Red Sox Rumors

In the days leading up to the start of the regular season, the Red Sox had extension discussions with star infielders Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers. The team didn’t reach a long-term deal with either player, and it’s not believed they want to continue negotiations during the season.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post now sheds more light on the respective talks, characterizing the sides as being $100MM or more apart in both instances. Heyman reports that Boston offered Bogaerts around $90MM over four seasons. Boston’s offer to Devers isn’t clear, but Heyman suggests there was a rather notable gap on the length of the commitment, with the young star seeking a much longer guarantee than the team put on the table.

Bogaerts’ and Devers’ situations aren’t analogous, so it’s worth considering them separately. The excellent shortstop is the more immediate concern, as Boagerts can reach free agency at the end of this season. The right-handed hitter is signed for $20MM annually between 2023-25, but he can opt out of the final three years on his deal at the end of this season. According to Heyman, the Red Sox offered to tack on around $30MM in 2026 while keeping his salaries for the next three years the same.

It’s no surprise that wasn’t an appealing proposition for the three-time All-Star. He’s just six months away from having a chance to test the open market in advance of his age-30 season. Bogaerts wouldn’t receive the kind of decade-long commitment the younger Corey Seager did, but he could be in position for a deal of seven or even eight years if he performs as expected in 2022.

This offseason, the Rockies signed Kris Bryant to a seven-year deal worth $182MM heading into his age-30 campaign. The Rangers signed Marcus Semien for seven years and $175MM for his age-31 through age-37 seasons. Trevor Story and Javier Báez — each of whom was headed into their age-29 seasons — inked six-year pacts worth $140MM with opt-out opportunities.

It’s fair for Bogaerts and his representatives at the Boras Corporation to argue for a deal that tops all those contracts. Going back to the start of 2019, the four-time Silver Slugger Award winner owns a .302/.375/.523 slash line that translates to a 135 wRC+ (indicating offensive production 35 percentage points above the league average). That’s much better than the respective marks for each of Bryant (123), Semien (128), Story (113) and Báez (104). Bogaerts also has the edge if one looks back two seasons, while Semien was similarly productive last year.

A deal matching Semien’s $25MM average annual value that takes Bogaerts through his age-37 campaign would pay him $200MM over eight seasons. He’ll need a typically strong platform year to land that kind of money on the open market, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility. Bogaerts isn’t the caliber of defender that Semien, Story or Báez are, but he has a longer track record of offensive excellence than any of those players.

Of course, it’s possible that Bogaerts gets injured or underperforms in 2022. In that instance, the remaining $60MM on his deal affords him plenty of security, since he could elect not to opt out. (The deal also contains a $20MM vesting option for 2026). Forgoing an opportunity at $175MM — $200+MM to raise the floor of his existing contract from $60MM to $90MM isn’t a particularly appealing concept. Heyman writes that Bogaerts’ camp decided not to make a counteroffer, with a friend of Bogaerts calling the team’s proposal “a slap in the face.”

Nothing prevents the Sox from upping their offer after the season if Bogaerts tests the open market, and they’d presumably have to do so significantly to keep him in the fold. Whether they’ll have interest remains to be seen, but Boston signed Story to the aforementioned $140MM deal this past offseason. Story was a career-long shortstop with the Rockies, and while he moved to second base in deference to Bogaerts, the Sox could kick him back to his old position next year. Boston has one of the game’s top second base prospects, Nick Yorke, at High-A. Former top prospect Jeter Downs is coming off a rough season in Triple-A but was nevertheless added to the 40-man roster last November.

That could be a precursor to Bogaerts’ eventual departure, but chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom tells Heyman the Story signing “doesn’t change our desire to keep” Bogaerts and Devers. He added “we’re hopeful we can keep both guys,” but declined to discuss the specifics of the team’s offers.

Unlike Bogaerts, the team can unilaterally keep Devers around in 2023. The slugging third baseman is arbitration-eligible once more next winter, when he’ll be due a raise on this year’s $11.2MM salary. With notable earnings already in the bank, Devers shouldn’t have much financial pressure to accept a team-friendly deal. He’s coming off his first All-Star campaign and Silver Slugger after hitting .279/.352/.538 with 38 home runs.

Devers, who debuted in the big leagues as a 20-year-old, is on track to reach free agency in advance of his age-27 campaign. He’ll face some questions about his ability to stick at the hot corner over the long haul given his subpar defensive metrics, but there’s little doubt about his offensive capability. Devers ranks 28th in wRC+ among 159 hitters with 1000+ plate appearances over the past three seasons, with his .290/.350/.537 line translating to a 129 mark.

The Red Sox, it should be noted, have plenty of long-term payroll flexibility. Until last month’s Story pickup, Bloom and his staff had shied away from making free agent splashes since he was hired in October 2019. Boston opened this season with a payroll in the $220MM range, but they’d have just $72MM in 2023 guaranteed commitments (before accounting for arbitration) if Bogaerts opts out. That number would drop to about $57MM in 2024, with Story and Chris Sale the only significant expenditures that year. (Sale himself can opt out after this season, but he looks less likely to do so after his last three years have been dampened by injuries). That sets up some interesting decisions for the front office around which players they’d like to build over the long haul.

