Rafael Devers, Boston Red Sox
The Red Sox have struggled to stay alive in this year’s playoff picture, but Devers has done everything he can to put the squad on his back. With 5.4 fWAR already in his back pocket heading into Wednesday, he’s long surpassed his 2018 total of 1.0. He’s also seen a tremendous increase in wRC+ (90 to 145) and triple slash (.240/.298/.433 to .329/.377/.592).
He’s on the verge of his first season of 30-plus homers, has already produced 200-pluss combined runs scored and RBI, and is leading baseball in a number of offensive categories:
RBI double for Rafael Devers. Now leads the majors with 47 doubles, 102 RBI, 302 total bases, and 77 extra-base hits. pic.twitter.com/ovZwJPTpHR
— Jared Carrabis (@Jared_Carrabis) August 21, 2019
Devers’ quality of contact hasn’t changed drastically, but the batted-ball events he’s producing sure has. He’s decreased his strikeout rate from 24.7% to 16.2%, and while his overall contact rate has gone up just shy of four percentage points, it’s included many more line drives (15.2% to 23.5%) and fewer infield flies (15.7% to 9.9%).
Similar to Marte, the sky is the limit for someone like the Boston third baseman, as he’s currently finishing up his age-22 season. Even if the Red Sox can’t retain Mookie Betts for the long haul, they at least have a couple of very strong offensive building blocks cemented in their infield thanks to both Devers and Xander Bogaerts.
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