Xander Bogaerts has reached the point where the Padres have to make a hard call about what his presence really looks like in October.
The contract was always going to ask a lot of San Diego. Four years into that $280 million deal, Bogaerts is no longer delivering the kind of offense that can carry the weight of his salary, and this season has become the clearest sign yet that his decline has arrived earlier than anyone wanted to believe.
The 33-year-old shortstop is batting .219/.321/.323 with an 87 wRC+, along with 11 home runs and 19 steals. That makes this his worst offensive season since he was a 21-year-old rookie in 2014.
The numbers have been rough enough that, around the trade deadline, there were rumors that A.J. Preller would only move Mason Miller if another team agreed to take on the rest of Bogaerts’ contract. That never happened, but the mere existence of that conversation says plenty about how the front office views the shortstop now.
So where does that leave Craig Stammen and the Padres? Not with an easy answer.
Bogaerts is not going anywhere. The size of the deal alone makes a straight roster move unrealistic, and he hasn’t been so bad that the team would want to go nuclear anyway.
What complicates things is that he still has a case to remain in the lineup because of his defense. Since leaving Boston, the glove has become the part of his game that has held up best, and in San Diego he’s suddenly giving the Padres real value at shortstop.
Defensive Runs Saved is down on him at -7, but Fielding Run Value paints a much brighter picture at +4, which puts him among the better middle infielders in the game.
That matters because he is also the best defensive shortstop the Padres have.
And that’s the real problem. If the Padres wanted to replace him, they don’t have a clean answer on the roster.
Jake Cronenworth and Sung-Mun Song are the only other active players who can handle shortstop, and both have been worse than Bogaerts at the plate. Dig deeper and the options don’t improve much, unless the organization suddenly believes Mason McCoy can figure it out at the major league level.
That’s how a player with a $280 million contract ends up in a strange spot: not unplayable, not easily replaceable, and still forcing the team to ask whether he should be somewhere lower in the order. For now, the safest path may be to keep him on the field and push him down the lineup, hoping the glove can make up enough ground to keep him from becoming a liability when October arrives.
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Salas has already shown both offensive and defensive promise in Triple-A, which is why the move feels like more than a short-term fill-in. He even got the start against the Cincinnati Reds after the call-up, but the bigger question for San Diego is how much opportunity he gets next, and where he fits as the Padres try to balance development with the urgency of the moment. [Read more 🡒]