Red Sox
“If any clubhouse wants to contend for a championship, this is the sort of guy that needs to be a leader inside it.”
The Red Sox made a major splash by acquiring star infielder Alex Bregman.
Chandler Rome, who covers the Houston Astros for The Athletic, knows Bregman well on and off the field. Here’s a closer look at the pickup through Rome’s eyes.
Boston.com: What kind of person and player are the Red Sox getting in Alex Bregman?
Chandler Rome: They’re getting the epitome of a leader. He is everything you would want in a guy that is going to run your clubhouse. He has one of the brightest and best baseball minds I think I’ve ever encountered, just in terms of how he thinks about the game, how he prepares for the game, and how he makes everyone around him better.
You’d be remiss not to look at the decline offensively, but he can still do the things that win you a lot of games. That’s get on base. That’s put the ball in play, that’s swing at strikes and not swing at balls. That’s having good, competitive at-bats. He probably will never get back to being the 40-home-run guy he was in 2019, but he is still one of certainly the best defensive third basemen in baseball. He’s the prototypical guy that can hit at the top of the order. If any clubhouse wants to contend for a championship, this is the sort of guy that needs to be a leader inside it.
BDC: How has he evolved as a leader throughout his career?
CR: I think after the sign-stealing scandal, it wasn’t really him, it was more within the organization. They realized that it was going to be them against the world. They realized that they had to keep the culture and the bond in that clubhouse tight to keep things together. I think that’s helped, and I think just his natural maturation.
This was a guy that was pretty cocky, pretty brazen, and kind of showy his first couple years in the league. I think he got into various business ventures, he got married, he became a father. I just think a natural kind of maturation helped him evolve into the leader he is. Last year, the Astros had a very young pitching staff and were a team that was kind of reeling. They started the season 7-19, and he really stepped up. While he was not playing well, I should say – he was not good at the beginning of last season – he stepped up and took a lot of those young pitchers under his wing. He took a lot of guys that were slumping under his wing and really kept that thing together last season during a really difficult time.
“There’s nothing like the atmosphere, there’s nothing like playing in Boston, there’s nothing like winning in Boston. To me, it just feels like it means more… he could see what we have brewing here.”
Trevor Story on his pitch to Alex Bregman
#RedSox pic.twitter.com/vWwfd9HKv6
— NESN (@NESN) February 15, 2025
BDC: How do you think his game will translate to second base if he ends up playing mostly there?
CR: I think it’ll be seamless. I don’t run the Red Sox. I’m not going to tell them how to run their operation. I would play him at third base, but that’s only because he is that good a third baseman. Between him and Matt Chapman, those are the two best defensive third basemen in the league. I think it would be kind of odd to not play him at third base.
I understand their dilemma, certainly. I’d play him at third base, but if he plays second, again, he’s such a natural baseball guy. He’s such a baseball rat that he’ll figure out a way. He was a shortstop at LSU. He’s used to playing up the middle. He played up the middle there. I don’t think it will be an issue.
BDC: Why do you think he’s had so much success at Fenway Park over the years?
CR: Basically, all of his home runs are backspin, pull side. He pulls the ball on a line a lot. He pulls the ball in the air a ton. That’s his swing. You saw at Minute Maid Park, how well it translated into the Crawford Boxes. I think it’s going to translate even better to Fenway.
He’s always had an affinity for the Red Sox. I don’t think that it’s one of these things where that was his favorite team growing up. His favorite player was Derek Jeter. It’s not as if he was a Red Sox fan from birth, but he’s got some familial ties around Boston. I think he always liked going there when the Astros would go there. I think it’s a place he’s excited to play, and I think, honestly, that may have nudged the Red Sox a little bit over the edge when he was picking teams. When you put Fenway Park up against Comerica Park, it’s no contest. Any hitter is going to fare a lot better at Fenway.
BDC: What’s his relationship like with Alex Cora, and how much of a role do you think he played in his decision?
CR: There was a falling out at some point after the sign-stealing scandal. I don’t know what caused it, but they’ve since made up and have reconciled. They’re very, very close. As far as what they were like in Houston, Alex Cora was in charge of the infielders as A.J. Hinch’s bench coach. That was where Bregman played. I think they formed a tight rapport.
There’s a lot about Alex Cora’s baseball mind that I think Bregman shares. Being around Alex Cora the little I have, he has just as good of a baseball mind and thinks about the game in a very similar way to Bregman. I think that allows them to really hit it off.
BDC: Do you think he’s the type of player who can vault the Red Sox into contention?
CR: I think in Alex Bregman’s ideal world it’s a one-year commitment. He wants to go there, have a really great year, opt out, and test the market again. If it does end up that this is a longer-term thing with the Red Sox, I think he’s the sort of player that can elevate an entire organization to be better. Jose Altuve, toward the end of last season, said that exact thing, that Alex Bregman made this organization better than the day he stepped into it.
Look, he’s probably not going to put up superstar numbers. He’s probably not going to put up Aaron Judge numbers, [Shohei] Ohtani numbers, or [Juan] Soto numbers, but everything else about him, just his entire presence and his entire aura, is going to elevate that organization.
BDC: Any other anecdotes that come to mind from your time covering him that paint the picture of who he is?
CR: I’ve covered him longer than most. We both went to LSU. He’s a year younger than I am. I covered him in college as well. The story that’s pretty legendary from him in college is that when he was a freshman at LSU, he wanted to take so much batting practice and wanted to be at the field so much that he would call the student managers at 3 a.m. to go let him into Alex Box Stadium to hit, to get in the cage, to take groundballs, things like that.
It got to a point where LSU actually installed a card-reader system for the players to scan their IDs so they could get in the stadium at any time. That just speaks to who Bregman is. He’s going to work his ass off and is a grinder. He’s a guy that’s going to not stop until it’s done.
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