Will Xander Bogaerts power ever return?

[Omar 382]

We all know that Bogaerts is a good player. Last year, in 654 PA, he put up a wRC+ of 109, which was 28% better than the average wRC+ of qualified shortstops, 85. And, using either the eye test or looking at (flawed) defensive metrics, he is a great defensive shortstop. He put up a 4.3 WAR last year. So, like I said, Bogaerts is a good player. Or, more precisely, he was a good player last year and projects to be a good player in the years to come.

But man, what the hell happened to his power? He posted a modest .421 SLG percentage for a shortstop, but that number was inflated by his batting average. His ISO was .101. .101! This is a guy who posted ISO's right around .200 in the minors.

Matthew Kory writes:

"Two main things happened in 2015 to change that. The first is Bogaerts consciously went the other way. A lot. He went from pulling the ball almost 50% of the time in 2014 to pulling the ball 34% of the time in 2015. At the same time he started to hit the ball the other way far more frequently, going from 19% in 2014 to 32% in 2015. So there’s that. The second thing, which you might expect given the first thing, is he stopped hitting the ball hard. Via our data, Bogaerts went from 34% hard contact to 27% with the difference distributed between his medium and soft contact rates.

Simply put, Bogaerts had become a slap hitter. He hadn’t been able to handle the sliders outside in 2014 and they had ruined him, so he adjusted and the way he adjusted was by slapping the ball the other way. But he didn’t just slap low and away sliders the other way. He slapped, metaphorically speaking, everything the other way. He adjusted by swinging sooner in the count too, as his pitches per plate appearance went from 4.1 in 2014 to 3.8 in 2015."

So will Xander ever regain his power or will he permanently morph into a slap hitter? Or will he not even continue his success as a slap hitter, at which point he drifts into oblivion and does promotion ads for Xanax? Zany day? Zander says pop a Zanny!

 

[redseat]

You mean like the slap hitter Jeter?

 

[Omar 382]

You mean like the slap hitter Jeter?

Except from 1998-2004, Jeter had a decent .158 ISO. If Bogaerts could get it up that high, I would be impressed (obviously I don't want him to sacrifice his BA and thus his OBP, which he would probably have to do to increase his ISO, but the two kind of go hand in hand)

 

[redseat]

Except from 1998-2004, Jeter had a decent .158 ISO. If Bogaerts could get it up that high, I would be impressed (obviously I don't want him to sacrifice his BA and thus his OBP, which he would probably have to do to increase his ISO, but the two kind of go hand in hand)

True... Just saying people are saying he's amazing and he was only a slap hitter for many years

 

[The Q]

His swing is very flat. Not a lot of lift in it roght now. He shluld add some power as he gets older.

Jeters early years were in the juiced ball era. Where the balls were flying all over

 

[Cedrique]

Dude! You're Bogaerting my Xanax!

 

[molsaniceman]

yes

He had a .489 slugging percentage and 20 homers per 600 plate appearances in the minors, suggesting that it's definitely in there. It likely won't all arrive at once like the average, but look for a career-high in homers with minimal losses to his batting average. A superstar is born in 2016