Why Red Sox should do whatever it takes to keep Alex Bregman in Boston originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
For the first time since 2021, the Boston Red Sox are playing meaningful baseball past Labor Day. And Alex Bregman’s role in that development can’t be overstated.
The on-field stats are impressive enough. At 31 years old, Bregman is enjoying his best season since 2019, with a .279 batting average, 16 home runs and 57 RBI through 101 games. He leads all Red Sox regulars (minimum 90 games played) in on-base percentage (.362) and OPS (.862) while playing a Gold Glove-caliber third base.
But Bregman might be making a bigger impact off the field, where he’s served as an instrumental veteran leader for a young team that traded away its best player (Rafael Devers) in June and has thrust several recently-promoted prospects into key roles.
Not only has the two-time World Series champion served as a de facto hitting coach for younger players in the clubhouse, he’s also been feeding a steady stream of intel to Red Sox pitchers, which The Boston Globe’s Tim Healey highlighted in an excellent story Thursday.
“Bregman has a habit, according to teammates, of reaching out at all hours with some idea or tidbit geared toward Sox excellence,” Healey wrote. “Whereas almost all hitters are content to remain in their realm, Bregman finds time to — and takes pride in — pitching in with the pitchers.
“He studies opposing teams’ lineups to offer game-planning tips, converses one-on-one with hurlers about their repertoire and a hitter’s perspective on to maximize it, and serves as a ringleader encouraging hitter/pitcher cross-communication that, around the sport, is not common.”
That’s all to say chief baseball officer Craig Breslow deserves his flowers for signing Bregman to a three-year, $120 million contract this offseason. But Breslow’s work with Bregman isn’t done.
Bregman’s contract includes opt-outs after each season, and ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported last week that the veteran third baseman is likely to opt out this winter to seek a more lucrative deal in free agency. While the Red Sox could prevent that scenario by agreeing to an extension with Bregman before the season ends, his agent, Scott Boras, shot down that idea this week.
“We’re at the point now where you wait until the offseason and see what transpires,” Boras told Audacy’s Rob Bradford. “Obviously, I think he’s very open about it. He has enjoyed it there. The team has more defined promise than it did a year ago. With free agency, you have to see how things go.”
Boras and Bregman will have plenty of leverage. According to Passan, Bregman likely will seek “the five-year-plus deal at an average annual value of $35 million-plus that eluded him last winter.” And the league’s big spenders — the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies — could be willing to open up their checkbooks after Bregman’s strong 2025 campaign.
So, should the Red Sox, who haven’t acted like a big-market team since Dave Dombrowski’s departure six years ago, really enter a bidding war for a third baseman who will turn 32 next March?
The short answer is yes.
Boston does have some leverage in that Bregman seems to be enjoying his experience at Fenway. The 10-year veteran recently told USA TODAY’s Bob Nightengale that the 2025 Red Sox remind him of his “earlier years in Houston” — when the Astros were building a multi-time World Series champion — and added, “It’s a lot of fun to be in this environment.”
Even if Boras is hell-bent on taking the highest bid, however, the Red Sox still should be willing to pony up.
From young superstar Roman Anthony to recently-promoted hurlers Payton Tolle and Connelly Early, the Sox have a serious collection of young talent. And if Trevor Story doesn’t opt out of his contract this offseason, they’ll return essentially every core member of this year’s roster in 2026.
In short, these Red Sox are worth investing in — even if that means “overpaying” for the veteran leader who eventually could put them over the top.
