Why Xander Bogaerts Could be the Next Face of the MLB

Xander Bogaerts, known by many because of his heroics in the 2013 MLB Postseason. But before that, Xander was known by prospect gurus, such as me, as the kid with the big bright future. Xander has been the Red Sox' top prospect for 3 years now, and this year, his stock couldn't be better. He is a consensus Top 10 prospect, going to #2 in all of baseball on many lists. Xander has become a staple of the Sox' farm system, and is widely said to be a perennial All-Star.

Now to the point. The MLB has many notable faces of it. The biggest was probably Babe Ruth. Right now, the MLB has about 3 people you can call "faces". Now before I get into that, let me give you my definition of face:

Face- (noun), Someone who is widely known by the sport, and is considered the ambassador of the sport. You can ask someone who doesn't watch the sport, and they can name that player. Example: Tom Brady is one of the faces of the NFL.

So here is the 3 people that are considered faces of the MLB. Derek Jeter, Miguel Cabrera, and David Ortiz (if your wondering why Trout isn't there, he hasn't gained attention of non-baseball fans like the three listed yet). All of those guys deserve to be up there. But with that, all of them are 30 or more, and 2 are 2 years shy of 40. So the older generations are slimming down, we need a new core. That is currently led by Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, and Stephen Strasburg. But there is a slew of young prospects that can also take over Jeter, Miggy, and Papi's roles. Buxton, Bogaerts, Sano, and Tavares can also be added to the possibility list.

But Bogaerts is currently a standout. He already has the attention of some that are not Sox fans, some that are not baseball fans. He's done this rather quickly, almost Mike Trout-like. His 11 hits, 2 doubles, 1 homer, and 5 RBIs went a long way as far as popularity. He has even already got a big-boy number (2) from the Sox. His #2 is aka Ellsbury's old number. So far, Sox fans are fine with that. But what Xander currently holds that Trout, or any of the prospects listed doesn't, is the fact his team already is very known by the nation, and even the world. The Boston Red Sox are one of the biggest franchises ever, and if you look in past faces of MLB, most came from the Red Sox or the Yankees (Babe, Joe Dimaggio, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, etc.).

Regardless of his possibility of becoming the MLBs face, he will become one of the Red Sox' faces, and will most likely be the next Hanley Ramirez that stays with the Sox. So with that, I end this blog. One of the many blogs I will try to get out this year. This was a biased blog, but I will be doing more, unbiased ones.