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December 9, 2024 • 11 mins
As winter meetings kickoff here in the month of December for the MLB, many teams set out to meet and disclose with one another during this time period between the offseason and spring training in regards to the free agents listed yearly that become available to tamper with. Far as the Astros, first on their list happens to be none other than their veteran third basemen, Alex Bregman. Hitting the open market and testing his value, Bregman has entered the free agency gateway as he declined the Astros qualifying offer of $21.05M to return as an Astro. With Juan Soto signing a record breaking 15-year $765M deal with the New York Mets yesterday afternoon, has now raised a bit of an urgency signing free agents and getting deals done. Following Bregman declining the Astros qualifying offer, along with his agent Scott Boras and the team a bit distant from qualifying negotiations, could the veteran third basemen be leaving Houston sooner than we think?
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From h Town.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
This is a for h Town, This is Houston, This
is Sports Talk Saturn night because.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Right now you see it Leighton Houston.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Right now, going back to Sean Salisbury, it's a big
week for the Astros as they pursue to try and
re sign Alex Bregman.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Reportedly by Bob Nightingale, the Astros and Alex Bregman are
fifty million dollars off. Dana Brown spoke to make sure
I get this correct.

Speaker 4 (00:33):
I believe it was.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Indeed, it was a MLB network radio on Sirius XM.
He spoke yesterday at the winter meetings. This is what
the general manager for Dane Brown had to say.

Speaker 5 (00:44):
Look, Gregman's outstanding, you know, great defender, good bat quality,
ab all the time, done great things here in Houston.

Speaker 4 (00:53):
We're working, we're working on it.

Speaker 5 (00:56):
You know, we're having a lot of conversations with Scott
and you know we're optimistic.

Speaker 6 (01:01):
It's certainly going to be an important factor for you,
and I guess the question is if you don't get
them right, everybody has to have Plan B. Where do
you pivot from there? Knowing that maybe you could upgrade
first base a little bit, you could find somebody else
for third base and the trade market. We hear Aeronanto's
name out there at Damas is off the board now,
so that's another guy that could have gone there. Uh,

(01:23):
do you have internal solutions for first or third other
than Singleton and maybe Debond playing But where do you
where do you see the infield if not Bregman?

Speaker 5 (01:31):
Yeah, I would say the internal solutions are maybe a
little bit away, so maybe another six to eight months,
maybe a year, So I don't think it's going to
be internal. But you know, sometimes these young kids will
will fool you and you know, they'll come in camp,
they'll look really good. They'll you know, they've they've worked
their tail off in the off season, so you never know.
But we're not taking anything off the table. Uh, you know,

(01:54):
hopefully you know, maybe by trade or you know, something
like that. But nothing's off the table. You know that
we don't have to compete. We want to remain good. Uh,
but we're focused on Bregman first, So that's our priority.
It's been our priority from day one. Get a third
basement signed, so uh, you know, we want him to
come back.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
All right.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
So there's Astros general manager Dana Brown speaking on MLB
Network series, XM Radio and the Willie Domas, Sin and Sean.
You mentioned it last segment briefly, that is going to
propel Bregman over two hundred million dollars.

Speaker 4 (02:26):
She got one hundred and eighty two.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, you'd think at least right around two hundred million
somewhere in there. I and listening to Dana, and I
think they do want him, and I think it is
a priority. Here's a problem if you want to get
it settled, if it's probably if you want to, you
want know how you get third basement back? You have
to pay him, offer him two hundred and ten million bucks. Yeah,

(02:48):
and you'll probably get him. So, I mean, I know, hey,
we want him here, and we're well, and I'm with
Dan one hundred percent. But the way you're going to
get him here is probably not by being fifty million
dollars away. That's just it's pretty simple math. You want
him here, then you're you're probably, in your book's gonna
have to overpay a great deal that you're not used

(03:10):
to doing here. If not, then you're gonna have to
find a third basement. It's pretty it's really not that
complex right now. No, No, it's not you know what
he wants. It's really not. It really isn't you know
what he wants. You're not gonna you know, you're not
gonna be negotiating down. And it's not that it's not
that hard. It may be hard to do them because

(03:32):
there may be eight other teams are gonna sy oh,
you offer him two ten, okay, we want him so much,
we'll give him two twenty five? Who knows? And then
where's your ceiling where you say, no, that's our that
that's a etched and stone. We ain't going to pass this.
But fifty million, ain't it?

