FORT MYERS, Fla. -- A few days ago, as the Boston Red Sox took batting practice before an exhibition game, Xander Bogaerts launched a ball that seemed to scrape the sky on its way toward the faux Green Monster at JetBlue Park. Waiting his turn at the side of the batting cage, David Ortiz raised both arms and howled.
The face of the franchise was saluting his successor.
There’s an undeniable passing of the torch taking place in Red Sox camp this spring. Ortiz, the iconic slugger and last remaining link between all three of Boston’s World Series championships since 2004, intends to retire at season’s end, just as 23-year-old stars-in-waiting Bogaerts and Mookie Betts are beginning to realize their potential as not only the team’s best players, but also its future leaders.
That shift is reflected in Baseball Tonight’s annual Top 100 list. Ortiz is ranked 73rd, down from No. 41 last season even though he demonstrated little slip in his overall production with 37 homers and a .913 OPS. And one spot ahead of Big Papi, right there at No. 72, is Bogaerts, fresh off a breakthrough 2015 in which he emerged as one of the top young shortstops in the game.
“You see Bogaerts, where he came from with the year he had [in 2014] to the year he had last year, that’s impressive, man,” Ortiz said recently. “He was hitting in the middle of the lineup. That is something that is a challenge, and he handled it pretty well.”
Indeed, after batting mostly seventh or eighth for the first 2 1/2 months of the season, Bogaerts was raised in late June into the No. 3 spot, a coveted position in the Red Sox’s order because it preceded Ortiz. When the No. 3 hitter reaches base, it stands to reason the opposing pitcher must exhibit far more caution in approaching Ortiz than when the bases are empty.
Bogaerts batted .341 with a .375 on-base percentage in 80 games as the No. 3 hitter. And as manager John Farrell experiments in spring training with batting-order variations designed to both get Ortiz to the plate in the first inning and split up the run of right-handed hitters at the top of the order, Bogaerts is getting an extended look in the cleanup spot even though he hit only seven homers last season and hits with an all-fields approach that reminds many talent evaluators of Derek Jeter.
“Conventional wisdom says power is the last thing to come for a player at the major league level,” Farrell said. “Whether or not that plays out for Xander, we’ll see. He has those capabilities.”
Bogaerts might be developing the mindset, too. By his own admission, he didn’t think much about muscling up for home runs last year. In fact, after getting a few opposite-field hits early in the season, he says he “kind of fell in love with that” and began to fine-tune his swing to shoot singles the other way to right field, a la Jeter, his idol growing up in Aruba.
The Red Sox don’t necessarily want Bogaerts to change that approach, even if he continues to hit in the middle of the order. But they’re also encouraging him to look to drive the ball more often, particularly when he’s ahead in the count and more likely to see a fastball.
“Maybe this year, it depends on the count -- 3-1, 2-1, if the opportunity presents itself -- I might try to go for one,” Bogaerts said. “But I definitely wasn’t thinking of hitting them out [last year]. We have David. We have Hanley [Ramirez]. We have Pablo [Sandoval]. We have those guys who can do that.”
Well, for one more season anyway. Despite hitting 31 homers and posting a 1.055 OPS in his final 94 games last year, Ortiz decided in November -- on his 40th birthday, no less -- to announce his plans to walk away from the game after one more season, a decision that will leave a considerable void in the middle of the lineup.
The Red Sox nevertheless chose not to bulk up their offense in the offseason, focusing instead on signing $217 million ace David Price and trading for closer Craig Kimbrel. Asked in December about the monumental task of replacing Ortiz, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said he preferred to “tackle that one next year at the same time.”
By then, Toronto Blue Jays sluggers Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion may well be on the free-agent market. But if Bogaerts develops the power the Red Sox believe he has, they may have their future cleanup hitter already in house.
“The more experience he gets, the more those certain counts where he’s in advantage counts, he may try to drive the ball more routinely,” Farrell said. “But that will take place on a natural course. I’d be the first to say, we’ll take what Xander did last year and sign up for it this morning. It's a very, very good player.”
Good enough, perhaps, to carry the Red Sox’s torch when Ortiz finally hands it off.
