In one of the most obvious opt-out decisions in recent memory, Red Sox first baseman Eric Hosmer will forgo his opportunity to return to the open market, tweets Jon Heyman of the New York Post. He’s now locked into the final three years and $39MM of the contract, although the Sox are only on the hook for the league minimum in each of the next three seasons. The Padres are paying the remainder of Hosmer’s salary each season under the terms of the deadline trade that sent him to Boston.
The eight-year, $144MM contract Hosmer signed with San Diego prior to the 2018 season went south almost immediately. A then-27-year-old Hosmer posted a massive .318/.385/.498 slash and swatted 25 homers for the second consecutive season in 2017 — his final year with the Royals, who originally drafted him No. 3 overall in 2008. That led to the aforementioned eight-year deal for Hosmer, but his offensive production cratered in year one with the Friars, as he hit just .253/.322/.398 in his first year with the team.
Over the first five seasons of that nine-figure contract, Hosmer has been exactly average at the plate, by measure of wRC+. He’s hit .265/.325/.409 and averaged 18 home runs and 30 doubles per 162 games played. Hosmer hasn’t necessarily been a bad hitter, but his $18MM annual salary was promised to him under the assumption that he’d continue on as a well above-average, middle-of-the-order hitter.
That simply hasn’t been the case, due in large part to the fact that Hosmer’s bloated ground-ball rate with the Royals actually got even higher with the Friars. Since signing in San Diego, 56.5% of Hosmer’s batted balls have been hit on the ground — the fourth-highest mark among 315 qualified MLB hitters in that stretch. Perhaps the limitations on infield shifts that are coming in 2023 will help Hosmer in that regard, but his repeated inability to elevate the ball will continue to suppress his power output.
The Padres traded Hosmer and a pair of minor leaguers (Corey Rosier and Max Ferguson) to the Red Sox in exchange for former first-round pick Jay Groome, agreeing to pay Hosmer’s salary down to the league minimum as part of the contract. Hosmer also was granted a full no-trade clause as part of that deal, so he’ll have the final say on whether he’ll remain in Boston through 2025 unless the Sox ultimately release him. For now, he’ll give the Red Sox a cost-effective veteran first baseman or perhaps designated hitter, dependent on when the team is ready to give top prospect Triston Casas a full-time look in the big leagues.
WHAAAAAAT?!? No way!
Win for Him! Win for the Sox! hes not much more than a bench however he comes cheap to the Sox while Cases develops more at the major league level.
Not really a win for the Sox considering he’d be hard pressed to get a major league deal if he opted out.
At league minimum there’s nothing stopping them from sending him to AAA or releasing him. If he provides anything in the positive (and I imagine there’s reasonable hope that he will be at least slightly above replacement level) then it’s a win. It’s definitely not a loss.
can’t send him to AAA unless he was to agree to it.
“he’d be hard pressed to get major league deal”
Only 32yo, 1.2 War in 2022, two years removed from an .855 OPS. Someone would offer him a ML deal, in hopes that he turns it around. There are worse players being offered ML deals.
Padres had to pay his contract down to the league minimum AND attach two prospects just to get the Red Sox to take him. He’s not getting a major league deal in FA.
Teams certainly wouldn’t pay him 13 million a year though. If he opted out he’d be lucky to get 5 million.
Teams had the chance to pay him $5m/yr at the deadline and they all took a collective hard pass. He’s not getting a major league deal if he opts out.
Hosmer has been league average through the life of his deal to date. Every team has / needs league average players to round out their roster, so Hosmer would have easily found a major league deal had he become a free agent. His veteran leadership alone is worth a spot on roster and his 15-20 HRs & 25-30 2Bs would be attractive to some teams looking for a value signing. He’s only 32 years old as well. The guaranteed salary remaining on his SD deal is the only reason why Hosmer did not opt out. No team would come close to offering him the $13M he’s due for 2023 if he chose free agency, let alone 3 years of that ($39M total). Of course Hosmer turned down his shot at free agency!
As a free agent, Hosmer would be looking at guaranteed deals of between $2M – $4M base salary with incentives on top of that. There’s no question he’d get a guaranteed major league deal (he’d be perfect for Miami for example), but that’s a moot point given that there’s no way he’s passing up the $39M he’s still owed under his original contract.
Because if teams wont pay 5m/yr, plus take on some of SDs Salary Cap from the contract, they won’t pay him 700k? Sure whatever.
