Xander Bogaerts open to in-season contract talks with the Red Sox
Bogaerts is looking for something ‘fair’ from the club
Xander Bogaerts and the Red Sox failed to agree to a new contract prior to the start of the season. Bogaerts said in Spring Training that he wasn’t going to negotiate during the regular season.
“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,” Bogaerts said. “They don’t deserve it. We had time to get something done. It didn’t work out.”
It looks like he’s changed his tone and is willing work out something “fair” with the club.
Bogaerts spoke with The Boston Globe’s Peter Abraham that “I don’t know how this would work. But if they talk to agent Scott Boras behind closed doors and it’s something that’s fair, he can come to me. We’ll see how that goes.”
The 29-year-old leader of the Red Sox is expected to opt out of his six-year, $120 million deal he signed back in April 2019.
Boston approached Bogaerts and Boras with an extension offer in the spring that would have added one year and $30 million to his current deal.
That would mean a four-year agreement for $90 million, an average of $22.5 million a season.
It’s still unclear what an extension for Bogaerts would look like, but he would like to figure that out and retire a member of the Red Sox.
“You don’t see it anymore. The game has changed a lot,” he said. “Everyone is aware of it. Realistically that’s just the way it is. I started in an era where that was something I considered to be a goal. But it’s hard.”
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