Xander and Mookie in 2016

The Gray Eagle

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Speier had an interesting article in the Glob about players who had age 22 seasons of 3 WAR or higher.

"The 2015 Red Sox were just the 16th in history to feature two or more players with a season of 3.0 WAR or better at age 22 or younger, and one of just three (along with the 1970 Reds and the 1909 Tigers) to feature multiple players with a 4.0 WAR or better in that age demographic."

Mookie had a 6 WAR season in 2015, while Xander had 4.6.

There's a lot of evidence that young players tend to not have smooth upward development arcs, but instead often go up and down from season to season.

"Bogaerts and Betts became the 74th and 75th middle-of-the-field players ever to post a WAR of 3.0 or better in their age 22 season. Of the previous 73 (a group that included 26 Hall of Famers), decline at age 23 proved a common occurrence.

While 27 of the 73 players (37 percent) maintained their level or improved, 46 (63 percent) suffered some decline at age 23, with half of those players enduring declines of 2.1 wins or more. On average, the group of players who were worth three or more wins at age 22 saw their value drop by 20 percent (and 1.0 wins) at age 23."

It'd be great if both of these guys were in that 37% group who actually got better at age 23, but no one should be surprised if either or both of these guys suffer some decline this year. And the team can handle some decline from them. If they both had 4 WAR seasons, that would be dropoffs but they would still be excellent players.

But if either has the 2.1 or more WAR dropoff that 31.5% of the similar-age players had, that would be a real blow to the Red Sox this season. The silver lining would be that many great players had a dropoff at age 23 but then still went on to become superstars. Even if Xander or Mookie has a dropoff in 2016 like the age-23 falls of Tulowitzki (-6.0) Beltran (-3.9) A-Rod (-3.8) or Johnny Bench (-3.3) it wouldn't be necessarily a huge blow to their careers. Just a huge blow to the Red Sox season.

Maybe either or both will have Cal Ripken-like age 23 gains of almost 2 wins, and we'll all be ecstatic.

But I'm hoping that we the fans aren't expecting too much from these guys so soon.

The Steamer projections pretty much match the Speier article, and predict both guys to lose about 1 WAR next year.
Steamer predicts Xander to hit .293/.343/.441 with a .339 wOBA in 2016, good for 3.7 WAR, which would be a dropoff of almost a win. The Fan projections for him there are a full win higher, 4.7.
Steamer has Mookie hitting .300/.361/.474 with a .361 wOBA, with a 5.0 WAR-- again, a dropoff of a win from last year. The Fan projections for him are a little higher, 5.2 WAR.

If they hit around their Steamer-projected numbers, then we can all live with it just fine, even though it would be a dropoff from age 22. Either of them falling short of the Steamer numbers would be a hit to the 2016 Red Sox though.
 

pantsparty

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I think Xander is the obvious case to regress - he's very unlikely to repeat his .372 BABIP. If he takes the same approach at the plate as he did this year - more groundballs the flyballs, even distribution of pull/middle/opposite - he might be able to put up above-average BABIPs but not that high. Best case scenario is he figures out how to harness his power potential without losing too much of his batting average.

Curious about the Steamer projection for Mookie - .361 wOBA would be .010 higher than his 2015 season, so I guess their projection is that his defense falls off? Or that his WAR value falls because he's at a less valuable defensive position with JBJ playing CF.

edit: nevermind, Steamer projects Mookie to get better. His 6.0 WAR in 2015 was bWAR, Steamer projects him to improve from 4.8 fWAR to 5.0 fWAR.
 
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snowmanny

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26 of 73 players who posted a WAR of 3.0 at age 22 went on to be HOFers? 36%. And M&X were 6.0 and 4.6. Those are pretty fine odds.
 

phenweigh

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This is very interesting. I wonder how much of the variability is health related, though I'm not sure how that would be measured. Since WAR is a counting stat, using a rate stat would at least account for time on the DL. Still, it would miss the player trying to play through nagging injuries.
 

Clears Cleaver

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the thing that will offset the likely bapip decline for X is an increase in his BB rate back to his rookie and minor league numbers
 

pokey_reese

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I wonder how much of that second year decline is just regression based on the parameter set of the first year. If you think about it, setting the bar as 2-year olds who put up seasons that would be above average for players of any age, it seems like a number of them could fall back and still be very good players. One of the examples of 'fallers' pointed out was ARod, who had fWARs of 9.2, 4.3, 7.9, 4.7 in those early years, so while he had two years where he dropped by 3+ WAR, it was in part just because the years that those were compared to were so high. So in one group you have guys who were HoFers, and just 'fell' from amazing to very good in their age 23 season, and would go on to pile up more high WAR years. Then there is another group of guys (presumably) who were not HoFers, who just happened to have their career year at age 22 (probably a smallish group), but fell at age 23 simply because their true talent level wasn't that high.

