The San Diego Padres signed Xander Bogaerts in December of 2022 to a 11-year/ $280 million contract after he left the Boston Red Sox as a free agent. The player they signed was a two-time World Series champion, a five-time All Star and a five-time Silver Slugger winner. His last season with the Red Sox resulted in a .307 batting average with an OPS of .833. The Padres signed a great player with a reputation for hard work and great leadership.
It has not gone too well.
Since the beginning of the 2023 season the Padres have not seen the best of Bogaerts. His OPS for the Padres is .733, a far cry from his last season with the Red Sox. We could argue that his 2023 and 2024 seasons were shortened and marred by injury, first to his wrist and then to his shoulder, not only decreasing his effectiveness but also stifling any momentum.
This year has brought a different reality. For the most part, Bogaerts has been healthy. He had a brief break from playing due to soreness in his surgically repaired shoulder from last year but otherwise has had just the normal wear and tear of a baseball season.
At the 77 game mark of the season, 4 games from the half way point, Bogaerts has shown some improvement and has increased his average and OPS over the last week from .232 and .627 to .252 and .678. It is not likely that we will know if he has found something that will last until we see more results.
There has been talk on both the radio and tv broadcasts that Bogaerts has been unlucky this season, with both sets of broadcasters discussing how much better his numbers are than his results. This seems like a good time to see if we should be more optimistic about his season, and the results for the second half.
In 2022, his last season with the Red Sox, Bogaerts had a BA, OBP and SLG that was superior to his expected numbers, as noted on FanGraphs. He was a lucky guy, as he has been quoted as saying. But since coming to the Padres, his luck has not held up long term. He has been injured more than previously in his career and his hitting luck has gone the wrong way.
In 2023, the year of his recurring wrist injury that wouldn’t go away, Bogaerts hit .285 with an expected average of .255. He slugged .440 with an expected slug of .401. His OPS was .790. His luck held as far as the numbers went but that was a shortened season due to his injury.
In 2024 it got worse when he broke his shoulder and missed a couple months but also had his numbers let him down. His average was .264 with an expected of .262 while his slugging was .381 with an expected of .382. His numbers matched almost exactly with what the underlying metrics predicted.
So far this season, Bogaerts has an expected average of .274 with an expected slug of .397 (his actual being .252/.352). This speaks to the poor luck that has been spoken of. A look at the deeper numbers tells a little bit more about that story.
His hard hit % is up from 2023 and 2024, approximating what he had his last year in Boston. His launch angle is similar to what he had in 2021. His exit velocity is the best he has had since 2019. He is chasing less outside the zone than the last two seasons and his contact inside the zone is consistent with what he has shown throughout his career.
According to Baseball Savant (blue is bad, red is good), Bogaerts is having a good defensive season and is underperforming at the plate. But his peripheral numbers are all in the red, showing that he is still making good decisions and hitting the ball well but getting poor results. At worst, his bat speed is average and there is no difference between how hard he hits the ball now than previously in his career.
So the 1.4 fWAR he is currently carrying will improve if he can maintain the better luck he has had over the last couple weeks. He has a significantly better defensive rating this year than last and his base running continues to be on-point. If poor luck is the true villain this season, then Bogaerts could still give the Padres value while they search for improved performance in the bottom of the lineup.
The organization will probably never get the player that they gave that inflated contract to but it is possible that steady defense and an average to above-average bat could help anchor the middle of the line up over the next few years. His decline with age will come but we could see a better Bogaerts than we have seen since he arrived. There was a flash of his old sparkle in May but it vanished quickly and he went back to struggling at the plate. Let’s hope this isn’t a repeat of that brief rally.