Daylight in the swamp! Instead of fucking around in Aruba all winter he needs to chop some wood up in northern NH. Learn to drive that outside pitch instead of slapping at it. His D is in no way good enough to justify a sub .300 singles approach at the plate. For Christ sake we've gotta watch Derek Jeter all over again? This should be an organizational mandate.
Yeah, it would be terrible if Xander Bogaerts ended up having a career like Derek Jeter. I get the frustration given he hasn't matched the power profile he showed in the minors, but he also profiled as a .300 hitter and he's shown the ability to do so in the majors. From 2015-2017, he hit .298 in 2008 PA. He was worse this year, but I don't think that's a sign of things to come. I think it was an off year and he'll bounce back to the .300 range.
We also have a habit as fans to get sucked into the hype. If you look at Xander's minor league career, outside of 2011, he's never really been a huge HR guy. While his lack of power has been disappointing, I think some of us were expecting too much because of 2011. It was unrealistic to expect ISO's in the .200+ range. I think .150-.175 is fair, but he's put up a .128 over the last 3 years. Not encouraging, but he's still young enough where we can hope.
Luckily, his walk rate continues to improve and he's surprised us with his base stealing. The latter might be a system wide thing, as pretty much every recent prospect other than Mookie Betts has stolen bases at a far better % than in the minors, and outside of JBJ, in far more attempts. If Xander continues to improve his walk rate and his base stealing, the lead off spot isn't a bad idea long term. If he can get on base at .360-370 clip while slugging .420-430 and stealing 20 bases, I don't see the problem. If he hit .300 instead of .273 this year, he's basically there. While he's never stolen 20 bases in a season, he was 15/16 this year and 38/45 over the last 3 seasons so I don't think it's a stretch. He's also not going to clog the bases for anyone hitting after him as he's plenty fast enough. On top of that, the only other real choice is Mookie Betts and Mookie seems better slotted for the 2-3.
On another note, Xander was better against LHP than RHP this year, but for some reason was absolutely brutal on days where a LHP started a game. He slashed .294/.373/.404 in 126 PA vs LHP this season, but when a LHP started, he hit .214/.266/.282 in 143 PA. When a RHP started, he hit .291/.366/.439 in 492 PA. It's a total fluke stat, but man that is terrible. I wonder what his numbers were vs RHP that came into a game after a LHP started were, they have to be absolutely atrocious.