This is one stretch of a contract…even for baseball. The San Diego Padres have shocked the baseball world as they have snatched up former Red Sox SS Xander Bogaerts on a $280M deal…for the next 11 years!
This is a mindboggling decision by the Padres. Not only do they already have an All-Star shortstop and one of the best hitters in baseball in Fernando Tatis Jr., but they also have just given the longest contract to a player over 30 in baseball history.
Yes, this contract is officially the longest contract to a player over 30 in baseball history…and it’s being given to a shortstop that’s heading to a team with arguable a better shortstop (hitting wise) already in place. Okay, I may be a little biased as I am a Red Sox fan and Bogaerts is now an ex-Red Sox player, but I really don’t get what the Padres are trying to do with hosting two of the best shortstops in baseball.
Are they trying to annoy Tatis Jr. with this signing? Are they that upset over his PED suspension?
Alright, I’ll be a little more serious when I say that it’s likely the Padres will move Tatis Jr. into the outfield and put Bogarts in his natural shortstop position. Bogaerts is definitely the better defender of the two as he was again nominated for the Gold Glove award, he made the All-MLB team, and he won the Silver Slugger Award, which is a lot more than Tatis Jr. did this past season sitting on his couch with his ringworm cream.
Okay, that was a low blow, but this move does make the Padres a much better team as they now have the defensive qualities of one of the best shortstops in the league to make it back to the NLCS. We already saw last season that the Padres could defeat their archrivals and divisional rivals, the LA Dodgers, in an upset playoff series, though now they have to prove they can dominate LA as well.
In order to make this Bogarts deal worth the $280M they’ll be paying over the next 11 years (which is still crazy), the Padres must now step out of LA’s shadow and become the dominate team in the NL West. With both Tatis Jr. and Bogaerts coming into their lineup that already boasts of Manny Machado and Juan Soto, the Padres have the best chance in at least 20 years to finally make it back to the World Series and win the franchises’ first title.
But if the Padres can’t supplant the Dodgers and the rest of the NL over the next 3-5 years, then this Bogaerts deal will look horrific as they’ll be paying the shortstop until he’s 41-years-old.
And, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to pay a 41-year-old in a position that requires superior athleticism. That’s not a great combination.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Wikipedia Creative Commons License/Author: Keith Allison) (Keith Allison from Hanover, MD, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
