If Trea Turner Is A $300 Million Shortstop, How Will The Market For Xander Bogaerts Evolve?

Besides the frenzy for Aaron Judge either returning to the Yankees or going elsewhere, the other thing to watch is how the shortstop market continues to unfold.

The first day of the transaction festival known as the winter meetings in San Diego saw Trea Turner sign to an 11-year, $300 million deal with the Philadelphia Phillies led by Dave Dombrowski who does not seem to mess around when he really wants to acquire someone in free agency or a trade.

The three remaining prominent shortstops in free agency are Xander Bogaerts, Carlos Correa and Dansby Swanson.

And with Turner getting the second-biggest contract for a shortstop, it is only natural to wonder what Bogaerts is worth in free agency.

Of the biggest 25 contracts in baseball history and counting players who re-signed with their teams before reaching free agency, three belong to shortstops or players who were shortstops at the time.

Over a year after Derek Jeter signed his $189 million extension, Alex Rodriguez bolted Seattle for a $252 million deal with Texas where he played three losing seasons before getting traded to the Yankees and playing four more seasons under the original deal before opting out after 2007.

Next was Francisco Lindor getting a $341 million, 10-year extension by the Mets about three months after acquiring him in Jan. 2021 a blockbuster trade from Cleveland, which did quite well in the return package of Andres Gimenez and Amed Rosario.

Then last year, the Rangers began their free spending again by landing Corey Seager for $325 million and 10 years.

It was about 30 years when most shortstops were there for their gloves and strong range ratings in Strat-O-Matic and whatever their bat did was a bonus. Of any team who won a World Series title in the 1980s, the best offensive performances by regular shortstops were Cal Ripken Jr. hitting .318 with 27 homers and 102 RBIs with a .970 fielding percentage for the 1983 Baltimore Orioles and Alan Trammell hitting .314 with 14 homers and 69 RBIs along with a .980 fielding percentage for the 1984 Detroit Tigers.

The next highest average by a championship shortstop in the 1980s was Larry Bowa hitting .267 for the 1980 Phillies and the only other championship shortstop in the decade to reach double-digit homers was Greg Gagne for the 1987 Twins.

The combined earnings of Ripken Jr., Trammell and Gagne are approximately $107 million. Heading into free agency for the first time, Bogaerts has been paid roughly $85 million with $72 million of it coming since 2018 and heading into the free agency process, Bogaerts is a career .292 hitter with four seasons of over .300.

By comparison Turner is a .298 hitter with three seasons of over .300, including his batting title in 2021 which was split between the Nationals and Dodgers.

Bogaerts is about five months younger than Judge, though his MLB debut occurred when Judge was completing his first season in the minors in 2013. He is about eight months older than Turner, who was still at North Carolina State when Bogaerts debuted for the 97-win Red Sox and their third of four championship teams since 2004.

Both possess similar pedigrees and it is close when determining who the better player is, though Turner wins the speed edge which likely helped him get a contract starting with a three.

But after Monday the bar has been set for shortstops and while Bogaerts may not exceed the Turner contract, it certainly may get discussed in any negotiations his representatives engage with teams including the Red Sox.

As of now, the Red Sox are hopeful though maybe the expectation of them retaining their dynamic shortstop is not as high as the public expectation the Yankee will re-sign Judge. The low expectations may be based on the Boston Globe saying the Red Sox have yet to make a “competitive offer” to Bogaerts while the Yankees are reportedly in the $300 million range in their early talks with Judge, who was seen in Tampa watching a dull NFL game between the Saints and Buccaneers on Monday.

“We are not getting to the point where we’re closing the door on Xander,” Boston Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom told reporters in San Diego. “That’s not something we want to envision.”

To make the vision of retaining a reality, a proposal likely will need to be in the high $200 million range and perhaps even at or beyond $300 million, a fact that front offices are coming to grips with.

“We knew this was going to be a robust market and we expected that. It has been,” Bloom told reporters. “Nothing about that has surprised us. This is what free agency is about. Talent is going to get paid.”

And these days that includes shortstops not only for their gloves, but for their robust hitting abilities.