I guess the next question is, of the 26 Hall of Famers in the 73, how many were in the 63% who declined in their age 23 season, relative to the other cohorts (improved, stayed the same)?
 

glennhoffmania

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Wouldn't it be more useful to see what the offensive change was in year two for those 73 players? If Betts and Bogaerts match their 2015 offensive numbers but WAR says that they lose a win on defense I think most people here would be pretty happy with that outcome.
 

chrisfont9

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I think Xander is the obvious case to regress - he's very unlikely to repeat his .372 BABIP. If he takes the same approach at the plate as he did this year - more groundballs the flyballs, even distribution of pull/middle/opposite - he might be able to put up above-average BABIPs but not that high. Best case scenario is he figures out how to harness his power potential without losing too much of his batting average.

Curious about the Steamer projection for Mookie - .361 wOBA would be .010 higher than his 2015 season, so I guess their projection is that his defense falls off? Or that his WAR value falls because he's at a less valuable defensive position with JBJ playing CF.
OTOH re Xander, he didn't really click until sometime in June. His first two months he logged OPS+ of slightly below 100. Of course, he also posted fairly average BABIPs those two months, so if that's behind his rise, maybe it proves your point. But I think his transformation has a lot to do with power hitting. In those first two months he had five doubles, three triples and two homers. Starting in June, he became a doubles machine with monthly totals of 11, 5, 5 and 9. [No more triples, 5 HR in 4 months so status quo there.]
 

Philip Jeff Frye

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Kind of scary to see the odds of a decline this year. There's enough other question marks about the offense with JBJ's bat, Ortiz's age, Hanley's spot in the lineup, and Sandoval's waist line without those two guys taking steps backwards.
 

pokey_reese

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Agree with others who suggest that oWAR would be better than WAR here, since the latter is dependent on single year defensive metrics, and when you are comparing across historical eras, that can get even messier (how do we know that Joe Jackson really had -12.2 DEF for the Naps back in the day?). There are also a number of guys who are not yet Hall eligible on this list, as ARod, Jones, and Trout come to mind. Plus, since WAR is position adjusted, why limit it to up-the-middle guys?

It's a fun read, but really not rigorous enough to put much stock into if you are going to try and use it to talk about the probability that these two players will have sub-3 WAR seasons.

edit: In case that came off as too critical, I should say that it's still great progress for a relatively mainstream sports writer, and I would be thrilled if any of my coworkers put that level of thought into their use of numbers.
 

LondonSox

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Kind of scary to see the odds of a decline this year. There's enough other question marks about the offense with JBJ's bat, Ortiz's age, Hanley's spot in the lineup, and Sandoval's waist line without those two guys taking steps backwards.
That is a truly impressive glass half empty take sir. Tip of the cap.
 

nvalvo

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Yes, how could anyone fear bad things happening to this team after the last few seasons?
I think you're pretty reasonable to be concerned about the offense. There are a ton of high-risk, high-reward players on this roster. But you have to look at both sides of that.

They are projected to have a top-three offense in the AL (4.74 R/G), just behind Toronto (4.75 R/G) and ahead of Detroit (4.63 R/G).

If a lot of things go well — Sandoval approaches his career line of .290/.340/.450, Hanley and Ortiz combine for 60 HR in the heart of the order, the whole outfield posts OPSes above .750, Swihart and Xander continue in the vein of their strong second halves, Pedroia plays 140+ games — this team could be the best offensive club in baseball, let alone the AL. Of course, there's also a chance that Sandoval is terrible, Hanley and Pedroia injured, age catches up with Ortiz, Swihart has a sophomore slump while Bogaerts, Bradley and Betts regress, and Castillo is just mediocre.

But those potential negative outcomes are already priced into the projections, and the projections look very, very good.

