Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 670: Xander Bogaerts vs. Mookie Betts

Episode Date: May 5, 2015

Ben and Sam talk to Ben Carsley about Boston’s talented 22-year-olds, Xander Bogaerts and Mookie Betts.

People say you can't have your cake and then eat it too They tell me that I'm making a mistake waiting around for you Oh, I'm begging for love but why can't they see that Good morning and welcome to episode 670 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives brought to you by the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg of Grantland. Hello, Ben. Hello. And also with Ben Carsley of BP Boston at Baseball Perspectives, the wonderful local site for Red Sox coverage that everybody should be checking out. It's about a month old, and it has already found its stride, in my opinion. And we're here to talk to him about one article in particular,

and more than one article in particular. It is one topic in particular that I think is on many Bostonians' minds, but also kind of baseball minds. It feels like there are some prospects that for one reason or another, they end up getting comped to each other or compared to each other or contrasted with each other even before they have become fully actualized ballplayers. Like, for instance, Dexter Fowler and Cameron Maben, I think, were linked in a lot of people's minds for a long time. And maybe the most, maybe, I don't know, the best of these instances was in 2007 when Clayton

Kershaw and Scott Elbert were linked together. They were seen as almost in some ways interchangeable. Baseball America had a piece on comparing them, how to scout compare and contrast them. I think John Sickles might have done something similar at the time. Of course, that in retrospect is a perfect example of how difficult it is to prospect because one of those guys turned into the greatest pitcher of our generation and the other did almost nothing and they were almost indistinguishably good at the time, almost unpickable. And the current pairing that we're going to be talking about of course is Mookie Betts and Xander

Bogards. So first before we get into it, why do these two get comped when like for a lot, you know, a lot of, like, nobody's comparing really, you know, Addison Russell and Chris Bryant in any significant way. So why Bogarts and Betts? Right. So there are a few unique factors that really tie them together. The first is they're literally born the same week. So Xander Bogarts is six days older than Mookie Betts, which is sort of eerie. is six days older than Mookie Betts, which is sort of eerie. And then I think it's because of sort of their polar opposites of each other in that, you know, Xander was not just the top organizational prospect, but was considered one of the very best prospects in all of baseball.

And, you know, we've seen him bleed already. And then Betts, you know, wasn't considered that great of a prospect. He was good, you know, back end of the top 100. And part of the reason he was never higher is because he basically, you know, the way when he came up, he beat that off season where he would have been, you know, a top 20 prospect, he had already exhausted his eligibility. So that's part of it why but you know, he wasn't thought of as highly and he's been very good to start his career. So there are lots of ways to, to contrast this. And you know, the fact that they came up at fairly similar times um you know they were two of the only reasons to watch the red sox in the second half of last year and i think a lot of people have been captivated by them because of

that so uh it's been interesting to watch boston's reaction sort of change over the last half year so did you buy the interpretation of bogart's 2014 season where people traced, you know, almost down to the day that he was asked to switch positions and his slump seemed to coincide almost exactly with that moment, which led some people to interpret that as he was playing fine and then the Red Sox messed with his confidence and he had to learn a different position and his offense suffered. Did you find that compelling? Do you still? I did not find that compelling at all at the time. And I still mostly don't. I do think there might be more of a kernel of truth to that now than I ever would have given credence to at the beginning

of that shift. You know, no matter where he played, his real issue last year was breaking balls and specifically sliders. So regardless of where he was occupying the diamonds defensively, that was going to be an issue. But it certainly did. It was like a flip was switched. And I do think there was probably a bit of a confidence issue that carried over, which is strange because he was lauded for having some of the best makeup in the minors when he was a prospect. And you wouldn't think that a team welcoming back the shortstop that just won the World Series with the year before would be so crushing to his ego like that. So I'm sure it wasn't the main reason for his struggles, but I guess I can't say it had

absolutely nothing to do with them. Probably not as much as some make it out to be, but I wouldn't say 100% no because the correlation is a little too strong there. So Bogarts kind of came into the season on a downward trajectory, I guess, if you had to pick a trajectory for him, whereas Betts was on the upswing just in terms of recent performance and change in perception of those players. So you surveyed a bunch of people. You surveyed experts who were not at BP Boston. You surveyed BP Boston staff. You surveyed Twitter. So tell us, I will link to this article in the Facebook group and at the podcast post at BP, but give us a summary of the results of all of your surveys.

