Bregman reportedly looking for “Machado type money” but will that happen?
With all eyes around the league this offseason on Juan Soto and where he will end up, everyone in Houston is thinking about one name and wanting to know where he will go and for how much. Well, it may take longer than we thought it would.
Coming off the worst season of his career, it has been reported that free-agent third baseman Alex Bregman is looking for a contract somewhere in the ballpark of what the San Diego Padres gave their star third baseman Manny Machado in 2023. An 11-year, $350,000,000 deal is what Bregman wants and thinks he and his agent Scott Boras think he should get.
To understand the type of money that is and the jump he would be making, you have to understand how much he has been making in years past. In 2020, Bregman signed a five-year deal with the Astros for $100,000,000. Most of that money was made in the last two years of the contract, with the AAV of those years combining for $61 million of it, but he was making an average of $20 million per year.
Bregman was the seventh highest paid third baseman in the league, and he is now asking to be paid like a top three. The Astros reportedly offered Bregman a $21.05 million qualifying offer, which he declined, thinking he should be getting paid more.
There are different factors that play into how much money a player is offered and how much they sign for. While Bregman may not be the best player on the field all the time, he makes up for that with different aspects off the field and what he can bring to a team.
Bregman, who will be 31 when the season starts, is one of the most highly-touted free agents on the market this year, with a lot teams looking at him, knowing that he can be a cornerstone player, but no team will pay him that kind of money. A promoter for The Athletic, Tim Britton, thinks that Bregman will end up inking a seven-year deal worth around $189 million, paying him $27 million per year, not near the almost $32 million he is asking for.
What can he bring to a team?
What Bregman brings to a team is a bat that will give you 30-35 doubles, 25-30 homers, a mid .270 average and a good glove at the corner. He also brings along his post season experience, which is something that will help his pay. Bregman is tied for eighth all-time with 99 post season games played and is ninth all-time with 370 postseason at-bats while still only entered into the league in 2016.
Bregman has shown flashes of being one of the top players in the game. His 2019 campaign saw him finish second in MVP voting after an 8.9 WAR season with 37 doubles, 41 homers, 119 walks and a .296 average. While his OPS has dropped every year since then, going from over .1000 to finishing with at .768 in 2024, he still has shown those flashes of superstar potential.
Is he worth that much?
As of right now, there has not been much word from other teams about Bregman, but now that he has declined the QO, which everyone already predicted he would do, more teams will be jumping to talk to him, but who will pay that steep of a price?
Fans are considering what Boras is doing with Bregman similar to what he did last year with some of his star agents, like Jordan Montgomery, Blake Snell and Cody Bellinger.
All of them went into the 2023 offseason expecting to land long-term deals, but thanks to having too high of an asking price, none of them could get what they wanted, and all had to settle for short-term high-AAV deals instead. This led to Boras getting fired by these players and more following that offseason.
While this does work for some players, like Matt Chapman who, in the midst of this short-term deal, signed an extension with his team, the longer Bregman waits, the more teams fill up their third base role and stop looking Bregman’s way.
Asking for as much as Manny Machado is crazy for anyone, especially Bregman. While I do think he is a great player and can be a cornerstone third baseman for a team, no one should be giving him that type of money. When Machado signed his contract extension, he was coming off the best season of his career. He had just finished second in MVP voting and had an average almost at .300.
The difference though is that this is more of a norm for Machado. Being just a year older than Bregman, he has built of a name and a reputation for himself that is in a different realm than Bregman is. Not even Rafael Devers, who signed a 10-year extension with the Red Sox in 2023, is making as much as Bregman is asking, and he is someone who is widely regarded as one of the top players at the position every year.
So, what does this mean?
While this does not mean that the Astros are out of the running for him, it does not help our chances. Being so expensive, the team has too many other holes they need to fill in order to have the money to pay that much. His announcement that he could move to second also doesn’t help the team’s case, with Altuve signed till 2029.
It could be possible that the team is able to work something out between them and Boras for a way to bring him back to the team, but as it stands, that is looking less likely day by day.