FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Boston Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy said Bregman would be with the Red Sox if he wanted to be.
Bregman signed a five-year, $175 million deal with the Chicago Cubs in January, a similar deal to the one Boston offered. However, the Red Sox reportedly would not offer Bregman a full no-trade clause, a sticking point in negotiations.
Asked on Sunday if not offering no-trade clauses was an organizational policy, Kennedy replied: "If Alex Bregman wanted to be here, ultimately, he'd be here."
Asked again about organizational policy on no-trade clauses for free agents, Kennedy wouldn't elaborate.
"We try not to talk about organizational policy and the finer points of negotiations just doesn't serve you well," he said.
Would the Red Sox have given Bregman a no-trade clause if he'd asked?
"It's theoretical, right? It's hard to know," Kennedy said. "There's many different parts of a contract negotiation. We did not come to an agreement. So obviously, he's a Chicago Cub and wish him well until the end of the year."
Kennedy wouldn't get into whether Bregman had indeed asked for a no-trade clause as reported.
"Don't want to go back and look at finer points of a negotiation," he said. "Just want to look forward and think about the group that we have in here."
All offseason, the Red Sox pursued a reunion with Bregman, who opted out of a three-year, $120 million contract he signed with Boston last spring. The Red Sox reportedly offered Bregman a five-year, $165 million deal. News of the deal came to light during Boston's fan fest event at Fenway Park.
"We're so grateful to Alex Bregman and what he meant to us," Kennedy said on Sunday. "But look, in the end, when you have choices the way he did, you work really hard to be in a position to become a free agent and perform at that level. He chose a different path, and we wish him well and looking forward to seeing him at the end of the season at Fenway (when the Cubs play the Red Sox on Sept. 25-27)."
Bregman's signing with the Red Sox had a ripple-down effect on the rest of the roster last season. While he was a tremendous asset in the clubhouse, a key piece of the lineup and strong on defense at third base, his arrival created tension with Rafael Devers, whom the Red Sox asked to move from third base to designated hitter.
The Bregman signing and resulting position switch frustrated Devers, who'd signed a 10-year, $313 million deal in 2023. Though the Red Sox balanced the Bregman-Devers situation over the first two months, by June the club opted to trade Devers to the San Francisco Giants in a stunning move that cleared more than $250 million in payroll.
Eight months later, three of the four players in the Devers deal -- Jordan Hicks, Kyle Harrison and James Tibbs III -- have since been dealt, with Single-A pitcher Jose Bello the lone player remaining from the trade. While the Red Sox reallocated some of the Devers money toward signing Roman Anthony to an eight-year, $130 million contract extension and Ranger Suárez to a five-year, $130 million deal, the original supposition was that the club would use the Devers money to re-sign Bregman.
Without Bregman in the lineup, the Red Sox's lone addition to the offense this offseason was Willson Contreras, who hit 20 homers last season for the St. Louis Cardinals. After beginning the offseason harping on the need to add offense, the Red Sox pivoted after failing to sign Bregman by doubling down on starting pitching in signing Suárez. But in trading Devers and failing to re-sign Bregman, there is significant uncertainty surrounding the lineup's power output.
"You can't replace someone like Raffy as an individual, an exceptional hitter," Kennedy said. "It's an opportunity for guys to step up and generate offense. I think you know what we're capable of with this outfield, but we'll have to go out and do that."
Kennedy reiterated comments following the Devers trade that the team should have communicated better with Devers to avoid a messy situation.
"We all have to do what's in the best interest in the organization," he said. "That includes on us, we have to make really hard decisions. And that trade was among the hardest in 25 years here. That was among the hardest. Would we have done things differently leading into it? Absolutely. Questioning ourselves, where do we make mistakes? What could we have done better? But at the end of the day, we were faced with a decision that was a hard one, and we made it and really proud of everybody who worked together on that and time will tell. We'll see how the results are. But tough decision."