Yeah, sure. So the neat thing is, and I truly didn't plan the article like this, but opinion was pretty much split down the middle, no matter what subset of the baseball-loving population I asked, which really seems to summarize this debate pretty well. So the six experts I asked, it was Sam, Brett, Chris Crawford, Chris Mellon, Jim Callis, and Mark Normandine, and they were split 3-3, Mookie and Zander. Then I asked the BP Boston staff, and they actually weighed in fairly heavily on the side of Mookie, which I was a little surprised by. And then I did a very scientific Twitter poll, and Bogarts narrowly edged out Mookie in that, which also surprised me because, you know, I would have thought the more common fan would definitely err on the side of recency bias and go with Mookie. But, you know, overall, that left it tied at 4-4. And then I weighed in at the very end, and I am still a pro-Bogarts believer.

I still give the slight nod to him, but it's very, very close. And it's way, way closer now than I ever thought it would have been at this time, you know, even six months ago. And Ben mentioned trajectory, and that word is sort of significant, perhaps. I don't know if it's significant for sure, but there's some indication that it's significant, because Rob Arthur this spring and me this spring before both looked at the question of whether prospects are overrated when their prospect trajectory is slipping, if prospect rankings more or less lag, are a lagging indicator, and found that there's some suggestion that it is. And so I guess a big part of the question is,

how disappointing has Bogart actually been to somebody who's watched him every day? To us out here, we kind of expected this super prospect who, following in the lead of Mike Trout and Chris Bryant and Bryce Harper, we would have unrealistically thought would just jump on in and be awesome. And so therefore, because we're monsters, he's been disappointing. But you've seen him every day. What does he look like? Does he look like a guy who's overmatched? Does he look like a guy who's just a little rough around the edges and just has to tweak things? Does he look like a mediocre ballplayer who's going to settle into a role as a mediocre ballplayer? What's it like every day?

So the issue, and I think this is both very scary and lends itself to some optimism at the same time, he's really, really inconsistent. It's not even a game-to-game basis. It can be a plate-appearance-to-plate-appearance basis where he'll look like the Xander Bogarts we saw in the 2013 World Series. He'll be, you know, spitting on pitches on the outside corner. And then, you know, his swing is, I mean, it's a beautiful right-handed swing. So when he really gets a hold of one, it's among the prettiest sights in baseball, in my opinion. And then, you know, a few innings later, he'll come up and just look totally lost against a slider that's located in the same place, you know, three out of the four pitches in an at-bat. And that's very frustrating. And I do think that, you know, this sort of goes back to the question Ben asked me earlier about how much of this is confidence, how much of this

is mental. He definitely looks like someone who sort of falls in ruts. And I think last year, you also saw some of his mistakes in the field carry over to his plate appearances. The good news is this year, he's looked a lot better in the field. I don't think he's ever going to be confused for a gold glove caliber shortstop. But to me, I mean, I think he's an average defensive shortstop right now, which is a long way from where he was a few years ago. And if you pair that with a bat that, you know, isn't what, you know, that doesn't have to come close to his max output to be a very valuable player at shortstop. But it's tough because it's hard to get a good read on him because, you know, that doesn't have to come close to his max output to be a very valuable player at shortstop. But it's tough because it's hard to get a good read on him because, you know, especially contrasted to Mookie, Mookie always looks the same. You know, whether he has a great

at bat or a poor at bat, he always looks confident. He's taking the same caliber of swing. Bogarts is not that way. And he can look really, really bad one moment. And then he can look like the, you know, potential MVP candidate. Some people then he can look like the potential MVB candidate some people thought he was going to be a few years ago the next. So I have a stat here. Let me tell you this stat, and you can tell me whether it surprises you, whether it worries you. I'm looking at the batted ball speed leaderboards on Baseball Savant, and this is the new stat cast data. So it's not complete. We don't totally know what it all means yet we can't compare it to last year there's a lot we still have to learn about this stuff but of the 213

hitters who have at least 30 balls in play this season with a exit velocity a hit speed recorded. Mookie Betts ranks 19th of all of them at 93.2 miles per hour, just ahead of Nelson Cruz. And Bogarts ranks 201st at 83.6 miles per hour, just above Dee Gordon. So Bogarts has hit better. Betts is slumping. Bogarts' numbers seem better, mostly across the board. But at least by how hard they have hit the ball, Betts seems to be doing much better in that respect. So does that surprise you? Does that change your thinking in any way? It doesn't surprise me as much as you may think

because that's very reflective of what I've seen from watching most Red Sox games. Bogarts has appeared very lucky. There's something about young Red Sox shortstops. Jose Iglesias left some Babbitt magic here for Bogarts this year. And Betts has looked unlucky. Betts has crushed the ball many times right into someone's glove. So, yes, it's concerning, but it's something I suppose I was already sort of subconsciously factoring in when I weighed in on the side of Bogarts in that article, because that's very much what I've seen.

