The Houston Astros continue to express desire, at least publicly, to bring back Alex Bregman as his free agency keeps looming over every decision they make this offseason.
Letting him walk over money would be a signal to the rest of Major League Baseball that they could be beginning a rebuilding process and some of their best players, who are set to soon hit the open market themselves such as Framber Valdez and Kyle Tucker, may available for trade.
With there still being a reported large gap between Bregman and the team in negotiations, it feels more likely than not that he is going to be playing elsewhere in 2025.
Despite that, Houston’s general manager Dana Brown is still confident they are going to lure their franchise cornerstone third baseman back.
“We’re working on it. We’re having a lot of conversations with Scott [Boras], and we’re optimistic,” Brown said at the beginning of the Winter Meetings this week, adding that keeping Bregman is the goal when asked about possible backup plans.
“We’re focused on Bregman first. So that’s our priority, it’s been our priority since Day One…we want him to come back.”
How serious the Astros actually are about bringing back Bregman will be determined by what their final offer is if he does end up leaving.
Sure, Brown can say Bregman is the top priority and they want to bring him back, but if Houston doesn’t even come close to offering what they know would realistically take to get him to stay, then they were never really all that inclined to make it happen.
The Astros are going to weigh how open their championship window is both now and over the better part of the next decade when deciding how urgently they should be trying to keep Bregman.
Realistically, if they sign the star third baseman, keeping Valdez and Tucker goes from unlikely to probably impossible.
It’s understandable why the team wants to keep Bregman since the alternative is moving on from yet another player of the Golden Era, but at a certain point, teams must pay a player for what he is going to do in the future, not what he has done in the past.
While Brown may be feeling optimistic about bringing Bregman back, however honest that is, perhaps he should begin the process of figuring out another solution if the two-time All-Star signs a megadeal elsewhere.
