Each new detail about Alex Bregman’s free agency, and his decision to take a five-year, $175 million contract from the Chicago Cubs, paints an increasingly unflattering picture of the Boston Red Sox.
Bregman was Boston’s ‘Plan A’ from the start of the offseason. So much so that the Red Sox never truly developed a concrete ‘Plan B,’ and are now scrambling to salvage an offseason in which they are currently the only team without a dollar spent on a major league free agent.
It makes their intransigence with Bregman all the more confounding. Especially after how things ended with Rafael Devers last year.
Unlike the Cubs, the Red Sox refused to offer Bregman, who turns 32 in March, a full no-trade clause. This was a top priority for the veteran third baseman, who sought a stable long-term home to raise his two young sons.
According to MassLive, the Red Sox are claiming it’s their ‘organizational policy’ not to give out NTCs. But it must be a new policy, as Dustin Pedroia, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and Xander Bogaerts got them.
Starr: In failing to re-sign Bregman, Red Sox outdo themselves in worst way
Yet even as the Red Sox refused to yield on the NTC – and proposed a decades-long deferral schedule that paled in comparison to the Cubs’ structure – and Bregman’s free agency stretched from days, to weeks, to months, a source said team leadership felt confident they could wait him out the way they did last offseason. They didn’t take Bregman’s priorities, or his value to other teams, seriously, yet were hubristic enough to believe he would choose them again anyway.
Former Red Sox catcher and current MLB broadcasting personality A.J. Pierzynski shared a similarly bleak report on “Foul Territory” Monday morning.
“They made an offer to Alex Bregman early in the offseason, and said, ‘Here it is,’” Pierzynski said, “and his camp kept going back saying, ‘That’s not our market, our market’s higher than that.’
“And it made Alex a little bit mad, and they would not move. So then, the Red Sox were like, ‘OK, well take it or leave it.’”
Bregman’s agent, Scott Boras, told the Red Sox his client had a better offer and was likely going to take it.
“The Red Sox were like, ‘We don’t believe you,’” Pierzynski said. “The Red Sox literally would not move, and would not budge, and really wouldn’t negotiate until it was almost – well, it wasn’t almost too late, it was too late.”
It’s quite a message to send to remaining free agents.
Tickets, anyone?
Tickets to the Red Sox home opener and games through May 28 go on sale Thursday, Jan. 15 at 10 a.m. ET, the team announced Monday.
The Red Sox open the season at the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday, March 26.
Boston’s home opener is Friday, April 4 against the San Diego Padres.
