Xander Bogaerts leads the charge of shortstops making history in 2018. Will this trend continue? Or, is it a fad?
Xander Bogaerts is having an extraordinary year for the Boston Red Sox. In fact, he belted three home runs in Boston’s most-recent series against the Seattle Mariners. The homer barrage brought his 2018 total to 12 on the season, which already surpasses the 10 he accumulated in all of 2017.
By all accounts, Xander Bogaerts is having a tremendous season with a beautiful. .279 AVG/.339 OBP/.518 SLG clip. Moreover, he features a 130 wRC+ and a 2.2 fWAR in 245 plate appearances. With those numbers, one would assume he would be having one of the best seasons among MLB shortstops. Well, frankly, that is not quite the case.
Among qualified big-league shortstops, Xander Bogaerts ranks 8th in wRC+ and 7th in fWAR this year. Here is a list of the men ahead of him in Fangraphs WAR and their respective numbers.
- Francisco Lindor– .360 OBP, .533 SLG, 141 wRC+ and 3.7 fWAR
- Andrelton Simmons– .389 OBP, .444 SLG, 135 wRC+ and 2.9 fWAR
- Jean Segura– .363 OBP, .490 SLG, 136 wRC+ and 2.8 fWAR
- Manny Machado– .377 OBP, .567 SLG, 151 wRC+ and 2.8 fWAR
- Carlos Correa– .357 OBP, .498 SLG, 134 wRC+ and 2.5 fWAR
- Eduardo Escobar– .353 OBP, .579 SLG, 148 wRC+ and 2.5 fWAR
Noticeably absent from this list is Brandon Crawford, the NL leading All-Star vote-getter for shortstops. He has done pretty well this season, too. In 276 plate appearances, he has amassed a 130 wRC+ (7th among qualified SS) and 2.1 fWAR (8th among qualified SS). The player, who will likely be starting the All-Star game for the National League, finds himself behind a slew of shortstops who have been just a tad better.
In a year that Major League Baseball saw one of its premier shortstops (Corey Seager) lose almost all of 2018 to injury, the position has been better than it has ever been in MLB history. Before revealing the incredible numbers you are about to witness, let’s talk about wRC+. MLB.com’s definition will suffice.
wRC+ quantifies the essential part of a batter’s job-creating runs — and normalizes it, so we can compare players who play in different ballparks and even different eras.
A 100 wRC+ is considered an average run-producer. Any numbers above that are considered above-average, and a number below is a below-average one, according to Fangraphs. As stated above, wRC+ adjusts for different eras, so we will be able to draw a fair comparison between other years.