SIR XANDER ENTERS NEW DOMAIN
Newest Padres star brings big bat, title chops to San Diego
Xander Bogaerts has two rings and a title.
Protocol suggests that when he is in Aruba, he is to be addressed as “Sir Xander.”
The Padres’ new shortstop, inarguably the best baseball player ever from Aruba, holds the title of Knighthood in the Order of Orange-Nassau, as bestowed on him by the island country’s governor.
“I don’t make people call me that,” he said.
The Padres signed Bogaerts to an 11-year, $280 million contract primarily because of what he does at the plate but also because he is supposed to be a prince of a human being, plus one with the experience of having won two World Series with the Red Sox.
“That’s something that you know just watching his time in Boston how much of a leader he is,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said. “Not only from a coaching perspective, but players as well. And I got plenty of messages about how this is a real guy in the clubhouse and on the field as far as leadership goes, and you can’t have too many of those guys.”
The Padres got Bogaerts to be one of those guys and possibly the guy.
The only two shortstops in history to have a higher OPS than Bogaerts’ .814 mark through their age-29 seasons were Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter. Bogaerts’ 19.8 offensive WAR since 2019 is second highest in the majors in that span. Over those four seasons, Bogaerts is tied for sixth in the majors with a .304 batting average. And his 134 wRCplus (weighted runs created plus, a metric that purports to measure and standardize a player’s offensive value) ranks first among shortstops and is 12th overall in that time.
He would have joined most teams this offseason and been the talk of spring training.
Yet here, Bogaerts is perceived from the outside as practically an add-on.
Manny Machado has assumed the mantle of most popular Padres player in San Diego for having done much of the carrying of the team to its two playoff appearances in the past three years. Fernando Tatis Jr. remains an idol for his talent and flair. Juan Soto is the only player with a higher oWAR (20.8) since 2019 than Bogaerts and is on track to do things few in the game have done.
Whatever the perception, wherever his standing in what Melvin has called “The First Four,” because they will be atop the batting once Tatis returns from suspension on April 20, Bogaerts was brought in to play a significant role.
Padres President of Baseball Operations A.J. Preller said the team zeroed in on Bogaerts because they were “looking for that right fit, that right piece to get us over the top.”
San Diego is a place Bogaerts long envisioned as an ideal home, having played in his first All-Star game at Petco Park and having enjoyed the experience and noted the climate compared to Aruba. But he didn’t anticipate the Padres would be interested.
He figured that chance had passed in 2019, when Tatis arrived in the majors playing shortstop and immediately became one of baseball’s brightest stars.
It was on the same day Tatis made his debut, in fact, that Bogaerts decided to stay in Boston a bit longer.
If you wonder what kind of person Bogaerts is or how important being good is to him, he was even available to the Padres this winter only because of a decision he made in 2019, a year before he was supposed to hit free agency as a 27-year-old.
He just didn’t think he was good enough yet. He loved working with Red Sox hitting coach Tim Hyers, a former Padres first baseman who is now with the Rangers. Bogaerts didn’t think their work together was complete.
“Maybe I would have cost myself,” recalled Bogaerts, who was coming off a season in which he hit .288 with a .883 OPS and the Red Sox won the World Series. “But I felt like with the coaching that we had, I had a lot more to untap. I’m talking more offensively. I love defense, but if you want to become elite, or one of the best, you have to hit your way to become that.”
So he called his agent from the Red Sox hotel in Seattle after the 2019 season’s first game and told him he wanted to agree to a contract extension with the Red Sox.
Scott Boras, who generally takes clients like Bogaerts to free agency, felt obligated to tell Bogaerts he was risking a lot of money and to suggest they secure the ability to opt out of the deal.
Three days later, a sixyear, $120 million contract extension was announced. It gave Bogaerts the opportunity to leave after 2022.
“At that point, I was still a little unsure of the type of player that I am,” Bogaerts said a few weeks ago. “I wasn’t fully confident in my abilities. I knew I was a pretty good player, but I didn’t know I would have become what I am now. I just felt deep down and inside of me that I still had more potential and more on tap. I was just so comfortable with the coaches that I had and obviously a lot of familiarity with the players — winning it all in ’18 and feeling like there’s a good chance that you can go on a nice run as a team together that also was a big factor. Big time, because we had a group that there was a chance that we could have stayed together for a pretty good time. We had so many guys. It kind of felt like it was something special that was starting to grow.”
One of the key members of that group, Mookie Betts, was traded after the ’19 season. Another, Andrew Benintendi, was traded the next offseason.
The Red Sox did not go to the playoffs in ’19 or ’20 before losing in the American League Championship Series in ’21. They finished 7884 and in last place in the AL East in ’22.
Having been arguably the top offensive shortstop in the majors over the course of the first four seasons of his contract, there was virtually no question Bogaerts would opt out this past offseason. He and the Red Sox expressed a desire to stay together, but his former team did not come close to a handful of other offers.
The Padres’ offer was the highest. And the most shocking, for more than the fact the total value made it the 12th largest ever.
The Padres already had a shortstop. Two, actually. But they moved Tatis to right field and Ha-Seong Kim to second base. Because they decided this offseason to make one more big move, believing they needed to further lengthen their lineup and bring in another strong personality.
“I was a little surprised,” Bogaerts said. “But obviously they want winning players, guys with winning mentality, experience. It goes a long way. It’s very valuable.”
Bogaerts is in a similar situation to the one he thought he had in Boston, with a core group of top-shelf players. This one just has a little more certainty with Tatis under contract for 12 more years, Machado for 11 and Soto for two, and the team’s top two starters (Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove) signed for at least five more seasons.
“It makes you feel a lot of familiarity,” Boagerts said. “You’ll be pretty much in the same clubhouse with the same guys. In the beginning, it can be a little tough to get to know everyone and there’s so many people that you got to get to know. Obviously coming from an organization where you pretty much knew everyone. So that’s the only difference that I will say here is just getting to know everyone and every day is someone new to me. It’s like they say every day you can learn something new, but every day is someone new I meet here, and it’s fun so far.”
He spent the first decade of his big-league career playing in sports-crazed Boston. He is a knight for his part on Aruba’s Baseball World Cup championship team. And if he can help bring the Padres their first championship, he also will have a revered place in San Diego history.