You know, Betts has been Betts has looked like more of a future star this year than Bogarts has. But that's still not enough to sway me away from Bogarts ultimate potential. But no, it hasn't been a terribly, terribly inspiring start to the year from Bogarts, which, you know, when you add that with how he performed in the middle of last season, I certainly get why some people are now Team Mookie. And how do you weigh their respective defensive abilities? I mean, one is a shortstop. Bogarts is a shortstop. That seems like the best possible thing to be and yet Betts can play all these different positions and seemingly play them well so which one of those things is better? Yeah well when you if you're going to take into account on defensive value I mean Betts is

Betts has the clear edge because he he looks like someone who has the potential to be I don't know a 60 defender in center field and I mean mean, he has very, very little professional experience in the outfield. So it's pretty impressive that he already flashes that ability. Whereas Bogarts is someone who's, you know, going to be fighting for a long time to stay right around the 40, 45 shortstop range. So obviously shortstops are more valuable. We all know that the offensive threshold is much lower, but defensively, you know, Betts is clearly the superior player, particularly because if, you know, Betts is clearly the superior player, particularly because if, you know, if he goes somewhere else, it doesn't look like he'll be traded. But I mean, he has the ability to be an above average second baseman. And that shouldn't be discounted from

sort of, you know, his skill set as a player, just because the Red Sox don't need to utilize it. If I were just analyzing the words that you've said so far, I would have put you on team Betts. Me too. Yeah, that's totally fair. There are, it's terrifying to be on team Bogarts right now. I fully admit that. But just the absolute upside with Bogarts is it's incredible. I mean, it's a unicorn. It's someone who fields in the middle of the diamond fairly well and hits in the middle of the order. And if he falls off the face of the earth, and it'll be disappointing, but he also doesn't have to hit his, you know, 90th percentile to be quite good. He can hit his 70, 75th percentile in my opinion, and be a better version of Johnny Peralta. And that will be disappointing in the

eyes of people who once thought he'd be one of the best players in the game, but it's still a very nice player to have. So I think that lost in this argument, I think people now assume Bogarts has a lower floor than at least I think he has. I still think he, you know, I think people now assume Bogarts has a lower floor than at least I think he has. I still think he has the floor of a productive everyday player, and I still think there's a lot more room above that as well. Well, it's interesting because you said that the case for Bogarts is about his upside, and I sort of sense that that is how people view it, and that's certainly how it was,

and I don't know, probably it still is, but it almost sort of feels like the case for Bogarts might actually be that his floor is higher, because like you said, he's going to be, you know, now that he has shown he can handle shortstop, he's going to be a shortstop. He's going to hit enough to play shortstop at the major league level. You know, he's basically got a floor, assuming no injuries or anything weird, of like a, you know, one-and-a-half win player probably, and maybe he is Peralta as a realistic case. Whereas Betts, you know, you could sort of imagine that without having, you know, I don't know,

quite the same defensive value as far as his position and, you know, depending so much as he does on his Babbitt and having a shorter track record and all that, you could sort of say his floor is potentially lower whereas i kind of feel like his ceiling right now is like often that kind of jose altuve-esque sort of role on the team because they're short you see they're both short that's how lazy i am uh anyway uh it seems like i kind of feel like right now I maybe almost would bet on his upside over Bogarts, but Bogarts' floor over Betts. Does that make sense? It makes sense. I guess I would argue that their floors are very similar, and I still think Bogarts has the higher ceiling.

