New Padre Xander Bogaerts’ Bat Sure Is Going To Miss Fenway Park

In the last impact move of the 2022 Winter Meetings, the San Diego Padres signed former Red Sox’ shortstop Xander Bogaerts to an 11-year, $280M contract that will last through his age 40 season. The Padres made ultimately unsuccessful late charges for both Trea Turner and Aaron Judge earlier in the week, but landed the big fish this time.

The Padres continue to implement their place-shortstops-all-over-the-field strategy – nearly half of their everyday lineup will now be comprised by current or future major league shortstops in Bogaerts, Manny Machado, Ha-Seong Kim and Fernando Tatis Jr.. This tends to be an effective approach, even if you have to commit about a billion dollars in the process.

And for the Red Sox and their fans, this is a bitter pill. First with the trade of franchise cornerstone Mookie Betts and now with the loss of Bogaerts, a one-time championship club is being dismantled ahead of its time. With the clock ticking until remaining star Rafael Devers’ free agency, the end of an era appears nigh.

But let’s turn our focus to the efficacy of this contract for the Padres. If you’ve read my recent work here, you know that I was braced for some overly pricey contracts to be extended to this year’s historic class of free agent shortstops. Bogaerts and Trea Turner have now found new homes, while Carlos Correa and Dansby Swanson are still looking. Though I do think the Phillies overpaid for Turner, they did land a presently well above average player at a premium position, and extended the term to lower the AAV above the level projected to be demanded by the player. The last few years could get ugly, but the club is betting on a World Series title between years 1 and 4 of the deal.

I’m even less sanguine about the Bogaerts deal. Yes, they also signed their target to an 11-year deal, but there’s no AAV discount here. Let’s deal with the obvious stuff first. Bogaerts is a career .292-.356-.468 hitter. At Fenway Park, he’s hit .312-.375-.497. On the road, he’s hit .271-.338-.420. Fenway, largely because of the Green Monster in left field, dramatically inflates batting average, with a particularly pronounced effect on singles and doubles. In virtually the same number of at bats, Bogaerts has hit 22 more doubles and 22 more homers at Fenway than on the road.

He is now moving to a much more pitcher-friendly home park, Petco Park. It has exhibited some weird periodic swings in run environment, likely due to marine layer fluctuations, but more often than not, Petco is much less friendly to hitters than Fenway.

Of even more concern, however, is Bogaerts’ batted ball profile. In only one season has he hit his fly balls materially harder than (by a half standard deviation or more) league average, and that was in the COVID-19 pandemic-shortened 2020 season. And in 2022, for the first time his average fly ball exit speed was materially under league average. Not a good trend there.

Now none of this to say that Bogaerts is not a good ballplayer or that he will not age well. His average liner and grounder exit speeds have periodically been well above league average (the former was over a full standard deviation above average in 2018 and 2020, the latter one above in 2016 and 2018, over a half above in 2017 and 2019), and those traits age well. Thing is, neither of those have been above average since 2020, so the trend isn’t positive there either.

There is plenty to like. He’s a shortstop, and a solid if not spectacular defender there. There is no evidence that he’s going away anytime soon – his K/BB profile, especially on the K side, is decent, plus there’s the aforementioned tendency to hit the ball hard on a line and on the ground. He generally sprays the ball around on the ground, another tendency that correlates well with a good batting average.

But he’s not a great player, and he’s now being paid like one – through his age 40 season. His best “Tru” Production+ (my batted ball-based proxy for wRC+) marks have been 128, 124 and 123 in 2018, 2019 and 2021, respectively. His “Tru” Production+ has lagged his wRC+ every year, often by a wide margin, and unlike Turner, there’s no real speed factor at play here. He has consistently been helped in the wRC+ department by Fenway, by more than any publicly available park factor adjustment has estimated.

In 2022, his “Tru” Production+ of 108 lagged his Fangraphs wRC+ of 134, almost exactly matching the 2020 disparity of 107 vs. 134. The Padres may have just committed $280M to an offense-first player who will never hit 20 homers in a season for them. And while, sure, he could raise his fly ball rate significantly and hit more homers, the damage he’d to do his batting average in the process might more than offset it. He just doesn’t hit his fly balls very hard.

So get used to Xander Bogaerts in the San Diego Padres lineup. He has no opt-out clause, and does have a no-trade clause in his contract. He’ll be around a while, and while he will never embarrass himself, he likely won’t be posting the type of numbers normally associated with $280M contracts.