Have the Boston Red Sox made a new year’s resolution to lock up Alex Bregman?
For weeks, it’s felt like Bregman’s market has been stuck at a standstill. The 31-year-old All-Star has received confirmed interest from the Red Sox, Arizona Diamondbacks, Chicago Cubs, and Toronto Blue Jays, while the Detroit Tigers have been much less aggressive than last offseason.
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At times, reports have painted the Red Sox as somewhat passive in their pursuit of Bregman. However, one insider’s latest update on Friday seemed to indicate that Boston’s heads were very much in the game.
What Buster Olney said/predicted about Red Sox, Bregman
During an appearance on TSN 1050’s “First Up,” ESPN insider Buster Olney predicted that Bregman would return to the Red Sox, while reporting that Boston had made “an aggressive offer” for the three-time All-Star.
“I think that Alex Bregman’s gonna go back to the Red Sox,” Olney said. “From what I understand, the Red Sox have made an aggressive offer on him. They valued him last summer, so he goes there.”
In context, Olney was rattling off predictions/updates about a series of free agents all in a row, piecing together how he believed the offseason would go. Bo Bichette is clearly an important piece of the Bregman puzzle, as the Red Sox are viewing him as a backup target to Bregman at a minimum, and Kyle Tucker’s and Cody Bellinger’s markets matter to some degree as well.
What we don’t know from Olney’s nugget, which could be crucial, is when the Red Sox made their most recent offer to Bregman. Obviously, “aggressive” implies that there are substantial years and dollars behind the offer, but if that offer was made a while back, it’s not quite to Bregman’s and agent Scott Boras’ liking.
Red Sox fans would surely love to have this saga over with soon, but there’s no exact end in sight. At any point, a breaking news alert could drop, but as we learned last offseason, these things can even creep into February.
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