Padres and shortstop Xander Bogaerts agree to 11-year, $280 million deal
Unable to lure Trea Turner from the East Coast and thwarted their attempts to nab Aaron Judge from the New York Yankees, the San Diego Padres dug deep and assured baseball’s winter meetings wouldn’t pack their bags. and wouldn’t leave town without them stealing the headlines – and another team’s centerpiece.
The Padres, already with two shortstops and a pair of $300 million men on the roster, threw conventional wisdom on the winds of Mission Valley and agreed to an 11-year, $280 million contract with the Boston Red Sox cornerstone Xander Bogaerts before the clock struck midnight on the West Coast Wednesday.
Bogaerts, 30, will receive a full no-trade clause from the Padres, according to a baseball official with direct knowledge of the deal. The person spoke to USA TODAY Sports on condition of anonymity because the deal has not yet been finalized.
It was a bi-coastal stunner, partly because the Padres already have shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. — signed through 2034 on a $340 million deal but after two surgeries and a PED suspension — and Ha-Seong Kim on the list. Oh, and third baseman Manny Machado signed a 10-year, $300 million contract.
And it was perhaps an even more stunning event in Boston, where Bogaerts opted out of his six-year, $120 million contract with the Red Sox after the 2022 season and was considered at least partly internally and certainly in external as a kingpin of the Red Sox. To keep.
Momentum seemed to be building in that direction on Wednesday, when the Red Sox met Bogaerts and meanwhile increased their core by signing closer Kenley Jansen and Japanese outfielder Masataka Yoshida to deals totaling $136 million in investments. .
But the Padres, as they did with Turner and Judge, swung last – and this time, connected.
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He’ll join what you almost have to call a super team, with MVP runner-up Machado joined by trade deadline acquisition Juan Soto and finally bolstered by Tatis, who is due to serve the final 20 games of his suspension at the start of the season. 2023 season.
While those stars will cost a fair amount in 2023 — around $85 million for all four — it protects the Padres against future defections. Machado can opt out of his contract after next season, and Soto can – and likely will – become a free agent after 2024.
These are issues the Red Sox need not worry about, not after attempts to re-sign Bogaerts seriously flirted with the realities of the modern market.
Bogaerts has finished with no worse than a .285 GAA and a 125 OPS+ in each of the last five seasons. The only other player to accomplish this feat is Dodgers All-Star Freddie Freeman.
In 2022, he set a franchise record for career games played and starts at shortstop. He finished the season with 171 hits and finished third in the American League batting title race with a .307 average. He also led AL shortstops in FanGraphs WAR (6.0) and all major league shortstops in average (.305) and OBP (.376).
Perhaps most notably, he’s been with the Red Sox since he was a teenager, easing into the shortstop role as a 20-year-old rookie on their 2013 World Series-winning team and winning another title in 2018.
A season later, new general manager Chaim Bloom traded Mookie Betts from that club. Now Bogaerts is also gone, likely replaced by Trevor Story, who signed a six-year, $140 million contract just after the March lockdown ended.
Bogaerts was one of four marquee free agent shortstops on the market this winter. Turner has agreed to an 11-year, $300 million contract with the Philadelphia Phillies. Carlos Correa and Dansby Swanson are still free agents.
Contributor: Scott Boeck
USA Today
