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Xander Bogaerts and the Padres agreed to an 11-year, $280 million contract. A monumental move that brings the longtime Boston Red Sox luminary to a team already laden with star talent.
Bogaerts won a pair of World Series and made four All-Star teams, including in 2022, when he hit .307/.377/.456 with 15 home runs and 73 RBIs in 150 games.
The deal, which runs through Bogaerts' age-40 season, capped a winter meetings during which teams signed 18 players for nearly $1.6 billion, including the New York Yankees
Bogaerts entered the winter as one of the prizes of a strong free agent class.
After making runs at Turner and Judge, the Padres pivoted to Bogaerts, spooked neither by the cost to sign him nor the domino effect his arrival might cause.
With the deal, the Padres' payroll spikes to more than $250 million, a staggering number for a team with the 27th-ranked media market in the country.
Boston, which typically has among the largest payrolls in the game, declined to play anywhere near the financial realm to which the Padres were willing to go.
The opt-out in Bogaerts' six-year, $120 million contract extension hung over the Red Sox like the sword of Damocles, threatening to take away another core member of the team that won the World Series in 2018