I think they both have floors of not special, but productive role 50, role 55 everyday players in the major leagues. I think if Bogarts hits his future potential, I think he's a role 70 player. I think he is an all-star more than once in his career. So there's definitely a lot of – that's scary to say right now because Betts looks so much better today. But that's not – I bet you if we're having this conversation in June and Xander's had two good months and Betts has struggled, people would be just as willing to flip back on that. So I would say similar floor, but I still give Bogarts a significantly higher ceiling than I give Betts, even if I guess Betts is maybe a little more likely to reach his ceiling than Bogarts is to reach his. guess Betts is maybe a little more likely to reach his ceiling than Bogarts is to reach his. Which of these players wins the makeup off? Like, does one of them have a higher poise plus at this point? Because it seems like Bogarts is praised for, you know, his calm eyes

and his confidence and all that. But Betts has also gotten lots of praise for pretty much the same things, it seems like. So does one of them really have an edge in that category? And also, if I can just tack on, can I tack on it does one of them have an edge specifically to boston because boston is a unique market unique uh fan base unique ballpark does one of them have any extra benefits from the circumstances they got signed into yeah no that's a good question i i think i can't answer it yet because we haven't seen how mookie responds to failure i think we saw how zander responded to failure last year. And while it was initially discouraging, he did hit quite well at the end of last year. He does look more comfortable this time this year. You know, Betts, OK, he's not

off to a terrific start, but he's still playing center field, leading off every day. I think he knows he's hitting the ball hard. He's made some nice plays in the outfield. So I want to see how Betts responds to a prolonged period of failure because, you know, there will be one. And then we'll see how his makeup holds up because I never would have imagined Bogarts, at least it appeared Bogarts let himself get pretty low at certain points last year. So I want to see how Betts reacts. And it's tough because neither of these guys have really failed. And this was a point I wanted to make in the article, and it just sort of took a different track. But, you know, these guys are unique in how little experience either of them has above high A. I think Betts is about 450 plate appearances between high A and reaching the majors, and Bogarts is just over 600. That's really not a lot of time. So these guys

just flew through the, you know, mid to upper minors, never hit any speed bumps there. And then all of a sudden, we're faced with major league pitching at the ages of 20 and 21, respectively. So they're not used to failing. And I think that was a stunner to Bogarts. And I could see why it would be a stunner to Betts if it does happen. And then I think we'll know a lot more about the makeup. But in terms of long term, I think they both have the sort of quiet confidence you like to see in a ballplayer. In terms of the Boston thing, I never know how to predict that until you see a player really react to it I didn't even really think it was a thing until Carl Crawford came to town and now I absolutely do think it's a thing because that that ruined him so that's harder to answer

but I think we'll have a better idea if we get to see Mookie go through you know a six to eight week slump which I hope doesn't happen but but probably will at some point. How annoying is this debate for every other fan base? Probably pretty annoying. It's a pretty nice, quote unquote, problem to have, because, you know, that's sort of how I ended the piece was, well, you know, the good thing is the Red Sox don't have to pick. They don't they don't have to decide which one of them they like better. They can just keep running both of them out there every single day. And, you know, whoever's having the better two weeks or the better month can bat higher in the order and the other one can take that time to figure it out. So I can certainly understand why other fan bases would be frustrated, but I have no sympathy

for their frustration. So Ben Lindbergh, I answered this question. I answered it at Ben Carsley's request. And my answer was basically that I've kind of quit projecting growth for players. I've quit taking it as a given that young players are going to get better. And I sort of have gotten to the point where I look at a player and try to assess his true talent level right now today. And, you know, assuming he's not really old or I'm not projecting, you know, 30 years down the line or whatever, I sort of assume, well, what he is today is probably the best guy for what he is tomorrow.

And so if one guy starts with a head start, I'm probably going to take that guy. And so I chose Betts because I think Betts right now today is a better player. And most projection systems agree with me. I don't know if most evaluators do, but I think the record is sort of clear that Betts right now it's probably a little bit better player so i went with him what do you go with i think i have the same answer i if if they weren't exactly the same age maybe there would be a different answer like if if they were at different stages then i might be more comfortable saying that one has more projection left than the other, but the fact that they are just born the same week just means that I have a hard time saying that one has much more growth than the other.

an opinion on that but they're the same age and i agree that bets has probably been more impressive in terms of actual production and in terms of hitting the ball hard so far and i like the positional flexibility so yeah if he were if he were even a year older maybe i would be swayed but as it is i have a hard time taking bogarts over Betts. The projection of Bogarts' body doesn't sway you because, I mean, that seems to really be where the projection comes from here. Bogarts has the potential to add a great deal of power and that sort of, that is the difference making tool in a lot of ways. That's where he reaches his ceiling and Betts is never going to have that difference making tool.

