortstop in the major leagues.
Bogaerts has made the type of adjustment that may not cause a readjustment from pitchers: he’s swinging at the pitches they want him to swing at. In an ideal world, we would probably like him to not swing at those pitches out of the strike zone at all, force pitchers to come back into the zone, and look for pitches to drive. He’s not there yet, however, and this particular adjustment might just be one rung on the ladder to his final form. In the glimmer of a future Bogaerts in our minds’ eye, we probably do not see a low-power singles hitter. This latest adjustment shouldn’t change that.
We can forget, in this era of Bryce Harper and Mike Trout, that development curves aren’t the same, and players take longer than others to start showing the potential we’ve been told about. Bogaerts is still only 22 years old, and it may seem like he’s been in the league for awhile. He hasn’t; he’s still learning, still adjusting, and showing that perhaps his development might be a case of the incremental instead of the immediate breakout — the click. One thing we know for sure: it’s endlessly fascinating to watch a young player continually adjust to the highest level of play. Sometimes those adjustments don’t look like you expect them to: often they’re a baby step forward, or even a step sideways. The most important aspect of them? That they keep happening.
Owen Watson writes for FanGraphs and The Hardball Times. Follow him on Twitter @ohwatson.
Pretty fascinating to consider whether or not this new approach of slapping balls the other way is more or less productive than laying off and looking to drive balls to his power fields. And to take it a step further, whether this augments his development — will his development veer towards that of an Elvis Andrus type or will he stay on a trajectory to become a Tulowitzski-lite?
Assuming for the moment that this adjustment is the cause of Bogaerts’ 2015 production, it doesn’t come as great news to me as a Sox fan. The exciting thing about Bogaerts-the-prospect was that he could be a power-hitting superstar. Obviously, a high-contact slap-hitting shortstop can be quit productive. But there’s a pretty limited ceiling there.
The author seems convinced that his adjustment is a positive development and that he is an above-average fielder. The facts: his BABIP this year is in no way sustainable and it is in fact what is making him look like a top 5 shortstop; defensive metrics suck, even more so with shifts in place, so statistically we have no idea how good/bad he is at SS; perhaps most importantly, his avg. velocity for BIP is frighteningly low (per baseballsavant.com).
Summary: he seems to be intentionally increasing his contact rate by slap hitting this season, and it hasn’t looked that harmful to his slash lines yet due primarily to BABIP luck.
Agree Yirmiyahu that unless his approach changes he has almost no upside, which is a shame esp. because of his home park’s ability to reward to RH pull hitters.
Why do you think his BABIP is unsustainable? It’s not ridiculously high for a young hitter with decent speed who’s hitting a lot of GB. It might go down a little bit going forward, but the most likely reason for it to go down significantly is if he starts hitting the ball in the air more, which will raise his ISO and therefore presumably not lower his overall effectiveness.
If we use previous career BABIP as a benchmark (which is what we should use), not league average, he’s perfectly in line with his norms. I wouldn’t say a 22-year-old’s approach is not going to change in the future, either — I’m expecting this to be just one adjustment in a long career of them.
“we have no idea how good/bad he is at SS” Yes we do. Its called watching games, and the eye test says he’s vastly improved over last year. He takes much better routes to 2B on double play balls, etc.
Downside of this kind of adjustment might be a guy like Snider turning from a power guy to more of a slappy guy.
though xander seems to have done a better job cutting down the Ks and getting the avg up than snider did, and plays a much less demanding position offensively.
It reminds me a bit of McCutchen. Learn to make contact and then try to hit for power.
lol
Even I can admit Xander has potential, but comparing him to McCutchen is crazy. Of course, I’ve come to expect this from the site’s commenters after seeing Betts compared to McCutchen and Swihart compared to Jonathan Lucroy. I suppose Clay Buchholz reminds you of Roger Clemens?
