Bregman's value was whatever he could get

Even with deferments, Boston's deal with the ex-Astro was jarring.

Occasionally something comes along to remove the numbness. The other day, Boston signed Alex Bregman for $40 million and three years. Actually, it was $40 million a year for three years, $120 all told. Thus Bregman became the sixth highest-paid player in baseball history in terms of annual average income. He is tied with Aaron Judge and ranks behind Juan Soto, Shohei Ohtani, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Zack Wheeler.

Ohtani has won four MVP awards. Judge has won three. Scherzer and Verlander have won three Cy Young Awards. Soto has won a batting title and a slash triple crown, and he’ll be 26 until next October. The first four are cinch Hall of Famers, and Soto is certainly tracking that way, with a .953 career OPS and 201 home runs already.

Bregman has been a foundational beam in Houston’s four World Series appearances and two championships. At the moment, he won’t threaten the doors of Cooperstown. He turns 31 at the end of March, so you can say the Red Sox at least signed up for three years of his prime time. But this might be Scott Boras’ magnum opus. Forty million for a career third baseman who will probably be asked to play second base in Boston? The Red Sox couldn’t match the Dodgers’ 12-year, $365 million offer for Mookie Betts after the 2019 season, and that comes out to $30.4 million. Some of us were told that inflation was behind us.

Manager Alex Cora, who was a coach on the Houston staff when Bregman was a younger player (rent the movie “Bang The Can Slowly” for more details), has suggested that Bregman could easily play second while Rafael Devers remains at third. Devers could also become the DH or an outfielder, and there are young players who could get a shot at second, but that’s why they have seven weeks of spring training.

There are also reports that the Red Sox and Bregman agreed to defer a large chunk of this change, maybe $30 million, maybe more. That’s still a lopsided wage, more a tribute to what he’s done in his distinguished career than what he’s likely to do now. He also has opt-outs after this season and next. If nothing else he can help his dad Sam finance his campaign for the Democratic nomination to be New Mexico’s governor.

The deferment might be the reason Bregman declined the offer from Houston that would have paid him $156 million over six years ($26 million per) and another from Detroit that would paid $171 million over six. Houston would have paid Bregman more than they are paying Jose Altuve, who is a plausible Hall of Famer and the first guy to lead the Astros out of the wilderness.

The Astros traded rightfielder Kyle Tucker to the Cubs but, acknowledging they might lose Bregman, asked for and got third baseman Isaac Paredes. They, too, were prepared to move Bregman to second, and then put Altuve in the outfield. They also signed Christian Walker to play first. Walker, late of Arizona, had 26 homers and 84 RBI last year with an .805 OPS. Bregman had 26 home runs with 75 RBI and had a .769 OPS. Yet owner Jim Crane will pay Walker $20 million, half of Bregman’s check prior to deferment.

Crane prefers not to exceed MLB’s luxury-tax thresholds. The Astros did not retain Carlos Correa and George Springer when their contracts came due, and they also lost Verlander and Gerrit Cole. Because of a self-sustaining farm system and a raft of young pitchers, they remain elite. The hysteria over the 2024 World Series, in which the Dodgers and Yankees played up their payroll, ignored Houston’s efficiency. In their four World Series appearances, the Astros ranked 17th, ninth, fifth and 10th among MLB payrolls. Regardless of what the Dodgers did in the fall of 2024 and winter of 2025, Houston remains the model operation in MLB until proven otherwise.

Boston used to be. Since it steamrolled baseball in 2018, winning 108 games and then the World Series, it has been to the playoffs once and posted two plus-.500 seasons. It also has slipped from No. 1 in payroll in 2019 to No. 12 last season. Fans generally don’t mind being ripped off if they believe their predators are actually spending that money on talent. Therefore, the Bregman signing was good politics.

Among other things, Boston needs brash leadership like Bregman’s, or the kind that second baseman Dustin Pedroia once provided. He is a .375 career hitter in Fenway Park with seven home runs, but that’s a 21-game sample. Overall his production has stalled. He had an 1.015 OPS, with 119 walks, in 2019, when he finished second in MVP voting. Last year it was .768 with 44 walks, and his strikeouts have spiked in the past two seasons, and his on-base percentage in 2024 was a career-worst .315. A change of scenery sometimes changes all that, but it’s hard to argue that Bregman is an ascending player.

Baseball’s basic agreement expires after the 2026 season. Rob Manfred, the game’s commissioner, recently said MLB needs to be “vigilant” about salary issues, and that he’s gotten many e-mails from fans who wouldn’t mind seeing a salary cap. That will not happen, of course, because baseball would need a commissioner willing to torpedo an entire season to institute it, the way Gary Bettman of the NHL did. Back then there was a reasonable argument that hockey teams were on shaky ground. In 2024, baseball teams averaged $378 million in revenue. Even the Oakland Refugees raked in $241 million. According to Forbes, eleven of the 30 teams are valued at $3 billion or more.

One supposes it’s healthier for Manfred to be dreaming of salary caps instead of “golden at-bats.” It’s certainly a waste of sleep if the talks don’t also include a salary floor. Then again, Cleveland, Detroit and Kansas City all won playoff series last year, and they ranked 25th, 19th and 20th in salary.

When the Red Sox devote this much money to a player whose tomorrows might not surpass his yesterdays, people in the game will yearn for salary caps, especially when they notice that Saquon Barkley’s “cap number” for the Philadelphia Eagles is $7.4 million. But the golden egg is too big to break. Besides, today’s big-market fans seem to accept the fact that it’s not their money, even though it used to be.

Apologies to subscribers of The Morning After: The flu bug found this house over the last week, honed in on our digestive systems, and sidelined me for a few days. Hopefully the newsletters will be a little more regular. Hopefully I will be too.

Shameless plug: On Tuesday “Don Drysdale: Up And In” will be available in bookstores, but it’s already available for pre-order via Amazon and other outlets. The biography of the Hall of Famer was fun to research and I hope will stir some memories among old-timers (like myself) who remember his shutout streak, his holdout with Sandy Koufax, and much more. We’re working on a series of events in bookstores and the like, and I’ll be including those in future newsletters.