MLB: Assessing Red Sox Offseason Moves — Part II (SS + DH)
Last week, I published the first in a series of posts examining how the Boston Red Sox addressed 2022–23 offseason needs I originally outlined in the fall. That post covered the first two areas I wrote about: a Rafael Devers extension and outfield needs.
Today, I’m looking at the next two areas I wrote about: the free agency of their SS and DH — two franchise stalwarts, popular players and key cogs of the 2018 World Series championship team.
As a reminder, I compiled all of those offseason outlook posts from the fall in this Offseason Primer post I put up after the World Series.
In both my original post and the Offseason Primer, I stated my preference: I wanted Xander Bogaerts back on the Red Sox in 2023 and beyond. Of all the options, he was the most known quantity, he was clearly comfortable here and the entire franchise loved him.
However, I was also clear there was a great deal of “buyer beware” when it came to how Bogaerts, now 30, had performed the previous three seasons, and what that likely meant for his future. His average exit velo had steadily declined from the 76th percentile among all MLB hitters in 2019 to 35th percentile in 2022. His HardHit% similarly dropped from 78th percentile to 47th percentile over the same stretch. This downward pattern is pretty consistent across most of his advanced hitting metrics.
Yes, Bogaerts did compete for the batting title most of the year and finished at .307, good for third in the AL. But when you couple those concerning hard-hit numbers with the fact his expected BA was just .259, it’s fair to question how much of that was luck.
Defensively, Bogaerts put up one of his best performances in years at SS, finishing at 5 Outs Above Average, good for 88th percentile among all MLB fielders. He made the plays he needed to make more often than not, and that matters. However, much of those good numbers could attributed to both the team’s very strong ability to correctly position defenders, and that much of Bogaerts’ performance came from plays made to the right of 2B — plays he can no longer at SS due to new shifting rules.
I was also pessimistic about the Sox ever meeting whatever contract demands were set by Bogaerts and his agent Scott Boras. I have as much or as little information on this as anyone else, but I’ll never believe Bogaerts would’ve passed on exploring his market after 2022 unless the Red Sox ponied up a contract similar to what he eventually got from San Diego.
It’s still not clear what the team’s 2022 spring training offer actually was to Bogaerts. It’s become common belief the Sox tacked an extra year at $30M on top of the three years and $60M he was owned from 2023 through 2025 had he chosen to opt in to those years.
Yet in December, Jon Heyman dropped a piece of news that has mostly flown under the radar since: the Sox spring offer appears to have actually been $120M and not $90M.
Now, we know from ESPN that Bogaerts and Boras’s demands were much higher than this — they wanted similar to what Carlos Correa, Corey Seager and Francisco Lindor had made, in the $34M AAV range for eight-to-10 years. That $120M offer wasn’t going to cut it no matter what.
However, much has been made that the Red Sox allegedly valued Bogaerts less than Trevor Story, who had just gotten a 6-year, $140M deal from the club when these negotiations were happening. Given Bogaerts was about to make $20M in 2022, a 5-year, $120M guarantee on top of that would’ve at least meant he was making the same money for the same years as Story.
This flies in the face of the after-the-fact reporting that Bogaerts would’ve accepted something similar to Story’s deal, since it appears at least according to Heyman that’s actually what was offered.
In any case, Bogaerts had the right to go to free agency, a right he’d already eschewed once in 2019. He exercised that right in 2022, and from what we know the team’s last offer to him was in the 6-year, $162M range, which seemed like a fair number. I’d have been fine tacking on another year and $30M-$35M on the overall deal (basically a bit more than the 7-year, $175M deal that Dansby Swanson got from the Cubs) to get it done.
But, the San Diego Padres had other plans. They inked Bogaerts to a mind-boggling 11-year, $280M contract, one that Bogaerts would’ve been silly to turn down regardless of how much he loved playing in Boston. I wrote here all about the deal, and the immediate impact to the Red Sox offseason and beyond, right after it went down.