What bothers you about the comparison? McCutchen’s first full season, age 23, was 2010; 3.5 WAR. Bogaerts, at age 22, projects for over 4 WAR at this point.
his current pace is 2.37 WAR/600 and even projecting his Steamer numbers going forward is only 2.98 WAR/600, but nice try Sox homer
Everdisco, currently Xander is at 1.5 WAR after 56 games. McCutchen, at age 28, is at 1.7 WAR (per Fangraphs).
you’re bring trolled by a sox fan still bitter i was right about his team, gborg.
xander is a great talent who could definitely still turn into a star.
i am tremendously flattered by your imitation of me.
but why can’t you defend your sox without dragging me into it?
Why is comparing him to Cutch crazy? He absolutely has that kind of potential, it’s why he was the consensus #2 prospect in baseball. Doesn’t mean he’ll ever get there, but you act as if the guy said Brock Holt could be the next Trout.
Remember when X was a bust and the Mookster was untouchable?
Ahhh, prospects.
They’re both untouchable. The Red Sox would be crazy to let either one of them go.
I remember the good old days, back when folks thought this Bryce Harper fellow was an ok player, but wouldn’t come close to the awesomeness of Mike Trout….
PS – Bogaerts’ top 10 similarity scores on BBRef include both Alan Trammell and Luis Rivas.
Calling his career path now would be like calling an election with 5% of the precincts reporting.
Yeah, it’s almost like young players grow and evolve!
Whodathunkit?!
I would say that Mookie is/should still be more untouchable than Bogaerts. I think most people would agree that Mookie has a higher ceiling. Mookie actually has a better career WAR than Xander in about half the playing time. And Mookie is the kind of dynamic “five tool” player that organizations love to dream on.
Focusing on this year… Bogaerts has been quite good this year, but hasn’t shown any indication he’s got the superstar power-hitting potential he was supposed to have. Betts’ 2015 hitting numbers aren’t great, but he’s shown flashes of brilliance. Mookie’s peripherals are pretty much universally better than Bogaerts, and what’s separating the results is a massive gap in BABIP.
Betts is David DeJesus 2.0 and if the Sox were smart he wouldnt be untradeable
David Dejesus 2.0 for league minimum is a very valuable asset; his career war is over 25.
he’s only league minimum for 2 more years, then he’ll be earning money for his “potential” even though he’ll never be more than David DeJesus.
betts is a future stud, like i’ve said from day one.
i understand why you’re angry that i’ve been right about your team all along, but really you should be thanking me for letting you kniw the emperor had no clothes.
don’t believe that troll trying to make the Sox look better than they are.
That’s not a terrible comparison… for an everdiso.
But my $.02 is that Dejesus didn’t produce anything in the majors until he was 25. Betts has produced more WAR by age 22.5 than DeJesus did by age 25. Betts seems to be a better baserunner and defensive outfielder.
I agree DeJesus is a reasonable comparison in terms of ISO, BB% and K%. But because Mookie is doing this at a much earlier stage in his development, I suspect Mookie might wind up being a better player in the long run.
Yeah, somewhere between a rich man’s DeJesus and a poor man’s Zobrist is my range for Mookie.
Bogaerts’ potential is simply on another level.
As one of the most vocal Mookie lovers on the site for the last year and a half…who the fuck have you been talking to that thinks Mookie has a higher ceiling than Xander Bogaerts?
Bogaerts has the potential to be Hanley with fewer steals and better defense. 60 or better for both his hit and power tools. He’s a monster.
No one who prefers Mookie has ever preferred him to Bogaerts based on ceiling. They’re just risk-averse and prefer a likely 4 win guy, to one whose probable outcomes range from 2 wins to 7.
Thing is, I don’t know whether you can talk too much about a ceiling for either of these guys if they’re decent major leaguers at 22 or 23.
