The Red Sox’s biggest offseason free agent acquisition, one who fully lived up to the hype by immediately becoming Boston’s best hitter, and one of the team’s two best fielders as well, was set to return to the Red Sox lineup on Friday, according to reporter Chris Cotillo of MassLive.
Oddly enough, even though the comeback of Alex Bregman after his 44-game absence with a quad injury could help put the Red Sox back in the thick of American League East contention, the MLB rumor circuit has been brimming with speculation that Bregman will be traded by the July 31 deadline.
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But with Bregman set to make his comeback, without even taking time for a minor league rehab stint, top baseball insiders were going out of their way to shut down the Bregman trade talk.
First, on Thursday, veteran Red Sox beat writer and columnist Sean MacAdam of MassLive said that he talked to a “top Red Sox official” who waved off the trade speculation.
“One top Red Sox official dismissed the idea that the team would look into trading Alex Bregman if a contract extension can’t be reached before trade deadline, saying: ‘We’re trying to win,’ ” McAdam wrote.
On Friday, Ken Rosenthal — a top MLB insider for both Fox Sports and The Athletic — also laughed off the idea that the Red Sox would seek to deal Bregman.
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“Anyone waiting for a Bregman trade should also be waiting for me to posterize Wembanyama,” wrote the 5-foot-5-inch baseball journalist. “One notion is as preposterous as the other.”
Why would the Red Sox close the door on a Bregman trade?
For starters, Rosenthal explained, Bregman’s comeback “comes at a perfect time, with the Sox finally rounding into form. Even if they go 5-10 in their final 15 games before the deadline – doubtful, the way they are rolling – they likely still will be in contention in a flawed AL.”
Heading into Friday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays, the Red Sox were riding a seven-game winning streak, their longest of the season, and sat just five games behind the first-place Toronto Blue Jays in the AL East.
In fact, the top four teams in the division were crowded within five games of each other, before Friday’s slate.
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The Red Sox, in a move that shook up the baseball world, traded their highest-paid player, Rafael Devers, to the San Francisco Giants on June 15. But while Devers was obviously a top hitter for Boston, he wasn’t the team’s best at that point. Bregman was.
The 31-year-old led the Red Sox with a .938 OPS, compared to .905 for Devers, and a 2.9 WAR. Devers’ number stood at 2.3 WAR.
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