Cubs Camp Officially Opens, Bregman Still Hasn’t Gotten Deal He Wants
Happy Pitchers and Catchers Report Day to all who celebrate. It’s a little weird that it falls on Super Bowl Sunday, but that just means the transition from winter to spring will be seamless. Unless you’re in the Midwest, where my son had baseball practice outside in sunny, 60-degree weather last Monday and then we got freezing rain on Wednesday. I was in Tampa, where the only reminders of baseball were flying over the derelict Tropicana Field and bumping into Scott Boras in the JW Marriott downtown as he worked to negotiate Pete Alonso‘s new deal with the Mets.
Sure feels like Boras fumbled the bag in a bad way, a trend we’re seeing more frequently these days as the vaunted agent appears to have lost his fastball. While the market has accommodated bigger-than-expected deals for a number of pitchers, those all came much earlier in the offseason. Teams have tired of Boras’s bully tactics and have opted against letting him dictate their timing by holding firm to absurdly high salary demands. Juan Soto obviously did okay and Blake Snell joined the Dodgers on a monster deal, but Alonso settled for nearly 60% less than projected and Bregman clearly isn’t getting the offers he wants from the team(s) he wants.
One more quick note on Alonso: I can’t wrap my head around the logic of taking a two-year, $54 million deal over a three-year, $71 million offer. The only explanation is that getting an opt-out after the first year of this deal in which he’ll earn $30 million could allow him to get more than two years and $41 million next winter. But is that realistic? Time will tell.
Bregman reportedly has six-year deals on the table, but they either don’t get to the presumed $180 million target or they don’t have the right combination of opt-outs and incentives. The Cubs have a very creative four-year deal on the table that falls somewhere in the $100-120 million range and it stands to reason that they’re in take-it-or-leave-it mode now. Jed Hoyer wants to have his roster solidified before camp officially opens, and adding Bregman would likely set off a chain of other transactions.
As the CI crew discussed on the latest episode of The Rant podcast, there are some very significant pitfalls in an offer that includes an opt-out after the first year. If we assume Nico Hoerner is likely to be dealt in order to free up both money and roster space to accommodate Bregman, Hoyer is looking at a compressed timeline and zero leverage. While the second baseman has begun a throwing program, his rehab schedule and the fact that the Cubs may have to clear salary means they might have to take something of a discount. Not great when you’re talking about a very underrated player whose overall production won’t easily be replaced.
Even a more modest return would help to offset the draft pick and international pool money penalties the Cubs would incur for signing Bregman, who turned down a qualifying offer from the Astros, but the overall losses would be tough to absorb for a rental. It’s one thing to take on added cost for a high-performing player who will be on your roster for several years. But if Bregman truly takes advantage of Wrigley’s cozy left-center power alley and opts out after one season, the Cubs will have potentially lost a Gold Glove 4-WAR player, their second and fifth draft picks this summer, and $1 million in IFA allocation.
What’s more, they’d be looking at the very real possibility of losing all the former Astros players they signed or traded for at the end of the season. As much as I would like to admire Jed Hoyer’s change in stance to finally go for it, doing so at the risk of the future would be wildly errant. Even if his efforts this winter end up being enough to earn him more time in the top spot of Cubs baseball ops, he’ll have to replace loads of production in free agency.
While there will be a ton of money falling off the books, it’s still an unenviable position. If I’m Hoyer, I’m telling Boras the offer is firm and will be pulled following the Super Bowl. I’m also removing the first-year opt-out (if one ever existed) and probably lowering the total salary. Bregman has to be nearing desperation mode and might be forced to make like Alonso and take a deal with his preferred team that is way less than he’d hoped to get. It seems clear he isn’t keen on the Blue Jays, and the Astros have openly admitted they’re probably out of the running despite upping their six-year, $156 million offer.
That leaves the Cubs, Tigers, and maybe Red Sox as the remaining options. Hoyer should feel good enough about his roster as it is to be comfortable sitting back and waiting, or to just bow out entirely. The thing here is that even adding Bregman doesn’t put the Cubs on par with the Dodgers. Not even close, really. I’d give them pretty much the same odds in a head-to-head matchup at this point, largely because the talent gap is so large. It’s going to take some lucky breaks either way, so may as well do it without bending over backward to make a few more deals this late in the offseason.