Rather than dig up the Bogaerts vs Gregorious thread (and thereby constantly invite the comparison the thread title implies), I figured I'd start a thread where we could look at Xander's 2018 performance and analyze it relative to his career norms.
For starters, qualitative and quantitative evidence shows that Bogaerts is driving the ball with much more authority this year. To wit, here are Xander's stats from 2015 - 2018
His defense is beyond my ability to really evaluate, but Xander made a really great play on a grounder up the middle last night that I thought for sure was going to be an infield single. For those that have more experience with this, I'm curious if his defense still grades out as average to slightly below or if he's taken meaningful steps forward there as well.
For starters, qualitative and quantitative evidence shows that Bogaerts is driving the ball with much more authority this year. To wit, here are Xander's stats from 2015 - 2018
- Exit Velocity: 87.6, 88.8, 87.3, 92.3
- Launch Angle: 6.6, 11.3, 8.2, 12.7
- Barrels: 13, 28, 6, 11
- Barrel %: 2.5, 5.3, 1.3, 16.7
- Hard Hit %: 34.5, 33.6, 31.7, 42.4
- OPS+: 107, 111, 95, 137
- wRC+: 111, 115, 96, 140
- ISO: .101, .152, .130, .227
- pa/HR: 93.4, 34.2, 63.5, 31.0
- BB%: 4.9%, 8.1%, 8.8%, 3.2%
- K%: 15.4%, 17.1%, 18.3%, 24.7%
His defense is beyond my ability to really evaluate, but Xander made a really great play on a grounder up the middle last night that I thought for sure was going to be an infield single. For those that have more experience with this, I'm curious if his defense still grades out as average to slightly below or if he's taken meaningful steps forward there as well.