Fangraphs projected wOBAs:

Betts .361
Pedroia .332
Ortiz .358
Ramirez .353
Bogaerts .339
Sandoval .330
Castillo .312
Swihart .304
Bradley .320

Average starter wOBA (quick and dirty, totally unweighted) .334

Heyward .349
Zobrist .340
Rizzo .380
Bryant .373
Schwarber .353
Soler .328
Russell .306
Montero .312
P

Average starter wOBA .344
 

Minneapolis Millers

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...
Heyward .349
Zobrist .340
Rizzo .380
Bryant .373
Schwarber .353
Soler .328
Russell .306
Montero .312
P

Average starter wOBA .344
So the Cubs hitters are way better and we're going to have to hope that Price and Porcello outpitch Arrieta and Lester in the World Series. We're toast.
 

nvalvo

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Where did I say otherwise?
I didn't mean to suggest that you did, but I see how it sounded that way. Your comment led me to look at the projections, and it seemed like the variance was higher for Boston than for most other teams.

Maybe a better comparison than Chicago would have been San Francisco, who look to have a similar caliber offense (adjusted for park), but a much narrower band of expectations.

So the Cubs hitters are way better and we're going to have to hope that Price and Porcello outpitch Arrieta and Lester in the World Series. We're toast.
I was actually struck at how relatively close the projections of our roster, widely perceived to be flawed and coming off a disastrous year, were to those of the world-beating Cubs.
 

geoduck no quahog

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Question from a non-sabrematic guy: It's nice that the data shows what Speier is talking about (going from Eagle's lead post), but what's the context - or better put, what's the reason for the decline? Is it pitchers learning how to throw to the youngster? Is it health? Is it change in lineup position (i.e., going from being protected by the on-deck guy, to being the protector)? Is it just lack of sustainability over 2 seasons? Declining work ethic (e.g., a kid thinking he's good enough to avoid the hours put in)?

The reasons are numerous: Injuries, a normal dropoff in production, and position changes away from the middle of the field (as with Betts moving from center to right) can all diminish player value...
There needs to be a better explanation why this decline is observed. I can't figure one out or if it's just an aberration (not that I'd know how to do that...)

Also, do these statistics need to be compared to ALL young players instead of only the WAR-heavy ones?

Players like Cedeno, Speaker, Fregosi, DiMaggio, Pinson, Reiser, Bench, A-Rod, etc. all had ungodly 22-year old WAR's.

I'm not going to look at every player on that list, but

Some were rookies at 22 (Cronin...)

Griffey had played 4 years, Mantle 3, Cedeno 3, Bench 2, A-Rod 2, DiMaggio 1...

Trout went down from 20-21, down from 21-22, UP from 22-23...

I just don't understand the pattern, if there is one.
 
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JakeRae

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Question from a non-sabrematic guy: It's nice that the data shows what Speier is talking about (going from Eagle's lead post), but what's the context - or better put, what's the reason for the decline? Is it pitchers learning how to throw to the youngster? Is it health? Is it change in lineup position (i.e., going from being protected by the on-deck guy, to being the protector)? Is it just lack of sustainability over 2 seasons? Declining work ethic (e.g., a kid thinking he's good enough to avoid the hours put in)?



There needs to be a better explanation why this decline is observed. I can't figure one out or if it's just an aberration (not that I'd know how to do that...)

Also, do these statistics need to be compared to ALL young players instead of only the WAR-heavy ones?

Players like Cedeno, Speaker, Fregosi, DiMaggio, Pinson, Reiser, Bench, A-Rod, etc. all had ungodly 22-year old WAR's.

I'm not going to look at every player on that list, but

Some were rookies at 22 (Cronin...)

Griffey had played 4 years, Mantle 3, Cedeno 3, Bench 2, A-Rod 2, DiMaggio 1...

Trout went down from 20-21, down from 21-22, UP from 22-23...

I just don't understand the pattern, if there is one.
The short answer is that you will likely find that, for almost any selection of above average single year performances by players, the following year will see a decline in that population's performance. This is basic regression to the mean. It would be interesting to compare the dataset of 22 year olds to other age-year performance groupings and their subsequent performance to see is the trend is different at different ages. For example, it may actually be that the normal decline for a grouping of players with the performance characteristics of the age-22, WAR over 3 up the middle players would actually decline 1.5 WAR, and that they outperform that, or it may be that they are the same as any other group of high performing players at any age and there is nothing unique about being 22 and playing really well, etc.

My guess at why such a decline exists is going to be pretty unsurprising. It's a combination of injuries (the original group, based on the WAR cutoff, can be assumed to have generally been pretty healthy and some injury derailed seasons will weigh down the averages), BABIP-driven luck (once again, the original year is likely to have seen some players achieve at that level because of BABIP luck and they will regress the subsequent year; the selection of strong performers means regression of BABIP will tend toward the second year being worse than the first), and defensive metric variance (similar to BABIP, the selection of high-performers in year-1 biases the trend for year-2 so that declines are more likely than improvements).

