Red Sox: Is Xander Bogaerts the best shortstop in baseball?
Boston Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts is making his name known in MLB, causing people to believe that he may the best in the game at his position.
Xander Bogaerts is performing like the young stud Red Sox Nation fell in love with last year. But the one difference is that he is putting up better numbers than his 2015 campaign, making fans rather happy to say the least.
With Bogaerts off to a hot start so far in 2016, baseball fans, like myself, are beginning to think that he may have the crown for best shortstop in all of baseball. It’s crazy to think that after his atrocious 2014 season, where he had a slash of .240/.297/.362 in 144 games while also having 20 errors in the field. Nothing was going Xander’s way for 2 years, which just makes this story 10 times better because of how quickly he changed his career.
After winning the Silver Slugger award for the shortstop position in 2015, finishing second in the American League in batting average (.320), and only recording 11 errors in 156 games, you would think that it would be tough to be better than he was during the next season.
Think again.
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If you look at all of the major offensive categories, Bogaerts is in the top 5 in nearly all of them when comparing him to the shortstops in the majors. He’s fifth in slugging percentage (.503), tied for fourth in RBI’s (22), third in on-base percentage (.390), second in batting average (.338) and hits (53), and first in doubles (14) and runs scored (31). Pretty impressive from a 23-year old.
Now obviously there are other shortstops that you can argue about being better than Bogaerts, like last year’s Rookie of the Year, Carlos Correra from the Houston Astros, or the Rookie of the Year runner-up, Francisco Lindor from the Cleveland Indians.
Correa, who seems to have much more power than Bogaerts (27 career home runs in less than 2 seasons, whereas Bogaerts only has 24 entering his third full season), continues to have people believe that he is going to be remembered as one of the greats when he retires. But if you were to compare Correa and Bogaerts right now, power is about the only thing Correa has the upper hand in. Red Sox Nation is waiting for Bogaerts’ power to increase but in end, if he can just get on base and have the other hitters drive him in, he is doing his job.
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Correra also committed 13 errors last season in just 99 games and has already made 5 this season, whereas Bogaerts made his first error of the season last game against Houston.
With Lindor, he’s more like Bogaerts offensively because they don’t have as much power as Correa. But when you compare these two young studs, it all comes down to the numbers, and Xander seems to have the advantage as well. Between the 2015 and 2016 season, Bogaerts has a better batting average, on-base percentage, more walks, hits and RBI’s. Granted, Bogaerts has around 60 more games than Lindor with those two seasons combined. Bogaerts seems like the safe bet if you were to choose between the two.
I’m only comparing Correa and Lindor to Bogaerts because I strongly believe that they are top 3 shortstops in all of baseball. Yes, you have Trevor Story from the Colorado Rockies and Aledmys Diaz from the St. Louis Cardinals having break-out rookie seasons, but let’s wait and see if they stay consistent and become stars.
Next: Red Sox take on defending champs
As of right now, if you look at the numbers, Xander Bogaerts seems to be the best shortstop in not just the A.L. East, not just the American League, but in MLB. With what he is doing for the Boston Red Sox, he should be getting more recognition because in the next couple years, he could be the face of the franchise.