@Dorothy_Mantooth Again. You are forgetting the part where all 29 teams had the opportunity to pay Hosmer $2-4m per year and they all took a collective hard pass. The Red Sox are only paying Hosmer the league minimum and the Padres had to attach 2 prospects to get them to pay him even that money. If some team had offered to take him and pay $2-4m per year of his remaining salary Preller would have traded him to them. Do you really think Preller was in such a hurry to trade with Chaim Bloom that he left a better offer from someone else on the table???????
@HuntingtonGrounds and @Dorothy_Mantooth…
mlbtraderumors.com/2022/12/red-sox-designate-eric-…
So much for your THEORY about someone offering Hosmer a ML deal LOL
I always wonder what motivates GMs and owners to sign deals that almost everyone agrees was bad from the start.
They cant predict a bad contract from the start. Thats like hiring an employee you know that will not work out. You find out latter..
Sure you can. When you sign 32 year olds to 5 year deals you know they’re bad contracts.
Unless their name is Max Scherzer
Most of the time, the argument is that you’re actually getting good value on the front half of the deal, and poor value the back end. For Hosmer it was neither, but guys like Pujols, Arod, and Cabrera it was always thought that if you were to sign them on a short term deal, their actual value would be something like $40-50m. Trevor Bauer was supposedly trying this concept and signed a super high AAV contract as a result, until that whole thing happened and kind of wiped it clean.
With Cabrera and Pujos you kind of get a kick at the back end. The games where he went for milestones sold out and his last game will be sold out as well. As far as being all star material on the back end, that’s not happening.
For the GM makes sense. If they dont perform now, they get fired. Like if Judge wants 10 years, someone may give it to him because they want him now and wont be their problem anyways in 2030 or whatever.
It’s what happens when bids and offers are artificially/disingenuously driven up. Happens on ebay all the time.
Put a number on an item and don’t look back. And if you have a friend putting in bogus bids, you will occasionally win your own auction and have to pay 13% on the non-purchase.
I say it again. Some like me believe the Padres expected more but knew they were overpaying, trying to create excitement when there had been little then in San Diego to be happy with sports wise. Everyone thinks Machado would have signed anyway given the offer. With the taxes in CA and the cost of living, they probably would have had to pay him even more if he hadn’t seen already the team was becoming a big time spender.
1. Machado wouldn’t have required any more money to sign with the Padres if they didn’t have Hosmer.
2. Even if he did. They still would have been better off not signing Hosmer and then paying Manny, say $350m instead of just $300m to get him to sign. If $350m guaranteed on the day of signing doesn’t prove to him that the team is becoming a big time spender idk what will.
The narrative around the Padres over the last few years is that Machado wouldn’t have signed if it wasn’t for the team showing everybody that they were serious about spending stupid money when signing Hosmer.
That narrative is dead wrong. And how does offering Manny Machado $300m, on paper, the figure his agent told teams “We won’t even talk to you unless you offer us this,” NOT show him that they were serious about spending stupid money?
Well color me shocked
*insert “shocked” gif from “Casablanca”*
People need to stop with Hosmer. He’s a career 280 hitter pretty much. If he stays healthy he will bat 300 this year. The wall favors his style of play. Alot of worse hitters out there
XD
League average hitter with poor defense. Not seeing a path to .300 since he hasn’t hit that since 2017.
@vtadave – Poor defense? Hosmer has won 4 gold gloves at first base! Sure, he may have slowed down a step or two since his last GG but his glove itself is still well above league average at first base.
In his limited time in Boston, I was impressed with his glove work, both on balls off the bat and from fielding errant throws from Bogaerts and Devers. He’ll be a great mentor for Casas at 1B (defensively) should Boston decide to hold onto him.
“If he stays healthy he will bat 300 this year”
Bowden, is that you?
If he stays healthy he may have 300 at bats
Truth
I’m mixed, he is good at times and then he slumps. Overall, he carries questionable defense at 1st and an on and off bat
What happened? This is a 4-time gold glover. Now questionable defense? Man.
To be fair, his defense was pretty awful when he won those awards too. But it’s deteriorated as he’s developed whatever the equivalent to the yips is for a first baseman.
josh – The best defense is a good offense, hence the reason why his defense is so poor.
I would rate his glove at below average, possibly way below average
He doesn’t hit for that much power and refuses to walk so his OBP and SLG is always low. For a 1B to be valuable he has to give you some slugging and high OBP to go with the AVG, and because they’re usually not slick fielders who run well, they really have to mash.
What?! He’s worth at least $35 million per for another 8 years. Ask Boras.
Good for him.
This is what we in the industry call “no doy”
Next to Chris Davis and Josh Hamilton (Angels) that has to be the worst contract ever
Stephen Strasburg’s contract would like a word.
Not even close to the worst contract ever.