Taking those considerations and looking at Bogaerts and Betts, we can start to evaluate how likely they might be to decline. Things don't look great for Bogaerts, since he had both a really high BABIP and his defense measured as well above average, which it never had before. Steamer, agrees, seeing an overall decline of 0.6 fWAR based on a substantial drop in BABIP, a decline in defense, but an offsetting substantial increase in ISO.

Things look better for Betts, who, at least by fWAR, played roughly average defense last year and had a very sustainable .310 BABIP. His performance looks far more repeatable.
 

PapaSox

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Let us accept the fact that something will happen different this season from the last. How about we split the the difference and that way "It all works out in the wash". Give Mookie the Streamer decline of 1 WAR (5.0) for him and Xander the Fan projected increase to 4.7 for him.
 

JakeRae

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Let us accept the fact that something will happen different this season from the last. How about we split the the difference and that way "It all works out in the wash". Give Mookie the Streamer decline of 1 WAR (5.0) for him and Xander the Fan projected increase to 4.7 for him.
Steamer projects Mookie to improve from 4.8 fWAR to 5.0 fWAR.
 

Saints Rest

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Question from a non-sabrematic guy: It's nice that the data shows what Speier is talking about (going from Eagle's lead post), but what's the context - or better put, what's the reason for the decline? Is it pitchers learning how to throw to the youngster? Is it health? Is it change in lineup position (i.e., going from being protected by the on-deck guy, to being the protector)? Is it just lack of sustainability over 2 seasons? Declining work ethic (e.g., a kid thinking he's good enough to avoid the hours put in)?



There needs to be a better explanation why this decline is observed. I can't figure one out or if it's just an aberration (not that I'd know how to do that...)

Also, do these statistics need to be compared to ALL young players instead of only the WAR-heavy ones?

Players like Cedeno, Speaker, Fregosi, DiMaggio, Pinson, Reiser, Bench, A-Rod, etc. all had ungodly 22-year old WAR's.

I'm not going to look at every player on that list, but

Some were rookies at 22 (Cronin...)

Griffey had played 4 years, Mantle 3, Cedeno 3, Bench 2, A-Rod 2, DiMaggio 1...

Trout went down from 20-21, down from 21-22, UP from 22-23...

I just don't understand the pattern, if there is one.
DIdn't someone (I can't remember if it was someone here on the main board, someone at SOSH.com, or someone else) do a study that compared players ages to their seasons? In other words, Player X is in MLB Year 1 at age 21 compared to Player Y at age 20 but also in MLB Year 1 is a better comparison than Player X at 21 in MLB Y1 vs Player Y at 21 in MLB Y2.
 

pantsparty

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Steamer projects Mookie to improve from 4.8 fWAR to 5.0 fWAR.
Oh, you're right. In the first post it stated that Steamer's project of 5.0 WAR would be a drop off from his 6 WAR in 2015, but that's confusing fWAR and bWAR. His 6.0 WAR was bWAR, Fangraphs only had him at 4.8 so 5.0 fWAR would mean he's projected to get better.

That makes more sense, as his offensive numbers didn't come from an almost-certainly unsustainable BABIP that Xander's did.
 

iayork

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DIdn't someone (I can't remember if it was someone here on the main board, someone at SOSH.com, or someone else) do a study that compared players ages to their seasons? In other words, Player X is in MLB Year 1 at age 21 compared to Player Y at age 20 but also in MLB Year 1 is a better comparison than Player X at 21 in MLB Y1 vs Player Y at 21 in MLB Y2.
You may be thinking of "The Effect of Debut Age on a MLB Player’s Offensive Peak and Decline":



But a major conclusion from this is that there's so much variation it's hard to make individual predictions:

There is a wide variation at every point, meaning that while there are clear trends for the overall population, individual players could plausibly end up all over the place. Several players peaked when they were 19 or 20 years old; several were only at 70% of their peak at the age of 26. We can say what Betts would do if he were an average 21-year-old, but there are many other outcomes that are almost equally probable.
 
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Aug 22, 2014
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I doubt we see any performance related decline from Mookie. I am interested to see what the positional adjustment for RF does to his defensive numbers, though. I'm not sure that we can expect enough of a defensive performance boost in fenway's RF to make up for the positional adjustment.

