Alex Verdugo will get another chance to prove himself in the National League West.
According to the San Diego Union Tribune’s Kevin Acee, the former Boston Red Sox outfielder is in agreement with the San Diego Padres on a minor league contract.
Verdugo returns to the NL West after six tumultuous years on the East Coast, following his part in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ trade for Mookie Betts (and David Price) in 2020.
There were bright spots, but controversy was the most consistent aspect of Verdugo’s four-year Red Sox tenure. He arrived, not only as an unwitting part in the club’s most calamitous trade since Babe Ruth, but in the shadow of a scandal from his time in the Dodgers minor leagues, when he was present at an alleged physical and sexual assault of a teenage girl.
Verdugo hit .281 with a .761 OPS over 493 regular season Red Sox games and helped the team make an unexpected run to Game 6 of the 2021 ALCS, but regressed at the plate significantly in subsequent years. Before the final game of the 2022 season, manager Alex Cora said the outfielder’s name before a reporter could even finish asking which of his players most needed to take a leap forward the following year.
“He’s getting to that area in his career that’s, ‘Who is he gonna be?’ ” Cora told reporters at the time.
The following season was enough of an answer for the Red Sox. At spring training, Verdugo approached principal owner John Henry and boldly declared he was prepared to prove he deserved a long-term contract. Cora benched the outfielder multiple times that season, for reasons ranging from lack of hustle to the suspicious August 2023 incident the manager described as “probably one of my worst days here in this organization.”
The Red Sox were willing to listen to offers for Verdugo at the 2023 trade deadline, and by December of that year, agreed to make a trade with the New York Yankees, something they’d only done six times since 1972, to cut ties. (The Red Sox received right-handers Richard Fitts, Greg Weissert and Nicholas Judice in the deal.)
Verdugo took thinly-veiled shots at Cora and the Red Sox after the trade, drawing ire from franchise legends the way he had in Los Angeles. He got off to a solid start with the Yankees in 2024, but fizzled out by late spring. That October, former Dodgers teammate Walker Buehler struck him out to win Los Angeles its second World Series championship since the Betts trade.
This is the second consecutive late-offseason signing for Verdugo, who signed a one-year, $1.5 million contract with the Atlanta Braves last year, just a week before Opening Day, and has been a free agent since they released him on July 5. He’s one of several former Red Sox players who’ve signed minor league deals with NL clubs this winter. Infielder Dom Smith, a fan-favorite during his stint with the 2024 Sox, is in Braves camp as a non-roster invitee. Buehler, who pitched for Boston last year, is also in Padres camp on a minor league deal.
The Padres’ big-league roster includes former Red Sox teammates Xander Bogaerts and Nick Pivetta, but according to Acee, Verdugo has a “ways to go” if he wants to prove he deserves a spot.