Given the Padres’ current team, who they were competing against for Bogaerts, who Bogaerts is on the field right now, and the fact they’re about to grapple with free agency for better players in Manny Machado and Juan Soto over the next two offseasons, the Bogaerts deal is already looking bad before he’s even played a game in San Diego. On a recent SoxProspects.com podcast, Ian Cundall had this to say (about 9:30 in):
“I’ve talked to people in baseball. [The Bogaerts contract] is laughed at. People around the game think it’s one of the most ludicrous things ever…it’s not a good baseball contract and I’m not going to blame the Red Sox for not matching it.”
This gets to a broader point about the overall offseason. Chaim Bloom and Red Sox brass made a big public show starting in October of saying how much they loved Bogaerts and that signing him back was their top offseason priority. The club now seems to acknowledge that posture was a mistake, and I’m inclined to agree. They likely did not see another team coming that much over the top of a reasonable offer for someone of Bogaerts’ age and current talents, but anything can happen when a player gets to free agency.
Recriminations on Bogaerts signing elsewhere have been loud and consistent all winter, right up to team officials getting booed at Winter Weekend in January. Despite locking up their actual best player to a huge contract in the same offseason, the loss of Bogaerts stings and has hung over most public discourse about the team this winter. It reared up again yesterday with the initial images of Bogaerts hitting in Padres garb.
I get the sadness about Bogaerts leaving. He was a great player and franchise leader for years. It’s genuinely weird to see him in another uniform. I can identify with younger fans who grew up with Bogaerts as their guy. Trust me when I say 12-year-old Jake was despondent for weeks about Mo Vaughn signing with the Angels after the 1998 season. It’s emotionally difficult to see players you love go.
While not re-signing Bogaerts has had ripple effects on other Sox offseason moves, I have a hard time buying into the narrative that decision alone was catastrophic for the overall offseason — other than some bad PR.
I’ve heard many people — including objective observers of the club I respect — say the Red Sox had a poor (or an outright failed) offseason because they didn’t accomplish their stated #1 priority of re-signing Bogaerts AND — in the same breath — say the team was also correct in not matching or exceeding the San Diego contract.
I feel like only one of those things can be true.
To me, it’s the latter, and it’s not particularly close. Tying the failure to re-sign Bogaerts this offseason to stuff that happened in previous offseasons, or the fact the Sox didn’t go out and get a high-profile middle infield replacement for Bogaerts, feels like goalpost-moving when evaluating everything since October. The number Bogaerts signed for ended up being his market — you either wanted Bogaerts back at that number or you didn’t — that’s the reality. I’m happy Bogaerts got paid, and I’m equally happy the team I root for didn’t commit 11 years to him.
Now, with Bogaerts out the door, the Sox could’ve gone hard after either Swanson or Correa. It doesn’t seem like either of those things happened, as much as I would’ve liked signing Correa. Once the free agent market dried up, Story seemed likely to shift to SS while the club explored trades for 2B or CF, with Kiké Hernandez’s flexibility providing more options.
Then, Story underwent surgery on his right elbow, a procedure likely to sideline him through the All-Star break if not longer. In my last post I wrote about how that precipitated signing Adam Duvall to replace Story’s bat, fill a hole in CF and allow Hernandez to move to the dirt.
That also led to the only move so far this offseason to add a bonafide MLB middle infielder to the 40-man roster: on Jan. 24 the Sox acquired longtime Kansas City SS Adalberto Mondesi and a PTBNL or cash in exchange for Josh Taylor. Mondesi, who has just a year and a $3M salary remaining before hitting free agency next winter, is a superb defender at SS who can swipe bags and hit for occasional power from both sides at his best.
There are two big problems with Mondesi: first, his plate discipline has always been terrible, with a 30.2% K rate and 4.4% BB rate for his career. The second is he can barely stay on the field, appearing in just 50 games over the last two seasons. He tore his ACL last April and is still rehabbing from surgery — Bloom said his Opening Day status remains up in the air.
ACL surgery will hopefully not dull Mondesi’s elite speed. Mondesi has 60 SBs per 162 games in his career — a figure that would’ve led both leagues in SBs each of the last five years.