I mean, take a look at Joe Morgan’s career progression. Lots of good, but not great seasons with the Astros. Then he joins the Reds just before turning 30, and starts a stretch of 5 years where he averaged about 9.5 WAR a year. So it’s not entirely crazy to envision Mookie following that kind of path, given some of the similarities in their games, even though he’s much more likely to be, say, another Shane Victorino. In the same way, you can’t rule out Bogaerts becoming another Ripken, although again he’s more likely to be a poor man’s Miguel Tejada (hard to think of power-hitting shortstops).
And I think some of the perceived volatility in Bogaerts’ early career performance had come from all the sliding back and forth between SS and 3B depending upon whether Stephen Drew was in town(!). I think with the SS job fully his, Bogaerts can start to develop more smoothly.
I think very few would agree with that. Again, we’re talking ceiling here, not “what do they look like so far in the big leagues.”
And also keep in mind that Mookie’s speed and CF defense are already near where their peak would be, so his value while under Boston’s control should be a bit higher than Xander’s.
But over the long haul, it’s anyone’s guess.
Yeah but that was mainly coming from impatient Sox fans and well, who cares about them? I think the Mookie vs Xander question is still a fascinating one, especially with Xander’s adjustments gearing him away from the power tool that inflated his stock so strongly in most eyes. Though when prompted by a beat writer this month he said he expects to hit 25 bombs at his peak, so we’ll see what the next adjustment is
well as long as he says he will we have to believe him
Fuck off, fake-everdiso.
Until X posts more than 2 HR, he still is a bust in my book. Wanna guess the diff. between Bogaerts’ and Betts’ BABIP? 84 points. Not sure why everyone seems to think base hit rates are predictive for less than half a season at age 22.
I’m also not sure why everyone seems to think that a bad season while being jerked around on a shitty team at age 21 is any more predictive of a player’s future career arc.
You have a weird definition of bust.
Only 3 shortstops in AL have more than 2 homers. Thats a lot of busts. Next you’ll tell us how many catchers are busts because they don’t have more than 2 SBs.
I wonder if Bogaerts’ plan is to force pitchers to make an adjustment by demonstrating that he can hit those low pitches. Once he starts seeing more pitches up in the zone again, he can start to drive them.
I think that’s at least part of his plan, as the hard balls he has hit alls were in his comfort zone.
Agree with you. Everyone is pitching him away, so he needed to show he can hit them. Once pitchers realize this, they’ll change their approach allowing him to pull for more power.
I’ve been following Xander since he was hyped in the minors, and even more so since he’s been a part of my fantasy team. I had to believe and still do, that he still has elite potential for a SS. If you were once a patient hitter, you can more easily regain that skill than if you never were. He showed patience right out of the gates, but then I feel he got overaggresive trying to hit for more power I think. He hasn’t been right since.
I was happy to seem him hit better to start this season, but also noticed the lack of any extra base hits. I really didn’t look into why that was, but it concerned me of what his power potential was. Swinging at and going with the outside pitch makes sense for both the better average and less power. I hope that it is just a part of the process and that he learns to recognize when to pull and when slap. Maybe a mechanical or stance adjustment might help with the way he’s being pitched.
One thing that I did notice while watching a handful of at bats of his, was that he had an awful lot of movement with his hands/bat right before his swing. He never really seemed to get set or quite before he swung. My first thought is that this was not allowing him to generate as much bat speed or get a smooth torque in his swing. He just seemed out of sync, which led me to believe he was probably just getting bloop hits.
Anyone notice his stance, mechanics, bat movement, etc? Or anything he’s doing different or could change? I really like to know if I was seeing something that didn’t really matter, or if there is actually some truth to what I saw.
What I am most impressed by are his defensive improvements- He has gone from -3.7 to +6.4 UZR/150 and it looks like he can ‘stick’ (not as in hit well, but remain, positionally) at SS after all.
small sample size
I’m not asserting that the number is at all accurate, but rather that improvement has been made, and current scouting reports back up that notion.
