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The MLB trade deadline is less than two weeks away, and when it comes, you shouldn't expect the Boston Red Sox to deal Alex Bregman.
Once seen as deadline sellers, Boston entered the All-Star Break on a 10-game winning streak, catapulting the team into playoff contention. When ESPN updated its top 50 trade candidates on Monday, Bregman was notably absent. The story comes three days after Jeff Passan, who co-wrote the piece, poured cold water on a potential Bregman trade.
“Now that Boston is firmly in playoff contention,” Passan wrote, “Alex Bregman is almost certainly off the table.”
Bregman is in his first season with the Red Sox after signing a three-year, $120 million contract in the offseason. Named a 2025 American League All-Star, Bregman is hitting .294 with a .921 OPS in 56 games after missing about seven weeks with a quad injury.
The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal seems to agree that a Bregman trade is unlikely.
“Finding the appropriate value for Bregman in a trade would be difficult if not impossible,” he wrote before the break. “Executives talk all the time about how difficult it is to line up even on minor deals. Bregman’s contract, which gives him the ability to opt in to $40 million salaries in both 2026 and ’27, would complicate matters considerably.”
Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran could be on the move
While Bregman is likely staying in Boston, Jarren Duran might not. ESPN gave him a 25 percent chance of moving, citing the team's outfield depth with Roman Anthony, Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu in tow. It makes Duran expendable as the team looks to upgrade elsewhere.
“Duran had a huge breakout season in 2024, posting the seventh-best fWAR in the majors at 6.8,” the story reads. “He overperformed his underlying metrics, though — i.e., had some lucky outcomes — and those metrics have regressed a bit this year. Now, he's underperforming them — he has been unlucky — so his true talent is somewhere south of that star-level figure but better than the roughly 2 WAR (commensurate with a solid regular) he's on pace for this season.”
ESPN lists Boston as likely suitors for some of the big-name starting pitchers on the market, including Sandy Alcantara (Miami Marlins) and Kris Bubic (Kansas City Royals).
