Red Sox have earned all of the criticism going their way after losing another star

Red Sox have earned all of the criticism going their way after losing another star,The latest core player to leave Boston was shortstop Xander Bogaerts who spurned the Red Sox's offer to sign a massive 11-year, $280 million deal in free agency with the San Diego Padres late Wednesday night.

Red Sox have earned all of the criticism going their way after losing another star

The Boston Red Sox are facing major criticism following the departure of another superstar player.

All of that criticism is richly deserved.

The latest core player to leave Boston was shortstop Xander Bogaerts who spurned the Red Sox’s offer to sign a massive 11-year, $280 million deal in free agency with the San Diego Padres late Wednesday night.

That departure comes just three years after superstar outfielder Mookie Betts was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers when the Red Sox were unable to (or unwilling) to match his desired terms on a contract extension.

Making matters worse for the Red Sox in the court of public opinion is that their final offer to Bogaerts was deemed as “not serious.” According to the Boston Globe, that offer was somewhere in the neighborhood of $27 million per year over six years. Even though that offer had a higher average annual salary than the Padres’ deal, it obviously did not come close to matching the number of years and total dollars.

It also did not take long for the criticism to start pouring in.

Bill Simmons, a prominent sports writer and Boston super fan, had a profane reaction to the news and expressed his disbelief at the team’s handling of Bogaerts’ situation the past couple of years.

Boston radio host Mike Mutnansky had a similar reaction and likened it to the way the Red Sox lost starting pitcher Jon Lester several years ago.

ESPN’s Buster Olney found the Red Sox approach confusing, especially when it coincided with the team spending over $100 million on an unproven outfielder that is roughly the same age as Bogaerts.

There’s so much about the way the Red Sox handled Xander Bogaerts’s situation that doesn’t make sense. For example: they spent more money to sign Yoshida (($105m), a corner OF about the same age as Bogaerts, than they offered Bogaerts, an All-Star SS, in the spring. ($90m).
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) December 8, 2022

The main problem for the Red Sox is simply that there is no excuse to be operating this way.

They are the very definition of a “large market” team. They have an endless amount of resources and should be able to compete for and sign (as well as keep) almost anybody they want.

But they have developed a disturbing trend in recent years of operating like a small-to-mid-market team that can’t compete with the big boys around Major League Baseball.

Since winning the World Series in 2018, they have now lost their two best players (Betts and Bogaerts) and have been unable to make any significant additions to help replace them. Instead of adding, they always seem to be the team that just misses out and falls short. This offseason alone they missed out on players like Jose Abreu, Zach Elfin, Andrew Heaney, and Tommy Kahnle. The result has been a team that has missed the playoffs in three out of four years and finished with a losing record in two of the past three.

It also calls into question what might happen when it comes time to re-sign star third baseman Rafael Devers. Will they keep him? Or will he simply be the next guy to go?

They are the Boston Red Sox. It is time for them to start acting like it.