APRIL 7: In a press conference this afternoon, Bogaerts made clear that negotiations on a contract extension have stalled and that he doesn’t intend to sign a new deal before tomorrow’s opener in New York (first reported by Chris Cotillo of MassLive; Twitter link). Asked whether he would agree to an extension, he replied simply: “No.” Asked subsequently whether an offer was made, he responded, “Yeah. But it didn’t work out, and we’ll see how it goes from there.”

The shortstop also appeared to rule out the possibility of in-season negotiation, adding, “I can’t do nothing about it right now. I’ve got a season coming up in front of me and I don’t want to put any of our teammates in that type of distraction. They don’t deserve it. We had time to get something done. It didn’t work out.”

As noted below, Bogaerts can opt out of the three years and $60MM that remain on his contract at the end of the 2022 season. He’d be entering a potentially crowded shortstop market that will likely include Trea Turner, Dansby Swanson, Elvis Andrus, and Didi Gregorius, as well as Carlos Correa should he (as expected) opt out of the final two years of his deal with the Twins. He’d nonetheless be a near-certainty to top his remaining guarantee so long as he remains healthy and maintains his recent production.

APRIL 6: Red Sox star third baseman Rafael Devers recently rejected an extension offer from the team, reports Héctor Gómez of Z101 (Twitter link). Gómez adds that Boston’s offer to Devers topped the $124MM deal José Ramírez signed with the Guardians. Further specifics of the offer aren’t known, but Chris Cotillo of MassLive characterizes the sides as being “very far” apart.

Both Gómez and Cotillo suggest it’s unlikely there’ll be any more discussions before the Red Sox open the season on Friday against the Yankees. Devers has previously suggested he won’t entertain an extension in-season. That seemingly sets him up to play out this season on an $11.2MM salary, to which he and the Sox agreed last month to avoid an arbitration hearing.

It stands to reason the Boston front office will take a crack at extending Devers next winter, at the very least. He’s controllable via arbitration for another season beyond this one. By next offseason, the reigning AL Silver Slugger at third base will have banked over $16MM in career earnings. Barring a significant injury, he’ll be in line for a rather notable raise on this season’s salary during his final arbitration year before hitting free agency in advance of his age-27 campaign.

That’s all to say Devers has little pressure to accept a significant discount. The Red Sox certainly won’t put forth a market-value offer two years in advance of free agency, but keeping him in the fold long-term would require one of the biggest investments in the history of that service bucket. The Braves signed first baseman Matt Olson — who also has four-plus service years — to an eight-year, $168MM extension last month. Only Joey Votto (ten years, $225MM) and Giancarlo Stanton (13 years, $325MM) have topped Olson’s deal among players with between four and five years of service.

Olson was projected for a $12MM arbitration salary before signing his extension, not too dissimilar from Devers’ current mark. He and Devers have family similar numbers going back three seasons. Olson owns a .257/.354/.522 line since the start of 2019; Devers is a .290/.350/.537 hitter in that time. The latter hits for a better average, while Olson draws significantly more walks. Olson has been 34 percentage points above average by measure of wRC+, while Devers checks in 29 points above par.

Obviously, Olson and Devers don’t make for an apples-to-apples comparison. Devers plays a more demanding position, but he rates as one of the league’s worst defensive third basemen. Olson plays at the position furthest down the defensive spectrum, but he’s perhaps the game’s best gloveman at first base. One could argue that Olson’s the more valuable all-around player, but Devers is two and a half years younger. Devers’ camp at Rep 1 Baseball may argue for a deal that exceeds Olson’s in length and overall guarantee, making it unsurprising that “merely” topping the $124MM guaranteed to Ramírez wouldn’t be sufficient. (To be clear, it’s unknown how close the Red Sox’s offer to Devers was to Ramírez’s number).

Regardless of whether Boston and Devers eventually work something out long-term, he’ll be around for the next two seasons. That’s not necessarily the case for shortstop Xander Bogaerts, who can opt out of the remaining three years and $60MM on his deal after this season. Alex Speier of the Boston Globe spoke with Boagerts on Monday. The star shortstop told Speier he and the club have had talks this spring but said he didn’t anticipate an extension being hammered out in the coming days. Like Devers, Bogaerts suggested he was uninterested in continuing negotiations once the season was underway.

Bogaerts would hit the open market in advance of his age-30 season and seems likely to handily top $60MM barring an unexpected downturn in performance or injury. The Sox added an All-Star potential alternative last month when they signed Trevor Story to a six-year, $140MM deal. The longtime Rockie agreed to play second base this season in deference to Boagerts. Boston could keep him at the keystone if they get a long-term deal with Bogaerts done, but Story could also kick back to his old position in 2023 if the Sox’s incumbent shortstop heads elsewhere.