As for Xander, no matter how hard I squint I can't see anything other than a significant decline. That batting line is the definition of expected regression. And we can't be shocked if his defensive numbers don't quite match what they were last year, either.
 

Rasputin

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As for Xander, no matter how hard I squint I can't see anything other than a significant decline. That batting line is the definition of expected regression. And we can't be shocked if his defensive numbers don't quite match what they were last year, either.
You can't see him hitting for enough power to overcome a babip regression? That seems like a remarkably limited imagination to me.
 

Saints Rest

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I doubt we see any performance related decline from Mookie. I am interested to see what the positional adjustment for RF does to his defensive numbers, though. I'm not sure that we can expect enough of a defensive performance boost in fenway's RF to make up for the positional adjustment.

As for Xander, no matter how hard I squint I can't see anything other than a significant decline. That batting line is the definition of expected regression. And we can't be shocked if his defensive numbers don't quite match what they were last year, either.
Is he moving to RF? Did I miss something? I thought that the collective thought was that the alignment would be Betts/JBJ/Rusney (L/C/R).
 

smastroyin

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What does a significant decline really mean?

Xander had a .372 BABIP, and sure, if you adjust him all the way down to his .296 of 2014, then he loses a lot. But, he was .353 in A+, .375 in AA, .320 in AAA, .323 in his 2013 MLB.

The outlier looks like the .296. So I don't think it's fair to expect a 22 year old to drop all the way back to that, while also not adding any power or walks. "regressing" him to a .325 BABIP in similar circumstances to last year makes him worse, but not a black hole.
 

iayork

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Xander had a .372 BABIP, and sure, if you adjust him all the way down to his .296 of 2014, then he loses a lot. But, he was .353 in A+, .375 in AA, .320 in AAA, .323 in his 2013 MLB.
Quick and dirty ... Xander had 196 hits in 2015. With a .372 BABIP, that means 572 balls in play. If he had a .325 BABIP instead, it would mean 527 * .325 = 171 hits, for a .279 BA. That leaves him 25 bases short, so if 8 of his hits were home runs instead of singles, that would pretty much make up for it as far as total bases go.

He hit 7 home runs in 2015, so 8 more home runs would be 15. Could Xander be a 15 home run hitter? Well, he hit 12 in Boston in 2014, when he was 21, so it seems very realistic to expect that sort of modest power uptick from 2015.

I think that even accounting for a lower BABIP, it wouldn't be surprising to see Bogaerts contribute pretty much the same in 2016 as in 2015.
 

KillerBs

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Another way to slice it: in modern baseball history the following 9 other players have OPSd between 116 and 120 in over 400 PAs at age 22, 2nd year in the league. Betts == 118.

Hank Blalock
Yaz
Al Oliver
Wayne Garrett
Hank Greenberg
Bill Dickey
Ed Konetchy
Joe Sewell
Zack Wheat

7 of the 9 had HOF or Hall of Very Good careers. Garrett is an outlier if for no other reason than he OPSd 56 in his rookie year, compared to Mookie's 126. Who knows what happened to Hank Blalock.

None of the above had a rookie year as good as Mookie's, indeed a few of them had but a cup of coffee in Year 1.

The average OPS for the above in the 3rd year was 124, which strikes me as a a tad on the low side as a projection for Mookie this year.
 
Aug 22, 2014
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my quick and dirtier version....

If he drops down to a still excellent .332babip, without a skill change elsewhere, that is 40pts less of obp and 40pts less of slg which is 80pts less of ops.....which is significant. That would drop him down to around .700ops and around 85-90wrc+. which is actually fine for a solid defensive SS...but not the impact player he was last year.

it's definitely possible for him to either A) turn out to be an elite babip player or B) improve his power.....I just don't think we can expect either of those. We can hope, though.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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my quick and dirtier version....

If he drops down to a still excellent .332babip, without a skill change elsewhere, that is 40pts less of obp and 40pts less of slg which is 80pts less of ops.....which is significant. That would drop him down to around .700ops and around 85-90wrc+. which is actually fine for a solid defensive SS...but not the impact player he was last year.

it's definitely possible for him to either A) turn out to be an elite babip player or B) improve his power.....I just don't think we can expect either of those. We can hope, though.
Here's the thing though - if you actually watch the games, watch the at bats, etc, as opposed to scouting the box scores, you would see that his high BABIP wasn't a matter of luck. It was a change in approach to hit the ball to all fields, with more authority. Which is what he did in the minors and got away from in 2014. Will his BABIP come down? Sure. But there is literally zero reason to reasonably expect a 23 yo with plate discipline and solid contact to *not improve his power. He's at an age where most players are still in the minors. Expecting regression from a player who has elite skills and a pedigree such as his is beyond pessimistic. It's borderline asinine.

