Back to Earth in July, Was Xander Bogaerts' Strong June Anything More Than Luck?

[Randy Holt]

Wherever they may be, it's clear that the baseball gods have chosen not to favor the San Diego Padres since the middle of May. After a blazing start to the year, they finished that month 13-13 before turning in a 13-15 June. As of this writing, they're off to a 4-3 start in July. It's been a good deal of middling baseball wrought by a shallow lineup more than anything, leaving the Padres fading in the division and currently on the outside of the Wild Card picture in the National League. 

Given where the problems this year have tended to find their origin, it's probably not surprising to find Xander Bogaerts central to most discussions about this team. The phrases have been bandied about include things like "sunk cost" and — for the more optimistic in the fanbase — "salary dump." Not ideal for a player in the third year of an 11-year pact. Indeed, a great deal of ink has been spilt surrounding Bogaerts' 2025 and the fear over what the remainder of his deal could look like. 

Considering such pessimism, it might surprise to find that Bogaerts actually had quite a good month of June. It was lost in the midst of .500 baseball, but there was a steady performer lining up at the six for San Diego last month: 

By both wOBA and wRC+, Bogaerts was actually the team's best hitter last month. He also led the team in average, trailed only Fernando Tatis Jr. in on-base percentage, and struck out at a rate that was higher than only Luis Arráez. Mixed in that month was a stretch of five consecutive at-bats with a hit and five multi-hit games overall. His power remained modest, but that's likely going to have to be a reality with which the Padres deal with moving forward. If he's proving a fixture on base, though, he's already proven to be adept at contributing in other ways.

But, in observing such vast improvement from the first two months of the year, should we put any stock into what Bogaerts did in June? Especially considering that his July is already off to start of a much lower tier? In attempting to break with what I'm coining "The Great Padres Pessimism of Summer 2025", the answer is a resounding... maybe. 

The simplest observation to make about Bogaerts' June is that he swung the bat more. His 41.7 percent swing rate was his highest in an individual month through that point. What was impressive was that he upped the chase (23.0 percent) but didn't lose anything on the contact end (only a two point rise in Whiff%). For Bogaerts, the result of increased aggression was simply more balls in play: 

An obvious byproduct of that is that he didn't walk as much. But, he also struck out at easily his lowest rate of the season in a given month. That seems like an acceptable trade-off for a team that needs offensive creation to come from somewhere outside of the top guys in the lineup. Especially with someone possessing the awareness of the zone that Bogaerts has demonstrated in 2025. 

At the same time, there's a (potentially) intense caveat within this. Pitchers approached Bogaerts entirely different than they had in either of the first two months: 

Bogaerts received a near-ten-percent bump in the amount of fastballs he saw in May, which was already an increase in what he'd seen in March & April. For many hitters, the prospect of seeing that many fastballs and gaining an uptick in performance isn't something you want to see. It would read as more mirage than reality as pitchers would simply adjust again the following month. Instead, it looks as if the increased swing rate was due to the increase in fastballs but not the increased performance. 

That's an important distinction. Bogaerts wasn't doing his best work against fastballs; his higher hard hit rate still came against off-speed and breaking pitches. But he was able to become more aggressive as a result of simply seeing more fastballs, allowing for an overall swing increase. The contact ability has remained through these struggles, so it stands to reason that his contact ability deserves more credit for turning in a strong month than anything coming out of the pitcher's hand. 

It's not as if there was some absurd average on balls in play to emerge from it, either. His .310 BABIP remained an entirely reasonable figure. If anything, we're seeing this increased aggression from Bogaerts continue in July. It's just manifesting in a different area of the BABIP spectrum. 

Bogaerts' Swing% through his first few games in June is 42.9. That's about a one percent increase from June (which was a three percent increase from May). There's been a bit more whiff but the expected metrics really like what he's doing thus far: 

The results haven't been there quite yet, but the expected average (.314) and expected slug (.432) are among his best. While there are likely more intricacies occurring underneath the surface, there's plenty of evidence pointing us in the direction of a more aggressive Xander Bogaerts being a more effective Xander Bogaerts. 

Of course, we'll need a larger sample in July before coming to any firm conclusions on it. Many of the numbers don't look great so far (.289 wOBA, for example), but it doesn't seem as if June was entirely luck. Bogaerts has enough control of the strike zone that he can afford to be more aggressive in order to create offense. If the trends in June are any indication, he could spend the remainder of the summer proving just that.

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