After hitting 20 home runs through his first 1,298 plate appearances in the big leagues, it appeared that Xander Bogaerts had found his power in 2016 since he managed to blast 21 bombs in 719 plate appearances.
Four notable changes to Bogaerts' approach at the plate helped engineer growth in this area: his ground-ball rate (GB%) fell and his fly-ball rate (FB%) rose, while his hard-hit rate (Hard%) and pull rate (Pull%) also went up. Here's how last year's performance compared to what he accomplished in 2015, a year in which he hit just seven homers.
| Year | PA | GB% | FB% | Pull% | Hard% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 654 | 52.9% | 25.8% | 33.8% | 27.4% |
| 2016 | 719 | 45.5% | 34.9% | 44.5% | 30.6% |
The Boston Red Sox shortstop struggled to a 96 wRC+ and .325 wOBA in April partly because he had reverted back to the 2015 version of himself. As we can see below, he changed things rather quickly once April was in the rearview mirror.
| Month | GB% | FB% | Pull% | Soft% | Hard% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April | 54.0% | 23.8% | 28.6% | 23.8% | 22.2% |
| May | 53.8% | 24.7% | 50.5% | 24.7% | 34.4% |
| June | 37.3% | 38.8% | 50.8% | 17.9% | 38.8% |
Bogaerts could improve even more by increasing his aggressiveness on pitches inside the strike zone, though.
His swing rate in this situation since May 1st is 51.1%, which is a noticeable decrease compared to the 57.1% mark he posted in April. Meanwhile, his chase rate has increased by nearly nine percentage points during the same period of time.