2024 Gold Glove winner and two-time World Series champion third baseman Alex Bregman has agreed to a three-year, $120 million contract with the Boston Red Sox, according to sources that spoke to MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. The deal reportedly includes opt-out options following the 2025 season and the 2026 season as well as some deferrals.
Bregman passed over a few other offers for the deal with Boston, according to MLB.com’s Ian Browne and Manny Randhawa. The Detroit Tigers offered Bregman a six-year, $171.5 million deal that had an opt-out after the 2026 season. The Chicago Cubs also offered Bregman a four-year contract worth $120 million, sources said.
Over his nine-year career, Bregman has won a Silver Slugger award, a Gold Glove award, and two World Series championships. He has also been named an All-Pro once and an All-Star twice.
Bregman is a career .272 batter with 1,132 hits and 191 home runs. Though he had a down year statistically in 2024, he still recorded 151 hits, 26 homers, and 75 RBIs while averaging .260 at the plate.
Bregman gets a huge pay bump
In March of 2019, Bregman signed a six-year, $100 million contract with the Houston Astros. Since the deal covered 2019, it expired at the end of the 2024 season, meaning Bregman was paid roughly $16.6 million a year from 2019 to 2024.
If the figures for his deal with the Red Sox are accurate, then Bregman will make $40 million a year from 2025 to 2027 if he plays out the entire contract. That means that Alex Bregman’s salary will more than double from last season to this coming season.
That is an absolutely massive win for Bregman and his representatives. After all, ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel predicted that Bregman would end up signing a six-year, $187 million contract this off-season. With an annual average value of about $31.2 million per year, Bregman earned himself an extra $8.2 million annually with this recently signed contract.
Alex Bregman bet on himself and won.
The Red Sox improve offensively and defensively
Despite an 81-81 record and missing out on the playoffs, the Red Sox actually improved in 2024. In both 2023 and 2022, Boston finished the campaign with a 78-84 record, so 2024 was one of the more “successful” seasons in recent years. Unfortunately, a .500 record and three straight years without a playoff appearance is not good enough for a franchise that has won four World Series titles since 2004.
The Red Sox needed to bolster both their batting lineup and their in-field. Thankfully, the Bregman signing accomplishes both of those goals.
Boston was looking to add a powerful right-handed batter to their starting lineup this season. Prior to the Bregman signing, the Sox had 25 right-handed batters on their 40-man roster, but 17 of them were pitchers, so they only had eight right-handed batters who weren’t pitchers. With the addition of Bregman, that number has now increased to nine.
More importantly, the starting lineup was deprived of right-handed hitters. That is no longer the case, though. Based on MLB.com’s projected starting lineup, the Red Sox will have five left-handed batters and four right-handed hitters this season, bringing much-needed balance to Boston.
Bregman will also be a defensive improvement for the Sox. With 115 errors and a fielding percentage of .981 last season, Boston was the second-sloppiest team in Major League Baseball behind only the Miami Marlins. Bringing in the 2024 Gold Glove winner will undoubtedly help cut down on those mistakes. In 1,234.2 innings at third base, Bregman only committed ten errors last season.
I think adding Alex Bregman to the Red Sox will help the team move closer to snapping its three-year playoff drought. At the very least, I expect Boston to finish 2025 with a winning record, which would be a notable improvement compared to the last three seasons.
