Much-Hyped Red Sox Prospect Xander Bogaerts Didn’t Impress

Image Credit: Associated Press

The much-hyped prospect Xander Bogaerts made his debut with the Red Sox Tuesday night and, surprise surprise, did not quite meet the outsized expectations put on his shoulders.

Cough, wetoldyoutocalmdownbutyouwouldn’tlisten, cough. Hm, did someone hear a really smug-sounding fly just now?

As BostInno recounts, Boegarts, who has been hailed as the next big [insert any hyperbolic comparison you like here], began the night by rather endearingly putting on his warmup shirt backwards, then less endearingly went 0 for 3, stranding five runners on base, and contributing to a 3-2 loss. He then had to suffer through the ignominy of seeing #TradeXander trend on Twitter.

Good job twitter! #TradeXander

— James Stewart (@JamesStewart81) August 21, 2013

(And lest you think he’s a little too busy to follow social media BS, note the quote he gave Dan Shaugnessy yesterday: “It’s tough, especially when you have Twitter and Facebook,’’ he said. “They post everything on your wall. I can’t lie. You definitely see things on your wall, but you try not to think about it. You try to block it out as much as possible.’’ Poor dude.)

As our own Damon Hatheway wrote earlier this month, the problem with hyping an untested prospect is that we focus on the best case scenarios the player offers, ignoring the many historical examples when scouting report didn’t pan out. Wait and see, we said. But did anyone listen? Does anyone ever listen?! Hm? Oh, several people actually offered cautionary words about Boegarts before his debut? Words like “don’t be surprised if he struggles at first…”? Well, then. Just ignore us …

Of course, we’d probably offer the same cautioning words to anyone who actually tweeted “#TradeXander” in earnestness last night on the basis of one probably nerve-wracked outing. Might it be that with baseball, as with so many things these days, the instant news cycle doesn’t allow enough time for reasoning and reflection? #TradeTwitter. That’s what we say. #TradeTwitter.