I mean, you know, basically what Betts gets his value out of right now is speed, defense and Babbitt, which all probably will go down as he ages, right? Whereas Bogart has potential to get power and maybe with that more plate to splint even and, you know, become a monster. So they could very easily have very different aging curves. Yeah, could happen. I don't know. easily have a very different aging curve yeah could happen i don't know but that just seems to contribute in so many different ways that i feel like maybe he will age more gracefully although

you're right maybe they're all skills that are tied to speed and speed is something that departs players early so it could be exactly the opposite i Ben, you see Bogarts as a shortstop for a very long time. I think I see him as a shortstop for longer than people gave him credit for, even when he was a prospect. I mean, I'm not a scout either. I don't know how to project what Bogarts' body is going to look like when he's 30, but I don't see him as someone who's going to have to move off the position any time in the next three to five years. Brian Butterfield is a very good defensive coach. He's clearly worked wonders with Bogarts already. Bogarts' first step looks a lot better this year. The arm has never been an issue, at least in terms of strength. Accuracy has been an issue

in the past. But I like what I've seen from Bogarts so far. And I also think that, at least right now, he's more athletic and more spry than you'd assume from someone who you hear about is going to have all this power. I mean, he looks like a shortstop right now. He looks like a big shortstop, but it's not inconceivable that you look at him and think, oh my God, how is he playing shortstop? So I think we're fine, certainly for a few years. And then of course, the hope is that, you know, if he does have to move to third base when he's 28 or 29, at that point, the power is playing to the, you know, to the point where you don't have to worry about the bat profiling at the hot corner. It's interesting that Chris Mellon picked Bogarts. And in our

top 10 Red Sox prospects rankings this year, we have the under 25 rankings as well. So Betts and Bogarts would have qualified for that. And we put Betts over Bogarts. Now, I don't know if Mellon had input in that or if that was all Al Skarupa who wrote that. But I mean, it really is like sort of the kind of thing where you have to remind yourself every day when you wake up which side you're on, because it's so close, you could easily argue one side and then accidentally be arguing the next side the next day. Yeah. And I think I'll say the one pattern I noticed in terms of the responses I got back, this could be wrong, I haven't done a hard count, but it seemed to me that, you know,

scouts I asked are people who consider themselves to have solid scouting ability, were still erring more on the side of Bogarts. And, you know, analytical-minded people, people who haven't watched them come up through the minor leagues together, were erring more on the side of Betts. And I think that says a lot about the debate, like we were just speaking about, because so much of it is based on this projection that Bogarts has left. And if you haven't seen that in the minors and you can't think about what that's going to look like if it actualizes, you'd be sort of nuts to not take Betts, right? Because Betts looks so much better right now. But if you're someone who's watched Xander come up through the minors, like I have, and I know Mellon was at Sox prospects, I'm sure he has, it's a lot harder to forget that even

though we have a season and a half now of Bogarts being not terrific. It's still hard to forget what that promise looked like in the minor leagues, especially because he does still show flashes of that. Do you expect this debate to be any more clear by the end of the year? Or if we had this discussion over the offseason, would we be just as deadlocked? I think it will be. I think it will be a little clearer because if Xander really doesn't do much at all this year, and Mookie performs, you know, more to the level that, you know, a good Babbitt and more to the level that his exit velocity, you know, would suggest he level that, you know, a good BABIP and more to the level that his exit velocity, you know, would suggest he's performing at, it's going to be very hard to

make a case for pro Bogarts because right now we really haven't seen Mookie succeed in any sort of meaningful sample either. So even though he looks better at the moment, you know, he still has fewer than 350 major league plate appearances. If that changes and, you know, Mookie is good all year, and then we're talking about a sample size of 800 plate appearances where Mookie is an average to above average major leaguer, and we're talking about a sample size of over a thousand plate appearances where Xander is not that, it's a lot more crystal clear. I think what will be interesting is if they're both good this year, and I hope that's the case, if they're both good, maybe that's when, you know,

this discussion will continue to rage on because then it would almost become a matter of, you know, your preference in player profile. All right. So I will link to this article in the places where I link to articles. You can find our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild.

The link will be there. You can follow Ben Carsley on twitter at ben carsley and you can read him at bp boston where he is the managing editor and uh you can read him on fantasy at baseball prospectus hear him on the tino podcast at bp thank you ben thanks very much for having me all right we have an email show coming up tomorrow. So send us some emails at podcast at baseball prospectus.com rate review, subscribe to the show on iTunes and support our sponsor, the play index by going to baseball reference.com using the coupon code BP and getting the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription.

We'll be back tomorrow. All right, well, then just be aware that there's a decent chance that anything you say I might not hear. Okay. Well, that doesn't seem important for this medium, so...