Dig a little deeper than looking at a stat line. Watching him in the minors, in his callup in 2013, the step back in 2014 and again last year, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that he got over whelmed in the middle of that and got back to his abilities in 2015. There is literally no reason to expect the regression you are citing for him next year.
 

iayork

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Here's the thing though - if you actually watch the games, watch the at bats, etc, as opposed to scouting the box scores, you would see that his high BABIP wasn't a matter of luck.
Of course his high BABIP was a matter of luck. If a .372 BABIP is his natural level, then he's Ty Cobb. The highest BABIP in the modern era is Joey Votto, at .357. Jeter, number 7 on the FanGraphs leaderboard (min. 3000 PA), was .342.

Could Xander be a Jeter-like hitter? That's not impossible, though it's probably upper end of expectations. But that would still be a 30-point drop from 2015, where he had a luck-fueled and unsustainably high BABIP.
 

joe dokes

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Another way to slice it: in modern baseball history the following 9 other players have OPSd between 116 and 120 in over 400 PAs at age 22, 2nd year in the league. Betts == 118.

Hank Blalock
Yaz
Al Oliver
Wayne Garrett
Hank Greenberg
Bill Dickey
Ed Konetchy
Joe Sewell
Zack Wheat

7 of the 9 had HOF or Hall of Very Good careers. Garrett is an outlier if for no other reason than he OPSd 56 in his rookie year, compared to Mookie's 126. Who knows what happened to Hank Blalock.

None of the above had a rookie year as good as Mookie's, indeed a few of them had but a cup of coffee in Year 1.

The average OPS for the above in the 3rd year was 124, which strikes me as a a tad on the low side as a projection for Mookie this year.

FWIW (and sorry for the slight hijack) -- Garrett's outlier-ness is probably related to his extreme platoon use. That team had some key LHHs -- Garrett, Ken Boswell, and Art Shamsky, who could not -- and/or were not allowed to by Gil Hodges -- hit LHP. (And, aargh, when I saw Joe Foy's name and career arc and recall his physique, I thought of Sandoval.)
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
my quick and dirtier version....

If he drops down to a still excellent .332babip, without a skill change elsewhere, that is 40pts less of obp and 40pts less of slg which is 80pts less of ops.....which is significant. That would drop him down to around .700ops and around 85-90wrc+. which is actually fine for a solid defensive SS...but not the impact player he was last year.
The bolded is the tricky part, because he has been such a chameleon of a hitter so far. You can't really look at Xander's BABIP for the past two years in isolation from the really dramatic difference in batted-ball profile between 2014 and 2015. Yes, his BABIP splits per batted-ball type were outstanding and probably unsustainable last year--but if you plug in those same splits from 2014, but keep the 2015 batted-ball percentages the same, the BABIP only goes down to .335. A sizable percentage--about half--of his BABIP leap in 2015 was simply a matter of not hitting the ball in the air nearly as much. The million-dollar question is, how much of the other half was luck, and how much was genuine improvement?

And the other million-dollar question is, what happens if he shifts his approach back and starts hitting more fly balls again? This is a multi-part question:

(1) what happens to his BABIP? (It's safe to say it goes down, but how much?)
(2) what happens to his ISO? (It's safe to say it goes up, but how much?)
(3) what happens to his K rate, which improved significantly in 2015? Was the improvement independent of the change in approach, or connected to it? If the latter, can he shift his approach in the other direction without sacrificing the contact improvement?

...and a fourth question, less related to the BABIP thing: what happens to his BB rate? He showed solid if unexceptional discipline in the minors, but has shown very little so far in MLB. Obviously adding 2 or 3 percentage points to the BB rate could compensate for a fair amount of lost BABIP.

All these questions are why I think Xander may be the single most fascinating player to watch in all of MLB this year. You can make a plausible scenario for him going .300/.370/.480 or .240/.280/.330, depending on how the possible developments in approach, contact, discipline and power play out.
 

rotundlio

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With Xander, it's not just BABIP. All his peripheral metrics are foreboding. His chase rate rocketed to an Ian Desmond-like 36% (and that's unfair to Desmond); he generates no loft; his excellent K rate belies merely average bat-to-ball skills; he hit many pitches "soft"ly and not so many "hard"; his average flyball distance was 80th percentile, behind Hechavarria, Utley, Stephen Drew, Segura, Altuve....

