On paper, Alex Bregman isn’t a perfect fit for the Red Sox as a free agent. The longtime Astro plays third base, the same position as superstar Rafael Devers. The prevailing wisdom was that any Boston pursuit of Bregman would involve a convoluted, multi-step plan that would include Triston Casas being traded and Devers moving from third base to first base.
Alex Bregman has expressed his willingness to move to a new position in free agency if needed
But there’s another way Bregman could potentially end up with the Red Sox: by switching positions. And it’s something that has been considered. According to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, Bregman has “received interest from several teams asking whether he’d be willing to move to second base, which he’s amenable to doing.”
The second base spot for the Red Sox, as it has been for years, is unsettled heading into 2025. Boston has Vaughn Grissom, David Hamilton, Enmanuel Valdez and Nick Sogard as options on the 40-man roster along with veteran shortstop Trevor Story, who spent the 2022 season at second. Top prospects Marcelo Mayer and Kristian Campbell are both middle infielders whose positional futures need to be determined soon. Chase Meidroth is another candidate for second after playing well at Triple-A.
It’s a crowded mix, but Bregman could intrigue Boston as a certainty at the position. The two-time All-Star and World Series champion is coming off a 4.1-WAR season in which he hit .260 with 26 homers and won his first career Gold Glove. At 30 (31 in March), he’s still valuable on both sides of the ball. Bregman is very familiar to Red Sox manager Alex Cora, who developed a very close relationship to Bregman during his year in Houston before things turned frosty between the pair in the wake of the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal going public. It appears, based on Cora’s complimentary comments about Bregman over the past year-plus, that those issues have been resolved.
While it’s unclear whether or not the Red Sox are interested in Bregman, the path is a little clearer now that he’s willing to play second base, where he played nine games from 2016 to 2018 (while also playing shortstop consistently). Doing so would strengthen the already-strong possibility that the Red Sox trade from their glut of middle infield options by including some young players in a package for a top starter like Garrett Crochet.
