Alex Bregman signed a three-year, $120 million contract with the Boston Red Sox this week, which may have been a last-minute alteration from his original plans.
Bregman, who appeared on the Section 10 podcast episode on Thursday, did not reveal his original preference. However, the Houston Astros, Detroit Tigers, and Chicago Cubs were reported to be in the race by the end.
“I’d say probably about 30 minutes before I ended up becoming a Red Sox, I felt like I was going somewhere else,” Bregman said. “I felt like it was kind of like that the entire offseason. My first time going through free agency and you don’t really know what to expect if you’ve never been through it, but after going through it, you don’t really know until the last second, until everything’s complete. It was an interesting experience, it can be a rollercoaster ride at times if you let it. You’ve just got to focus on what you can control and your training and listen to your agent.”
Bregman was available in free agency all offseason, not agreeing to a deal until some teams already were reporting to spring training. That’s when the final offers came in fast and furious.
“It’s kind of a blur at this point,” Bregman said. “Looking back at it, I think we got like three offers in a matter of like 30 minutes. And we decided like, ‘Alright, where do we want to go? ‘ The whole offseason goes by and it’s crickets, crickets, crickets, crickets, crickets and then within 30 minutes, three offers? It was crazy.”
Those final 30 minutes included a 20-minute phone call between agent Scott Boras and Boston’s chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, according to Bregman, that swung everything into the Red Sox’s favor.
“It kind of started to seem like it was going in the right direction where we wanted to go and all of a sudden it was like, ‘You’ve got to make a decision. It’s either go or no. And I said, let’s freaking go,” Bregman said.
So, was that a take it or leave it offer from the Red Sox?
“It probably was,” Bregman said. “Don’t know, didn’t want to chance it.”
Bregman revealed that he and his wife Reagan, who will be enrolled in Harvard’s executive business program while Alex is playing in Boston, had a 16-page document full of questions for teams. Reagan, who is expecting the couple’s second child this spring, wanted to know about housing, schools, hospitals and security for the families while Alex was more interested in a plan for winning on the field.
In the end, the Red Sox checked the right boxes, and the $40 million annual salary probably didn’t hurt. Still, Bregman called leaving the Astros “a super difficult decision.”
“I have so much love for every single player that I played with there,” Bregman said. “I feel like we built relationships for our lifetime and friendships for our lifetime. I loved being their teammate every single day. Their front office and ownership gave me a chance out of the draft to go play for them and I’ll always be grateful for that. Their fans were just incredible. Obviously, living in Houston over the past nine years, the people there are just amazing. Great fans. Great organization from top to bottom and I really can’t say enough good things about them.”
