Alex Bregman was signed to a five-year, $175 million deal (with $70 million of that money deferred) by the Cubs this week, officially announced by the team on Wednesday.
He made some appearances in town on arriving, attending Blackhawks and Bulls games, and the team introduced him at a press conference at Wrigley Field Thursday morning.
My biggest takeaways from this presser are:
- How much work Alex Bregman puts in to being a good teammate, and
- How much Alex Bregman has already embraced the Cubs fanbase and city of Chicago
The event began with Cubs President of Baseball Operations Jed Hoyer welcoming Bregman and thanking Scott Boras and the Ricketts
family. In fact, later on Hoyer was asked about how this all came about, regarding the deferrals in Bregman’s contract, and he said that conversations between him, Tom Ricketts and Crane Kenney began last summer and culminated in this signing. Hoyer indicated that there was some deferred money in the contracts signed by Jason Heyward and Jon Lester, but that this was by far the most money ever deferred in a Cubs contract.
So business-wise, it appears that the Cubs were making a plan to join the “big boys” and have contract deferrals before the offseason even began.
Hoyer continued by saying the team has coveted Bregman for a long time — all of you know that the Cubs did make an offer to him last winter, but were outbid by the Red Sox, adding that the Cubs the fit last spring and saw the same fit this year with Bregman. He noted the Cubs were a good team in 2025 and, obviously, wanted improvement.
He cited Bregman’s “nine and a half years of great production and playing hard every day,” but also noted that to sign a guy like this, you have to feel good about the person, the human being, and every account the organization had heard about Bregman is that he’s a great teammate.
That was followed by Hoyer noting that without even being asked, Bregman asked for reports on every player and what they are working on, wanted to meet with minor league staff in Arizona and talked to just about every player on the team, just a few of what Hoyer said were “countless examples of things he’s done that he wasn’t asked to do.” Bregman added that he wants to “find out what makes people tick, how to get the best out of themselves, and hold them accountable.”
From Bregman’s point of view, he said he had been “obsessed with baseball” since he was very young and always wanted to be the best player he could be. He said he was a “winning baseball player,” and of course you know that he’s been in the postseason nine years in a row, the longest active streak for anyone. He added: “At the beginning of free agency, I think it was expressed to me how much the Cubs valued what I cared about.”
Asked about Matt Shaw, Hoyer didn’t really answer directly, only said “We have a lot of good, versatile players. You can move really good players around.”
On a lighter note, Bregman said that he and his dad and uncle came to Chicago and went to Bulls and Blackhawks and Bears games many years ago, knows city of Chicago loves sports and loves winning. He cited the excitement of the Cubs fanbase reacting to him being at the Bulls and Blackhawks games this week and when asked what he noticed about the Cubs winning the World Series in 2016, again he noted the excitement of the city and fanbase. He said he was looking forward to raising his kids in Chicago, saying, “The two most important things for me are family and winning baseball games.”
And asked about his uniform No. 3, Bregman said that he chose it because he wanted to win a third championship.
Lastly, if you were wondering: Yes, Bregman will be at the Bears playoff game this Sunday evening.
When there’s an embeddable clip of the entire news conference, I will update this post with the video.
