Jun 10, 2024; San Francisco, California, USA; Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman (2) on deck before batting against the San Francisco Giants during the first inning at Oracle Park. Mandatory Credit: John Hefti-USA TODAY Sports John Hefti
There's been some speculation the Phillies could enter the Alex Bregman market. They better be prepared to shell out another megadeal if that's the case.
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic said this of Bregman's market Monday:
The Athletic’s Tim Britton projects a seven-year, $189 million contract for free-agent third baseman Alex Bregman. I suspect that Bregman and his agent, Scott Boras, are aiming higher — specifically, at a deal closer to the 11-year, $350 million extension Manny Machado signed with the San Diego Padres in February 2023.
Rosenthal presented this in an interesting way by saying "I suspect." Well, it's probably fair to assume that he hasn't arrived at this opinion just on his own.
As Jon Becker of FanGraphs noted, there might be an element here of Boras just trying to reframe the discussion around Bregman's market:
Rosenthal on Bregman (https://t.co/Y658GChAUz): Yes Boras would be crazy for asking this, but it's also smart to. You're not going to fully alienate a team by shooting for the moon in November, and part of getting a good deal is widening the Overton window of what seems plausible pic.twitter.com/o3WPoEJ7if
Bregman is difficult to evaluate as a free agent. He's probably younger than you think — he'll turn 31 next March — but still on the wrong side of 30. He just won his first Gold Glove Award at third base, posting six defensive runs saved for the Houston Astros in 2024. He's been a productive hitter the last three years, hitting .260 with .798 OPS. But he's never been able to replicate the Hall of Fame-level performance he had offensively from 2018-2019, when he hit .291 with a .970 OPS.
This version of Bregman should still command a sizeable contract, although opinions vary on what that will look like. Over on Bleacher Report, I predicted Bregman will a five-year/$130 million deal, with a club option for a sixth season at $26 million. MLB Trade Rumors went higher, with a seven-year/$182 million projection. This is indicative of some of the varying evaluations of exactly how good Bregman is at this stage of his career. No projection, though, comes close to the 11-year/$350 million extension that Machado signed. Boras has his work cut out trying to move the market in that direction.
Of course, this discussion only matters to the Phillies if Alec Bohm isn't playing third base for them in 2025. Last week, ESPN's Jeff Passan and Buster Olney both reported on Bohm's availability, with the latter saying that opposing teams believe that "Bohm is gonna be traded."
Interestingly, Olney then passed along that a "rival evaluator" predicted to him that the Phillies will ultimately sign Bregman:
From @Buster_ESPN: Alex Bregman to the Phillies?
Read here: https://t.co/clRx1ilbk1 pic.twitter.com/np6VuhvELy
Consider this: In addition to whatever it takes to sign Bregman, the Phillies would also have to give up their second and fifth-round picks to sign him in free agency because the Astros extended a qualifying offer to him. It's not that Bregman wouldn't make the 2025 Phillies a better team — of course he would. Is he worth the type of commitment it would take to land him? That's much more debatable.