Pujols and Cabrera just to begin with. Rusney Castillo, Jacoby Ellsbury, Barry Zito, Prince Fielder, Jason Heyword, Pablo Sandoval, both Uptons, Vernon Wells. I could go on and on. At least Hosmer has been average.
Chris Davis was the worst contract ever though.
I forgot about Strasburg, Corbin and Rendon. Yikes.
Kev – Props for nailing it and including Rusney as well.
Let’s not forget about Carl Crawford & Dice-K too for bad contracts. That makes (4) ‘Worst Contracts Ever’ for Boston (Sandoval, Castillo, Crawford & Dice-K). Something to be proud of fellow Sox fans!
Dotty – While the Dice contract was bad, it wasn’t on the same horrendous level as the others.
Dice was actually decent his first year, coming in 4th in ROY voting.
And he was excellent his second year, coming in 4th in Cy voting.
Depending on how the next two years go, Sale might end up on that list.
Anthony Rendon wants a word with you.
He should have opted out, so he could get a Spring training invite with someone.
He’ll be released shortly.
The Sox are going to cut ties with a handful of players in order to make roster space open to prevent losing rule 5 players. Their not alone with this situation.
If I remember right after that Moustakis had trouble getting a decent contract. He kinda looked at that deal and wondered why people wouldn’t give him gold bars.
If nothing else it gives them some veteran leadership. I would think if Casas has a good spring he’ll be the starter. If Casas struggles it gives the Sox a chance to be a little patient. They can cut Hosmer anytime they want and it wouldn’t be a big salary hit.
Kinda strange to think that anyone would look up to Hosmer, after the way he massively underperformed that contract. Not very inspiring.
I’m not a Hosmer fan or hater. I just think chemistry is a big part of a team. Right now I’m not sure where the Sox will get leadership. I’d like to think he would have liked to have performed better for his contract. I would think it would be embarrassing for him. He does have World Series experience and four gold gloves. If he can help Casas with his development that would be great. If not you dump him. I believe the Sox kept Kevin Millar for a few years because of what he brought to the clubhouse more than what he brought to the field. But Hosmer could be cut before the season and all this is mute.
why would he?
Hosmer’s deal shows how good Boras can be at his job. But when you think about it, 1.1 BWAR in 380 PA last year is kind of Hosmer. He has a career average of 1.9 BWAR per 162 games and 672 PA. His OPS+ last year was 108. His career is 108. He’s an eh player who has had three good (not spectacular) seasons in his career. But for his contract, he’s just an average guy now, not worth a lot, but not worth absolutely zero. He’s the guy you DFA late in the season in last year of his contract because you need a roster spot, or he plays for a tanking team that just wants someone to go out there and not embarrass themselves.
Someone settle an argument for me – the full AAV of his contract still counts against the Sox luxury tax number even though the Padres are paying for him, correct?
I believe the contract counts against the Sox luxury tax number. The No trade clause is worth a potential fortune to the player. It keeps the Sox from trading him to a team that is well under the tax simply to take on his salary. Boris would have the accepting team add on a couple years at a inflated number to accept any such deal. What a mess!
The tax number is divided by what each team is paying aav wise for the remaining terms. Padres saved about 5m in tax savings in this deal. Basically cost the Sox nothing.
Hosmer is the gift that will keep on giving for the Padres until the end of 2025.
That is incorrect.
Only the difference between AAV for the remainder of the deal ($13M) and the money they got from the Padres (~$12.5M) counts toward their CBT threshold.
Because the rules changed this year, the Red Sox only get hit for the AAV of the remaining years of the contract. Had he stayed with the Padres, they’d have continued to carry him at the $18M AAV of the full eight year contract, so while the trade didn’t save them any actual money, it did give a bit of flexibility on the CBT.
I did find the SporTrac pages earlier and they listed the Padres’ tax hit from Hosmer at 12 mil and the Sox tax hit from him at 6 mil. So that makes sense. Thanks for clearing up why that is.
LH 1B/DH, mentor to Casas and Dalbec and costs next to nothing in salary. Worst case he’s terrible and they cut him and lose nothing. Best case maybe he can become a Mitch Moreland type for the Sox
Hosmer is cheap for the Sox with Padres paying his salary. Still a useful piece while they lose JD Martinez and wait for Casas to lower his swing and miss rate.
No surprise, thankfully. As many have posted. A decent 1b/dh option for league min. You can’t beat the value of this for the Sox.
And for those who will poo on that… Find us another option at his admittedly reduced skill set for less than 2 or 3mils.
This is one of the few moves Bloom has made that actually works.