Dolloff: It's Too Early To Give Up On Xander Bogaerts
By Matt Dolloff, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- There's one thing all Red Sox fans can agree upon this season: Xander Bogaerts has been a disappointment.
The 24-year-old shortstop is in his fourth full major-league season, but has yet to achieve his full potential of a five-tool superstar. His lack of home runs has been dispiriting. Bogaerts' seventh longball of the season on Wednesday night didn't impress so much as illustrate his power outage to that point. He still posted just a .503 OPS in his 29 games between home runs and his second-half struggles are starting to look like a trend.
Bogaerts hasn't quite progressed like everyone has hoped ... but he's still jut 24 years old - and it's still too early to give up on him.
He has been slow to develop, but he is not a lost cause. He is the latest target of a market-wide knee-jerk reaction to ship a disappointing player out of town for the newest shiny toy on the market. This summer's greener grass is Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton, who is literally on pace for 60 home runs this season. Stanton's majestic power surges would find businesses on Lansdowne St. taking out extra insurance policies.
But to illustrate the knee-jerkiness of this whole discussion, what if you proposed a Bogaerts-for-Stanton trade on, say, June 19 just last season? You would have been laughed out of the city, and for good reason: at that time, Stanton was batting .211 with 12 homers and a .735 OPS. Bogaerts? .352, 9 homers, .919 OPS.
If you could instead trade Jackie Bradley Jr. in a package for Stanton, he should be the choice. JBJ has the lowest ceiling of any core Red Sox player and may have already hit it. But, admittedly, he's not necessarily a realistic centerpiece of a trade package for a player of Stanton's caliber.
Bogaerts may ultimately be the most sensible trade chip for Stanton, but there's a good chance you'd be trading a potential superstar who has not yet reached his peak.
You could point to other former international/undrafted free agents who did not become superstars until their late-20s. Astros second baseman Jose Altuve, perhaps the frontrunner for this season's American League MVP, is a prime example. He's been an All-Star who hits for a high average for the past four seasons in a row, but 2016 was his first truly MVP-caliber season - at age 26.
Another player with a similar career trajectory so far is Twins third baseman Miguel Sano, who signed as a 16-year-old in 2009. He made it to the major leagues in 2015 and has shown power from the start, but he still strikes out way too much (he leads the AL with 164). He will likely hit over 30 homers this year, but his full power potential is Stanton-esque. Should the Twins give up on their 24-year-old before he hits his ceiling?
These comparisons do not change the fact that the 2017 edition of Bogaerts ranks outside the top-5 among AL shortstops in many offensive categories - in some cases, outside the top-10. Among qualified shortstops, he's seventh in batting average (.279), fifth in OBP (.335), and eighth in both slugging (.404) and OPS (.739).
Among all shortstops in the major leagues, Bogaerts is tied for 22nd in home runs (7) with three others and tied for 14th in RBIs (45). For a player who was expected to be one of baseball's elite shortstops in his prime, it's a valid concern that he has barely been better than the Mets' Asdrubal Cabrera.
If this year's Bogaerts is truly what he is - a shortstop who hits for a decent average but low-end power and plays solid-but-inconsistent defense - then there's no need to even think about giving him a big long-term extension. You can get that production out of Eduardo Nunez at a fraction of the price. If Bogaerts has really hit his ceiling at the place he's at right now, it would make sense to move him before the 2019 season to extract real value for him.
But is it fair to say that he's actually hit that ceiling at 24 years old? When he's barely a calendar year removed from challenging for a batting title with above-average power for a shortstop at 23?
The idea of a Stanton trade (particularly involving Bogaerts) is an intriguing, worthwhile discussion. It's a fascinating hypothetical. But here's another: a year from now, 25-year-old Bogaerts is batting .320 with 25 homers and 80 RBIs for the Marlins, while Stanton is batting .260 with the same amount of home runs for the Red Sox ... in 20 fewer games, because he's been on the DL with a strained quad.
There's a chance that Stanton would fulfill everything the Red Sox need right now - and make no mistake, they need power. But if Bogaerts finally starts to put it all together at age 25, 26, 27 in another uniform, it would be hilarious how much the narrative around here would change. He'd be Tyler Seguin in cleats.
The Red Sox may not keep Bogaerts long term. He may not ultimately be worth it, anyway. But for a player with Bogaerts' pedigree and untapped potential, 24 years old is still too early to make that determination.
Matt Dolloff is a writer/producer for CBSBostonSports.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, CBS, or any subsidiaries. Have a news tip, question, or comment for Matt? Follow him on Twitter @Dolloff985 and email him at mdolloff@985thesportshub.com.
