it's why I use Story and Baez as comps. They had been short stops the vast majorities of their career, and Baez at least was paid to be a short stop. Story was technically paid as a 2b, I suppose. The Rangers obviously went insane on Seager, and offered Semien a bit more ($15m more than many of us are advocating the Sox should have given Bogaerts), probably because they overpaid him to get him to choose Texas, but a year before free agency, I do think offering to give Bogaerts the 2nd best SS deal on the market to stay in Boston is something he would have taken. I also feel VERY confident he would have taken Semien's deal as well (7/$177M), which I'd be fine with paying for Bogaerts as well (Bogie has had the better career OPS+, Semien's defense seems to have trended up with a move to 2b once he got to Toronto).I think this is an oft-overlooked factor in the negotiations. A player with his offensive profile is worth one thing at SS (probably more) and another as a LF or 3B or DH (probably less). The Sox were likely factoring an eventual position change into their offers while Bogaerts was looking (hoping?) to get paid like a SS for the entire length of his deal. Then the Padres came in and paid him "like a shortstop" and clearly didn't give a shit about what position he would play in two or ten years. Hard to compete with that sort of carefree spending.
If they said to him " we think you're going to move to LF" (or whatever) and offered him 5/$100m I would get his being pissed too. But offering to pay someone the 2nd highest SS deal would have been strong, and to reiterate, if they'd done that and he said no, I'd have been more than fine with them moving on from the player. I don't recall any reports anywhere of an offer like that being made to Bogaerts.