Boston Red Sox president Sam Kennedy believes star third baseman Alex Bregman “wants to be here” as he possesses the ability to opt out after the 2025 MLB season.<\/p>\n
ESPN’s Jeff Passan<\/a> reported Sept. 4 that the three-time All-Star is likely to enter free agency again. Asked about that story, Kennedy said Thursday on The Greg Hill Show the organization was “all surprised” because the organization hasn’t discussed Bregman’s future in a meaningful way yet:<\/p>\n Opting out doesn’t guarantee the 31-year-old leaves Boston this winter, and the Red Sox went into this deal from the start knowing that a big season at the plate will in all likelihood take him back into free agency.<\/p>\n Bregman has 16 home runs, 57 RBI and a .279\/.362\/.474 slash line. His 129 OPS+ is his best<\/a> since 2022.<\/p>\n Because of his age, the two-time World Series champion almost certainly won’t match some of the biggest contracts<\/a> at his position. But he’ll at least be able to command more money and years than the $80 million he’s currently owed by the Red Sox.<\/p>\n Passan said he’s “bound to get the five-year-plus deal at an average annual value of $35 million-plus that eluded him last winter.”<\/p>\n If Boston wants to keep Bregman, then the franchise will have to pay up. It’s pretty simple. <\/p>\n As much as he achieved with the Houston Astros over nine years, he took what he thought was the best offer on the table and declined a reported<\/a> six-year, $156 million pact from the only MLB team he played for to that point. He’s not going to give the Red Sox any sort of hometown discount.<\/p>\n Signing Bregman in the first place helped satisfy the segment of the fanbase that has long criticized<\/a> ownership for a perceived lack of investment in the roster. The Rafael Devers saga<\/a> eroded some of the goodwill that Bregman’s arrival generated, and a lot of fans will be asking the same questions they were last winter if the Sox lose a bidding war to re-sign him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boston Red Sox president Sam Kennedy believes star third baseman Alex Bregman “wants to be here” as he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-136756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}