Red Sox’ Lamebrain Bregman Plans Revealed

With MLB teams set to start 2025 Spring Training in just 15 days, the Boston Red Sox have yet to make the big free agent splash that their executive leadership once again promised early this offseason. This marks the second straight winter where the team’s executive leadership has made lofty promises but delivered zero results. New insight into the club’s negotiations with free agent infielder Alex Bregman show that economic restraint and ambivalence remain the leading baseball strategies on Jersey Street.

“Even if it takes us over the CBT,” team President Sam Kennedy told The Boston Globe in November, “Our priority is 90 to 95 wins, and winning the American League East, and winning the division for multiple years.” As of yesterday, January 24th, Boston’s 2025 payroll stood at $208.86MM. That’s $17.26MM less than the 2024 team that finished 81-81 and missed the playoffs for the third straight season, the team’s longest postseason drought in twenty-five years.

A Saturday morning report by the Globe’s Alex Spier illustrates how sheepish the club remains in its pursuit of Bregman, who reportedly has five-year offers on the table from “at least” three other teams.

“The Sox have remained engaged on Bregman, but multiple sources said as of earlier this week, the team’s interest had been in a deal of no more than four years,” writes Spier. “For now, it seems unlikely Bregman would accept a contract of that length.”

Bregman: Historically Great at Fenway Park

Adding to the frustration is Bregman’s career dominance at 113-year-old Fenway Park. Among the 1,700 players with a minimum of 75 career plate appearances in Boston, Bregman’s OPS is 1.240—the highest of any player. He also ranks second in OBP and slugging at .490 and .750, respectively.

Bregman’s Gold Glove defense would also help a Boston club whose 91 errors placed 12th most among MLB teams last season. He has played 1,111 games at third base for Houston since his debut in 2016. But the Red Sox seem wary of replacing incumbent Rafael Devers at that position should Bregman ultimately sign.

Bregman would ideally slot in at second base for Boston in 2025, particularly since they have no slated starter there with two weeks to go before camp. The 2025 free-agent class of second basemen is one of the slimmest in years, and only veterans such as Brandon Drury (age 32), Ha-seong Kim (29), Jorge Polanco (31), and Brendan Rogers (28) remain unsigned.

Red Sox Content Hurry Up And Wait

“What I believe is happening here is that the Red Sox are simply saying: ‘We don’t think he’s going to Toronto. We don’t think Detroit is going to sign him,’” FOX’s Ken Rosenthal told MLB Network on January 13th. “‘We’re gonna take our chances that no one else will, and we are going to leverage this.’”

That stubbornness is, predictably, the opposite of Kennedy’s stated approach this fall. “We are investing more than we did last year. We intend to invest going forward,” he said. “There is an extreme urgency internally to compete for the American League East Championship and to set ourselves up for a deep postseason run in 2025.”

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