“Yeah, he hit for average, but he can be a lot better baserunning, defensively,” Cora said. “He’s getting to that area in his career that’s, ‘Who is he gonna be?’ We talked about this with (Andrew Benintendi) a few years ago, right? You see the player he has become. (Benintendi) has become a better defender, a good hitter. I think Verdugo has the chance to hit for power, hit for average, but he can impact the game running the bases and playing defense.”
Verdugo has split his season between left field and right field but the numbers have not been encouraging in either spot. He ranks in the 12th percentile of all defenders in outs above average and in the 40th percentile in outfielder jump. His sprint speed, which averaged 27.5 ft/s in 2020 and 27 ft/s in 2021, is down to an average of 26.8 ft/s in 2022. By all metrics, the 26-year-old has been slower this year than in the past.
Cora noted that
Verdugo spent much of the early part of the season banged up after fouling a ball off himself but also was heavier than in recent years. The Red Sox list him at 6-feet, 192 lbs. Cora said Verdugo tried to add some mass in order to hit for more power this season.
“He put on some weight, not in a bad way, but he got bigger, kind of like in the same narrative that happened with (Benintendi) in 2019,” Cora said. “Get bigger to hit for extra-base hits. In that sense, it cost him other aspects of the game.”