Given his defensive prowess, and his ability to hit from both sides in a lineup dominated by lefties, I expect Mondesi to play a lot of SS, even with Hernandez likely in the everyday role. He could be a late defensive replacement with Hernandez moving to CF at times. We could also see the Sox take advantage of Mondesi’s athleticism and use him all over the diamond, including at 2B, 3B and even OF. Either way, I like the trade because of his upside and the fact he will be motivated to perform with free agency looming. He’s by no means a star, but he fills a need.
Hernandez should be the Opening Day SS. He’s always viewed himself as a SS and seems more than game for the challenge.
Christian Arroyo seems penciled in as the starting 2B with Mondesi working his way back. Arroyo can play some SS too. They’ll be bringing Niko Goodrum into camp, but he’s not much of a SS.
Adding another middle infielder to at least compete for playing time in spring training feels like a priority as the clock ticks down on the offseason. Elvis Andrus and Jose Iglesias are still out there and might be had on minor league deals. The trade rout is also still there, although you figure the Sox exhausted options like Ha-Seong Kim or Joey Wendle before settling on Mondesi.
There’s no question the Sox are in a worse position with their shortstop mix, and overall middle infield mix, than they were to end last season. But upgrades at other positions, and a return to health for others, should help make up for those losses. They’ll need some luck, and I would love for a splashy trade to bring in someone like Kim if the price were right, but losing Bogaerts doesn’t seem remotely cataclysmic now as it may have a few months ago.
I just spent a lot of time on SS , so I’m not going to spend as much on DH. I also wrote a bunch when the Sox settled their DH situation by signing longtime Dodgers stalwart Justin Turner to a one-year deal with a second-year player option.
J.D. Martinez easily goes down as the second-best big money free agent signing in Red Sox history behind only Manny Ramirez. He was the previously-missing piece in the lineup that helped propel the 2018 team to a title. He had a knack for big moments and he’s a hitting savant.
Yet, it was obvious even during the season the odds of Martinez returning were slim. Similar to Bogaerts, there was a concerning power drop-off for Martinez in 2022. His 90th percentile figures for average exit velo and HardHit% in 2021 fell to 51st and 60th, respectively, in 2022. These are red flags for someone who turned 35 in August.
Additionally, Martinez did not play an inning in the field in 2022. For a team that committed big years and dollars to players like Devers and Story, maintaining flexibility to DH those guys when needed and not lose too much in the lineup was critical.
That’s what they’re getting in Turner, who despite being three years older than Martinez can still play in the field. Turner has played mostly 3B in his career, but he should DH most days and play 1B to give Triston Casas a breather possibly against some LHPs or if he experiences rookie struggles. I have to imagine Turner will still play some 3B to give Devers a chance to get off his feet.
Offensively, Turner does a lot of similar things to Martinez in the power department, but one area he’s much better is making contact. Turner finished 2022 in the 78th percentile in K% and 77th in whiff%, while Martinez was down in the 29th and 17th percentile in those respective categories. Turner should also benefit from the short porch in LF at Fenway where many of his fly balls died at Dodger Stadium.
Turner was also a much better hitter in the 2nd half of 2022, slashing .340/.412/.515 after June 30. Martinez, by contrast, slashed .237/.299/.402 over the same stretch.
We shouldn’t expect Turner to be the guy he was in 2016 and 2017 when he finished in the top 10 in NL MVP voting each year, but he’ll do more things this current iteration of the Red Sox values compared to Martinez or other similar options.
Turner was heavily recruited to Boston by his former teammate Hernandez. With so much clubhouse turnover for 2023, a guy like Turner who not only has a level of comfort with many former Dodgers teammates currently on the Red Sox, but also has a longtime reputation as a leader and tone-setter, was a critical add.
Here’s what Clayton Kershaw had to say about what it’s like to have Turner on your baseball team:
I have a feeling Turner is going to do just fine here.
Next time, I’ll look at the team’s approach to starting pitcing this winter.
