Following the 2022 season, the Boston Red Sox front office earned the disdain of the team’s fans and media when it allowed fan-favorite shortstop Xander Bogaerts – who was a key part of two Red Sox World Series championships, in 2013 and 2018 – to leave as a free agent. Bogaerts signed an 11-year, $280 million contract with the San Diego Padres. According to one local scribe, who seemed to sum up the collective anger of the Red Sox fan base, the team’s management would “never live down” its “botching” of the Bogaerts situation.
But largely unnoticed at the time was the fact that, for letting Bogaerts go to San Diego, the Red Sox were awarded a compensatory draft pick, to be used in 2023 after the regular fourth round was completed. The pick would be the 132nd player taken in the 2023 draft, overall.
The Red Sox, under then-chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, used the pick on Kristian Campbell, a 21-year-old infielder who had played one season of college baseball for Georgia Tech. Now, less than two years later and following one of the most remarkable, meteoric rises through the Red Sox farm system in recent memory, Campbell is a major leaguer, making Boston’s big league roster as reported by Chris Cotillo of MassLive after the Red Sox wrapped up their Grapefruit League schedule, losing 9-3 to the Minnesota Twins on Sunday.
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