We’re you by any chance looking for something to endlessly talk about until the last week of February?
You’re in luck.
Jon Heyman, full-time New York Post baseball writer and part-time Scott Boras ventriloquist dummy, reported tonight that Alex Bregman is opting out of the two remaining years on his Red Sox contract. A mere eight months after Red Sox CBO Craig Breslow finally put an end to last offseason’s most protracted free agency saga by offering Bregman a short-term/high-AAV deal — and a tremendous
amount of bargaining power — we now get to do it all over again.
Will the sequel be any different than the original? Last year, it seemed that only the Tigers and Red Sox were in on Bregman at anywhere near his preferred terms. And while the Tigers offered a larger overall package with more years, Bregman sure seemed to be waiting out the Red Sox as long as he could. They blinked eventually, finally pulling the trigger on a shorter deal with a higher annual salary that gave him the opportunity to pursue free agency again a year later.
After losing out on Bregman, the Tigers lucked into a third base solution in the form of Zach McKinstry, a 30-year-old with a career OPS+ of 88 who nabbed an out of nowhere All-Star spot. Given how unlikely he is to repeat that performance, the Tigers may jujmp back in the pool, though they do also have Colt Keith, a promising young kid who can play the hot corner. Other teams that might look for a third base upgrade include the Mariners, Mets, Phillies, and Yankees, who moved third baseman in and out this year like a Chop’t at lunch hour.
As for Bregman, in the eight months between signing his deal and opting out, he bought some suits for the rookies, stabilized the Red Sox infield defense, made the All-Star team, inadvertently caused the trade of the Red Sox’ best hitter, and was the subject of PR campaign that resulted in weekly headlines like Alex Bregman’s veteran leadership spurs 120% increase of gritty baseball talk in Red Sox clubhouse. And, oh yeah, he had more or less the same year he’s been having recently — slashing .273./360/.462 compared to his 2022-2024 line of .260/.349/.449 — as the 31-year-old eases into the inevitable decline phase of his career.
So if Alex Bregman is essentially the same player he was last year when Craig Breslow was reluctant to offer him a long-term deal — only now he’s a year older, he’s showing signs of wear and tear, and he may have a more suitors driving a more robust market — why would we think that that Breslow would offer him a competitive long-term deal now?
Everything we’ve seen from the Red Sox front office since 2020 tells us that they are not going to offer a 31-year-old 3-4.5 WAR player a long-term deal. Winning the AL East hasn’t been John Henry’s lodestar over the past six years; avoiding long-term risk with players on the wrong side of 30 has. Signing Bregman to something close to what the Tigers offered last year (6 years/$171.5 million compared to the Red Sox offer of 3 years/$140 million) would be a radical departure by an organization that opens the Monday morning all-hands meeting with readings from a business school textbook on risk management.
Ah, but there is that little issue I glossed over above, that whole inadvertently leading to the trade of the team’s best hitter thing. Regardless of who you think shoulders the most blame for the Rafael Devers fiasco, it’s undeniable that the signing of Alex Bregman was the cause-in-fact of Devers’s departure, if not necessarily the proximate cause. After yet again acrimoniously trading a homegrown star as a result of the Bregman acquisition, are the PR-conscious Red Sox prepared for the backlash if they don’t pony-up for Bregman less than a year later? Winter Weekend would have to be cancelled and replaced by a Zoom call with Brock Holt, Will Flemming, and Billy and Jenny from Dining Playbook.
And that’s not even to touch upon what’s actually important here: the impact on the roster. As Cam Schlittler preeningly showed the baseball world two weeks ago, the Red Sox need more bats, not fewer. The post-Rafael Devers Red Sox put up an wRC+ of just 101, which was tied for 14th in baseball and lower than all but 2 of the other 11 postseason teams. They simply cannot afford to lose any punch from this lineup, nor can they afford to merely replace Bregman’s production with a free agent like Pete Alonso. They need to reload and upgrade.
So what comes next? That might be the worst question of all because, in this case, “next” might mean the proceeding four months, which could be how long we wait for Bregman to sign with someone. But hey: at least we have experience doing exactly that. And as Alex Bregman’s PR machine has taught us, veteran experience is worth a lot — at least $80 million.
