{"id":483301,"date":"2026-02-18T15:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T15:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/483301\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T15:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T15:54:12","slug":"ex-red-sox-star-voted-most-irreplaceable-offseason-loss-by-mlb-insiders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/483301\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Red Sox Star Voted ‘Most Irreplaceable’ Offseason Loss By MLB Insiders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ex-Red Sox Star Voted ‘Most Irreplaceable’ Offseason Loss By MLB Insiders<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Boston Red Sox added a lot this winter, acquiring a slew of former All-Stars in Ranger Suarez, Willson Contreras and Sonny Gray. They also lost a lot too, however, starting with All-Star third baseman Alex Bregman.<\/p>\n

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Bregman bolted in free agency after just one season with the Red Sox, taking a five-year,\u00a0$175 million deal with the Chicago Cubs in January. His departure was a stunning gut-punch for Boston, which had been considered the favorite to re-sign him all offseason.<\/p>\n

Bregman’s exit was even tougher for the Red Sox to swallow given that they’d already traded their franchise third baseman, Rafael Devers, last summer, leaving them without an obvious internal replacement. They managed to swing a last-minute trade for Caleb Durbin, who’s coming off a strong rookie season with the Milwaukee Brewers.<\/p>\n

While both players posted similar WAR totals last season, Bregman’s leadership, presence and positive impact on Boston’s young clubhouse can’t be easily replaced.<\/p>\n

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In The Athletic’s poll of\u00a036 MLB executives, former executives, managers, coaches and scouts, Bregman received the most votes<\/a> for “most irreplaceable subtraction” this offseason with\u00a011, one more than former New York Mets star Pete Alonso.<\/p>\n

“He\u2019s more than just a baseball player. He\u2019s the most magnetic personality in every clubhouse he enters,” Jayson Stark wrote. “So you can replace his at-bats. You can stick someone else at third base. You can divvy up his money. But, as our voters clearly conveyed, when it comes to all the other stuff, you can\u2019t replace that.”<\/p>\n

Bregman’s special combination of elite offense, Gold Glove-caliber defense and veteran leadership will be missed. Just ask the Houston Astros, who missed the playoffs last year in their first season without him.<\/p>\n

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The Red Sox are hopeful that some of their new veterans<\/a> and other players can step up and fill the leadership void in Bregman’s absence, but it won’t be easy.<\/p>\n

More MLB:\u00a0Red Sox Analyst Explains Why Team Put An Emphasis On Defense This Offseason<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ex-Red Sox Star Voted ‘Most Irreplaceable’ Offseason Loss By MLB Insiders originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[7679,49,3987,48,508,1506,493,462,475,471,1493,1523,1491,13988,82,13989],"class_list":["post-483301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-alex-bregman","tag-ca","tag-caleb-durbin","tag-canada","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-houston-astros","tag-milwaukee-brewers","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-mets","tag-pete-alonso","tag-rafael-devers","tag-ranger-suarez","tag-red-sox","tag-sonny-gray","tag-sports","tag-willson-contreras"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}