We absolutely should have flipped him for José Fernandez.
 
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dbn

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Feb 10, 2007
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I've been thinking about BABIP a bit lately and now reading this bump has made me think about it again. I guess BABIP is an easily available # that informs on discussions, but when those discussions get deeper is it not more informative to look at LD/FB/GB rates, the FB-out/GB-out ratio, etc.? Glancing at Xander's BR page right now I see in 2015 he had high GB/FB and GO/AO ratios, about league avg LD%, etc. Seems like it'd be not terribly difficult to figure out where the high BABIP is coming from. (I'd do the simple math myself right now but I've been driving all day and all week and don't have the brainergy right now.)

edit: I now see that this very thing is already being discussed to a large extent. Sorry.
 

smastroyin

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The numbers are forboding but they came with a practiced intent to change his approach in the majors and rebuild from there.

In 2008 everyone who knew how to open fangraphs extended stats said Jon Lester wasn't going to really amount to anything despite his low ERA because of his peripherals and his struggles in previous seasons. I guess my point is that sure there are reasons to think that Xander may be worse in 2016, but the idea you guys are projecting that 2015 Xander is the Xander he will always be (esp. given that he is 23 years old). Development is an actual thing, and people's inability to grasp development is frustrating as it is often connected to a "next pretty piece of foil" type of prospect fucking. As soon as a prospect hits any kind of wall it's taken as the end of his career around here.
 

Minneapolis Millers

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...but the idea you guys are projecting that 2015 Xander is the Xander he will always be (esp. given that he is 23 years old). Development is an actual thing, and people's inability to grasp development is frustrating....
Exactly, and especially since the 2015 version of X was pretty drastically different from the 2014 version, in peripherals and outcomes, in good and less good ways. If 2016 X turns a half dozen Ks into hits or walks, and a handful of 2Bs into HRs, he could suffer a big drop in BABIP, drop a bit in avg, but still improve across the board.
 

Buzzkill Pauley

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The numbers are forboding but they came with a practiced intent to change his approach in the majors and rebuild from there.

Development is an actual thing, and people's inability to grasp development is frustrating ... as soon as a prospect hits any kind of wall it's taken as the end of his career around here.
Yes, it is frustrating, especially when the nattering nabobs are talking about two young players in Betts and Bogaerts who have already shown the ability to adapt and develop their game while contributing at a very high level at MLB.

It should be obvious that either or both of their WAR values may decline in their age-24 season. Even more than a BABIP regression by Bogaerts, Betts will suffer even if he hits exactly the same - simply due to the lower premium attributed to playing RF.

But does sliding Mookie over one position over to his left really make him or the team worse? Not really, assuming that he shows the same athleticism that he did last year in RF and that JBJ can continue to provide an even-better-than-that CF defense. And that's the problem looking at WAR for these sorts of prognostications. Even if Betts' WAR drops in 2016, the team should actually stand to benefit.

Really it boils down to this: start playing the games already!
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
With Xander, it's not just BABIP. All his peripheral metrics are foreboding. His chase rate rocketed to an Ian Desmond-like 36% (and that's unfair to Desmond);
The comparison is actually unfair to Bogaerts. True, like Desmond, Xander swung at a lot of pitches outside the zone last year; unlike Desmond, however, he made contact with those pitches at an above-average rate (circa 70% vs. mid-50s for Desmond). This makes a big difference, compounded by the fact that pitchers threw fewer strikes to Desmond (45-46 Zone% vs. 48-49 for Xander). As a result, Xander had a better-than-average 9.1% swinging strike rate vs. 13.2% for Desmond. All chasing is not created equal.

he hit many pitches "soft"ly and not so many "hard"
In the second half, his soft/med/hard splits were almost exactly the AL average for non-pitchers--and in September, he hit 36% of balls hard, way above average. (Granted, a month is just a month, but at least it's the right month.)
 

iayork

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In the second half, his soft/med/hard splits were almost exactly the AL average for non-pitchers--and in September, he hit 36% of balls hard, way above average. (Granted, a month is just a month, but at least it's the right month.)
We can break it down finer than that, because in 2015 at least a subset of at-bats had exit velocity recorded. According to Baseball Savant, here's how Xander's exit velocity looked by month in 2015:
XB_exit.png
As Savin says, the trend is in the right direction, and it's more than just a month, it's most of the second half of the season (148 of Bogaerts' 372 recorded batted balls; I'm guessing that about 2/3 of his batted balls have exit velocity recorded). Over all of 2015, Bogaerts' average exit velocity was just 88.13 MPH, putting him 276 out of 540 batters (including pitchers) with recorded exit velocities. But that splits out as 86.4 MPH from April through July, and 90.74 MPH from August on.

