Career years come in many forms. Of course, 2019 yielded many for hitters due to the home run explosion, but one cannot ignore the growth of Xander Bogaerts . Racking up career bests in home runs (33) and RBI (117) for Boston in his Age-26 season while slashing a robust .309/.384/.555 should not be overlooked. Bogaerts also notched the highest walk percentage (10.9) and isolated power (.246) in a full season for his career as well.
Hitting 33 home runs with 52 doubles, Bogaerts joined Alex Rodriguez as the second shortstop with 30 or more home runs and 50 or more doubles in a single season at the position. Bogaerts also recorded his lowest swinging strike percentage (7.9) and O-Swing (outside the strike zone) percent in his major league career. Entering his power peak, it’s going to be intriguing to see how much power Bogaerts can carry over into the upcoming season.
According to Statcast, Bogaerts registered 498 batted ball events with 43 barrels (8.6 percent), a 90.6 MPH average exit velocity and 13.1 degree launch angle. Buoyed by a spike in hard hit percentage to 43.7 in 2019 plus his best sweet spot percent (35.3), Bogaerts displayed improved power skills combining with a “bouncier” baseball for more juice in his results. For a second straight year, Bogaerts cut his ground ball rate producing more fly balls and even though his line drive percentage dipped slightly, the results show in his power surge and in his spray chart:
As the chart displays, Bogaerts benefits from the short wall in left field at Fenway, yet he’s not seduced by it. In fact, he increased his volume of batted ball data to the opposite field last year, helping those investing in his batting average gains to be real. Delving into his expected statistics, Bogaerts finished with a .280 expected average, .484 expected slugging, and .358 expected weighted on-base average (32 points below his actual). This hints at some regression moving forward, but how much can be debated. Here’s Bogaerts’ zone profile courtesy of Statcast from 2019:
Gaining a foothold of his data yields some variance in terms of batting average through the years but his discipline metrics seem to be stabilizing. Knowing Bogaerts will not sell out his approach for pull side power should protect him from migrating fully towards his .280 xBA from last season. Of course, repeating a .309 average could be too aggressive as well. Using his five projection sets available on Fangraphs and averaging out his results, here’s his baseline of data for fantasy:
- Xander Bogaerts projected fantasy average: 151 games, 95 runs, 26 home runs, 97 RBI, seven stolen bases, .291 average
Taking this one step further with the potential of a shortened season, these numbers with a reduced number of games would appear as such:
- 120 games: 75 runs, 21 home runs, 77 RBI, six stolen bases
- 100 games: 63 runs, 17 home runs, 64 RBI, five stolen bases
- 80 games: 50 runs, 14 home runs, 51 RBI, four stolen bases
Moving up in the batting order seemed to limit his stolen base attempts so this will also need to be baked into any projection expectation. It’s probably more likely Bogaerts comes closer to hitting at or above .300 than stealing double digits in bases in 2020 given a full season. Pay for the aggregate average of his projections but with some trepidation on steals. However, with his breakout comes an increased cost in drafts when shortstop appears to be one of the deepest positions in fantasy. Keep this in mind when paying full retail on a career year. Xander Bogaerts proved worth his cost last year, but not sure there’s another level above his 2019 numbers.
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Statistical Credits:
Fangraghs.com
BaseballSavant.com
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