We all love new things. It’s ingrained in who we are and it starts early in life. I could get my son the biggest and coolest toy there is, and later that same day he’s got his eye on what’s next. A fantasy team owner is the same way. We’re always thinking about what’s next and that answer is always a prospect. For the most part, we love prospects. They’re fun and new. They haven’t shown us all of their flaws yet. The only thing we like more than prospects is the next prospect! Oscar Taveras is all the rage, and rightfully so. We’re hearing things like ‘a left-handed Albert Pujols’ and ‘Barry Bonds during his Pittsburgh days’. These are lofty verbal bouquet’s that are nearly impossible to live up to, but he has every fantasy player’s attention and rightfully so.

Sometimes we’re so busy looking for what’s new or even what’s next, (Gregory Palanco! Kris Bryant!!) that we forget the guys that are already here. There’s an infielder up in Boston that is on track to be just the 5^th shortstop to post a .380+ OBP at age 21 or younger, and he’d like your attention.  Oh, and he’s even younger than Oscar Taveras. Xander Bogaerts, according to Baseball America, started last season as a top three prospect, and he ended the season as an everyday starter for the World Series champions. He’s done nothing in 2014 but build on to his early resume and the future seems very promising. Early this month, my Fix colleague Landon Jones talked about Bogaerts. You should sign up for our Front Office content and read that here, but let’s take a closer look at what he’s doing so far this season.

There’s no debate, Troy Tulowitzki is the top shortstop in the game, and it’s not even close. Tulo leads all shortstops in wRC+, OBP, wOBA, and LD%. Number two in all of these categories? You guessed it, Xander Bogaerts. I know, chances are you aren’t playing in a league that uses these metrics as an actually fantasy category, but if you’re here at The Fantasy Fix, you’re familiar with these stats. You have to look outside of the box score and ‘under the hood’ if you’re going to find ways to win your league. The metrics mentioned above are all critical in painting the big picture when evaluating a hitter.

The lasting impression of Bogaerts World Series debut last season was his patient approach. He’s maintained that in 2014 and has taken it a step further, especially against off-speed and breaking pitches. The young shortstop has room to grow when it comes to fastballs; though he’s still patient against the pitch, he’s swinging through it more than we’d like to see. With that said, let’s use the new heat maps from our friends at Fangraphs to show how much he’s improved over his short stint last season. Let’s look at last year first, then 2014.

The RAA/100P (Runs Above Average per 100 pitches) in the graphs above are a linear weight metric that gives you’re the sum of a batters outcomes in a specific zone. Any number you see that’s ‘0’ or above is at or above average. Essentially the more red you see, the better. It’s easy to see, Bogaerts is making incredible strides for such a young hitter. He likes the ball up and is getting beat with heaters down and in. There’s no way that a young player with such incredible command of the zone won’t make the necessary adjustments and get better here.

We typically see younger players struggle with off-speed stuff when making the leap to the big leagues, but Bogaerts is a bit backwards in that regard. If he was killing fastballs and whiffing on the off-speed stuff this might be a sell high article, but that’s not the case. I’m looking forward to circling back in the next few months because I expect we’ll see a lot more white and red down in the zone. He’s that type of hitter.  Remember that he’s already seeing adjustments from pitchers, something that the previously mentioned Oscar Taveras won’t see until August or September.

He isn’t filling the fantasy stat sheet to date, but brighter days are ahead. His 5.0% HR/FB ratio is low, and is likely to improve with a batted ball profile like Xander’s. There are also whispers out of Boston that the Red Sox are looking at a Bogaerts-Pedroia 1-2 atop the lineup. Bogaerts’ OBP and .304 batting average would play very well ahead of Pedroia and Ortiz, for the Red Sox and fantasy owners alike.

Follow Ryan on Twitter, @RyNoonan.  You can also hear Ryan once a week on ‘Caught Looking-The Fantasy Baseball Podcast’ for TheFantasyReport.net. As always, thanks to the team at Fangraphs for the free data.