For A.J. Preller, it’s time to solve Mystery X.
“X” as in infielder Xander Boegarts.
Preller must figure out if it has been age, injury or a sizable combination of the two that has caused Boegarts to underperform his career track record in his two seasons with the Padres.
There’s a lot riding on Preller’s evaluation. The Padres owe Boegerts about $225 million over the next nine years, part of the gulp-inducing bet Preller and Peter Seidler made two Decembers ago when they signed the former Boston Red Sox shortstop out of free agency.
The expected payoff hasn’t materialized. Bogaerts suffered injuries in both seasons.
If Preller decides the wrist injury Bogaerts suffered in April 2023 and the shoulder fracture that sidelined him last May are mostly to blame for the drop-off, then he may conclude that injury avoidance could yield the production that approaches the right-hander’s five seasons that won a Silver Slugger bat.
If that’s the case, it makes more sense to stick with Bogaerts.
But if age is eroding fast the slugging ability of Bogaerts, who turned 32 in October, good health alone may not be enough for him to approach the high standards he set as a four-time All-Star and two-time World Series champion.
If that’s the expectation, Preller may have to consider a trade.
Preller will weigh as well Bogaerts’ defensive value and intangibles, two areas where the veteran seems to have fared fairly well since moving across the country. At shortstop in 2023, his outs above average grade was better than the big-league average in each season. At second base, where Bogaerts moved so that Ha-Seong Kim could play shortstop, Bogaerts overcame several rough moments to fare well in outs above average.
His diligence and baseball IQ drew much praise from scouts I surveyed when the Padres signed him. They seem to remain strengths.
But, as with most position players, the bat drives the evaluation.
Despite the late-April wrist plunking that derailed his fast start and led to subsequent flare-ups, Bogaerts finished the 2023 season with a .285 batting average, .350 on-base percentage and adjusted on-base-plus-slugging percentage that was 17 points above league average. On the other hand, his .192 batting average with men in scoring position was well below his norms.
Last season played out in three parts: the subpar .581 OPS from Bogaerts across the first two months, a seven-week injury hiatus, and a solid closing stretch in which Bogaerts batted .299 with a .770 OPS and seven home runs in the 64 games.
Downward trend
Bogaerts has retained a core knack of hitting the ball to all fields. That’s encouraging.
It’s how hard he’s hitting the ball that has raised concerns, and it goes back to before the Padres decided to guarantee him $280 million.
His slugging rate has declined each of the past five seasons. In 2019, when he amassed 52 doubles and 33 homers, Bogaerts slugged .555. Since then dipped to .502, .493, .456 and in his final three years with Boston to .440 and .381 with the Padres.
When the Padres’ g was announced, a skpetical review came from Keith Law, who worked in the Toronto Blue Jays’ front office.
Law cited alarming trends within Bogaerts’ hitting data.
“I’m worried his bat isn’t going to hold up well over even the first half of the deal, let alone the full term,” Law wrote in The Athletic.
“Bogaerts,” he added, “was a fastball killer earlier in his career, but he’s much less of one now, and in 2022 his whiff rate was up while his Barrel rate, even on pitches in the zone, was down. It’s the kind of offensive shift you’d associate with a player four or five years older than Bogaerts is, someone in his mid-30s who might still be valuable but is also approaching the cliff.”
Balancing act
Preller had a much bigger budget when he signed Boegarts.
A payroll buzzcut came last offseason. Preller, the team’s top baseball executive since late 2014, reduced the outlay by $90 million, dropping the Padres from third to 14th in the big leagues. It’s not clear if the Padres will retain a mid-tier payroll in 2025 and beyond.
Bogaerts, who was 16 when the Red Sox signed him out of Aruba and 20 when he debuted in the big leagues, is headed to his 16th professional season. He’s due $25,454,545 every season through 2033.
There’s a lot for Preller to sift through. And if he decides a trade is the best move, he’ll have to get Bogaerts’ consent per the no-trade proviso in his contract.