90.74 MPH is not elite, but it's respectable; that would put him about 97th of 540, alongside players like Justin Upton and, speak of the devil, Ian Desmond. The first half's 86.4 is pretty bad, and would put him in the lower 100 of players, beside the corpse of David Ross but ahead of Bartolo Colon.
 

JakeRae

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The numbers are forboding but they came with a practiced intent to change his approach in the majors and rebuild from there.

In 2008 everyone who knew how to open fangraphs extended stats said Jon Lester wasn't going to really amount to anything despite his low ERA because of his peripherals and his struggles in previous seasons. I guess my point is that sure there are reasons to think that Xander may be worse in 2016, but the idea you guys are projecting that 2015 Xander is the Xander he will always be (esp. given that he is 23 years old). Development is an actual thing, and people's inability to grasp development is frustrating as it is often connected to a "next pretty piece of foil" type of prospect fucking. As soon as a prospect hits any kind of wall it's taken as the end of his career around here.
This is a massive straw man.

No one is talking about ignoring Xander's change of approach nor has anyone indicated, at least not in this thread, that they think 2015 Xander is forever Xander. The general discussion has assumed regression from a .372 BABIP. But, the discussion of expected range for 2016 has matched a belief that Xander made clear adjustments that produced a high BABIP and that a high BABIP is sustainable. Additionally, a lot of people, myself included, think that the power he showcased earlier in his career is likely to come back, at least to some degree.

Basically, I haven't seen anyone express a disbelief in his development. But, BABIP regression based decline will happen this year as a virtual certainty. I'd also argue his defense is likely to not measure as high, because he's probably not one of the best defensive shortstops in baseball, even though he has developed into an above average defender.

You combine the above, and it will take a dramatic improvement in the power/discipline categories for him to be as good as he was last year. I think, even for those optimistic about his development trajectory, it's hard to project that level of improvement year to year. I do think it's possible, but the more likely scenario is a modest decline that couples regression, as discussed above, with skill and performance progression in other areas. To reiterate, I am not saying he won't continue to develop. He absolutely will. I think that in a few years time, he will likely be a true talent 4+ win player, and this year will be a step in that direction. It will look, superficially, like a step back, only because of his BABIP overperformance last year and the likely fact that the defensive metrics modestly overstated his defensive skill because, SSS.
 

Buzzkill Pauley

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This is a massive straw man.

No one is talking about ignoring Xander's change of approach nor has anyone indicated, at least not in this thread, that they think 2015 Xander is forever Xander. The general discussion has assumed regression from a .372 BABIP. But, the discussion of expected range for 2016 has matched a belief that Xander made clear adjustments that produced a high BABIP and that a high BABIP is sustainable. Additionally, a lot of people, myself included, think that the power he showcased earlier in his career is likely to come back, at least to some degree.

Basically, I haven't seen anyone express a disbelief in his development.
Well...

With Xander, it's not just BABIP. All his peripheral metrics are foreboding. His chase rate rocketed to an Ian Desmond-like 36% (and that's unfair to Desmond); he generates no loft; his excellent K rate belies merely average bat-to-ball skills; he hit many pitches "soft"ly and not so many "hard"; his average flyball distance was 80th percentile, behind Hechavarria, Utley, Stephen Drew, Segura, Altuve....

We absolutely should have flipped him for José Fernandez.
There was that bump in the thread which caused smastroyin to write that reply in the first case.
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
I'd also argue his defense is likely to not measure as high, because he's probably not one of the best defensive shortstops in baseball, even though he has developed into an above average defender.
If he's really an "above average defender," then his defense is likely to measure higher if anything, since his advanced defensive numbers were essentially average by both UZR (1.0) and DRS (0). I'm not sure where you got the idea that he had the numbers of "one of the best defensive shortstops in baseball."

I think an average defensive shortstop is exactly what he is at this stage in his career, so I think the likeliest result is little to no change in his dWAR, though of course we all know how volatile those numbers are from year to year, so who knows.