It’s another positive about his season that the article doesn’t mention, but is kind of a big deal considering defensive home had been in question and pos adjustment helps prop up his WAR.
So you have a source for these “scouting reports?”
Great point. Also, it’s good to remember how much his defensive stats were dragged down by the time he spent at 3B. He had a -7.3 UZR in about 1/4 of a season there last year, and just an 86% rate on “routine” plays at third per Inside Edge.
Overall for his career, Bogaerts has a -31.8 UZR/150 at 3B but a +2.2 UZR/150 at SS. I see no reason for him to fail to be a good major league SS.
If you compare the spray charts for Mookie and Xander between this year and last, Mookie has become much more of a pull hitter, while Xander has gone the other way. Mookie’s BABIP dropped 60 points, while Xander’s is up 40 points. That isn’t all luck.
Probably not all luck, but mostly luck.
So how many extra singles, or how much of a raise is average would he need to make up for the drop in power?
Now that is a fascinating question.
Anyone?
I’ll try.
His wOBA is .031 higher than last year (.325 vs. .294). Every single is worth .884 more than an out, so if you change singles in x% of his plate appearances to outs, you’d drop his wOBA by .884 times x%.
Solving .884x = .031 gives x = 3.5% of his PA. With 211 PA*, that would mean removing 7.4 singles from his batting average. This would drop his 2015 batting average to (58-7.4)/196 = .258, which is .018 higher than last year.
Boegarts is a huge bust. Slapping singles the other way might make him look for a bit while they are falling, but this is not the profile of a guy that was one of the top prospects in baseball a few years ago.
You clicked on the wrong link, you were suppose to go to MLBTR, thats the Official Red Sox Troll Site.
The AL East standings page is the official Red Sox Troll site.
I’ll never understand why people treat Bogaerts’s 2014 season as a single lump result of a single, unchanging hitter.
We have no problem comparing seasons between players, and yet it’s treated as sacrilege to even suggest that you don’t have to draw the line between seasons.
Bogaerts’s MLB career has been a story of three main parts, as follows:
MLB debut through the end of May 2014- During this period, Bogaerts’s best strength was preternatural plate discipline for a young hitter (which was on display in the World Series in 2013). He would let balls go by, work deep into counts, and walk/strikeout at relatively high levels. The thought was that as he adjusted to MLB pitching, he would walk a bit more, strike out a bit less, and let his physical development increase his power.
Start of June to end of August 2014- Bogaerts’s plate discipline collapsed. He continued to try to work counts, but now he wasn’t recognizing pitches out of the zone and wasn’t reading breaking balls vs fastballs. He had trouble getting the bat on the ball with hittable pitches and would swing at balls that weren’t even close to the zone. Clearly, Bogaerts was in an epic mental slump. This period had little to nothing to do with pitchers adjusting to Bogaerts, but rather Bogaerts for some reason losing himself. He didn’t even look like the same hitter.
Start of September 2014 to Current- Unable to shake his slump, Bogaerts stopped trying to work deep into counts in September of last year. He started attacking pitches early, and found initial success. This not being the Bogaerts we saw in the minors (the one who worked the count), it led to him struggling early in 2014. His game has picked up lately, perhaps because he is getting used to his new approach, or perhaps because he is in a hot and/or lucky streak.
It simply makes no sense to compare 2015 Bogaerts to 2014 Bogaerts. Those green K zones far outside the strike zone for 2014 were mostly the results of Period 2 Bogaerts, and not the Period 1 version. We currently have three segments of Bogaerts, three versions, and those are roughly how we should delineate any investigation into how he is changing.
That being said, I agree with the main stokes of this article. Bogaerts seems to have looked to make better contact with pitches, as opposed to waiting for better ones to hit, and that approach has left him with little power. Until/unless he gets back to a more balanced approach, I suspect we won’t see him make good on upside that appealed to so many.
Great analysis thanks!
I also award bonus points for your correct use of “opposite tack” so often confused with “tact”