Speaker 4 (03:46):
No?

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Okay? That that much distance. So it's it's not like,
oh man, we got to go through here and we
got to go trade for him, and we're gonna have
to give up. It's real simple. Do you want him
outpay the opponent? If you're fifty or four million dollars short,
then there's nobody who can say that. Well, they may
have given it their best shot, but it wasn't a
shot good enough to keep Bregman interested. And if you're

(04:08):
going in today and you see a Domins's contract in Soto's,
even though a different position, you start to think about
the money that's moving, and it will move this offseason.
If you're Alex Bregman, you're sitting there saying you're for me,
the timeframes running, You're you're not waiting around. No, you
don't want to miss the first wave of big bucks.

(04:28):
And he's probably now I mean now that Soto's off,
I mean one of the prized catches in the off
season right now. So if it's like I said, it's
not that big, we you know where you are, you
know where they are if you want to do it,
and you know where the market's probably going to be.
It's a pretty simple thing. Scott, where are we Well

(04:51):
we want six years, two ten, Well we're only willing
to pay you one seventy. Okay, that's great. Is that
your final offer? Yeah, we can't go any higher now, okay,
why wish you luck? Yeah, and I'll see letter, see
you in Boston or wherever else you're going. It's really that,
it's not. I mean, you can get creative and say,
well can we do this more upfront? One more money, whatever,

(05:11):
But really the creative, you know, how do you shape it?
You can tie that fifty million dollars up anywhere you
want early, later, pay me now, pay me later, whatever
it is you want to do. But there's a number
that I'm sure Scott Borse is gonna want to get to.
And if he doesn't, somebody else will. And that's just
the simple math of this. Yeah, you don't have to
go through trading prospects or any if it's you and
a guy sit in a room. What's he want, Here's
what we're willing to offer. What's your final offer? And

(05:32):
it's either going to be good enough or it's not.
There ain't gonna be a whole lot of Well, we're
within fifteen dollars. Now, when you're within fifteen million, you're
probably in striking distance. But other than that, he's as
Soto left for the same price for one extra year
off it was it for sixteen years.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
There were the Yankees offered him sixteen and it was
like four million, five million less per year.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Right, So, but what I'm saying, when you're up in
a billion dollar area, yeah, you're like, so, yeaht caught
in the tax wash, ok, five or six. But he
literally is going across the street. And when I say
at Brooklyn, through the Queens area, but literally across the
Street to change a uniform play in front of similar fans,
although Yankee and Bets fans may be different ones at

(06:16):
the ball bar, but New York fans, same media is
gonna cover him every day. Yeah, And he did that,
and in truth, it probably came down to twenty million bucks, Yeah,
million max. Right when you give all the years forty
five million bucks a year right on on a guy
who's going to make a billion dollars if you count endorsements,
by the time this contract's over, he'll be well over

(06:37):
a billion dollar over yea, counting his salary in that, Yes,
that he will have just made in that fifteen years. Yeah. Problem.
Matter of fact, we're probably if he plays like he's
been playing, it'll be more than that.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
Right, So.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
And is and I'm sure back in his home country
and internationally too. I mean, all the endorsements we don't see, right,
It's it's it's a he's a a billion dollar player.
So my point is is, and he can opt out
after five years. Yeah, but why would you anyway? So
to see what there so you scale that down into Bregman,
it's a pretty it's it's simple math when you're not

(07:09):
trading prospects or players. It's just how much money got Yeah,
you know, throwing into like we'll throw in a range
Rover's probably not going to be enough.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
You can buy ten of those. So what are you
gonna do to get me to where I want to get?
Fifty million dollars apart? According to uh Bob Nightingale, he
also said the plan is for Houston to quote unquote
enhance their offer soon.

Speaker 4 (07:31):
Okay, well what does that look like this week?

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Well, I'm sure that people thought Willie Domas was going
to be around a little longer off the board. Yeah,
and mayor he was a possibility for this team if
in fact.

Speaker 4 (07:41):
He was their a quote unquote backup plan.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Right, Well, that backup plan is now a starter. He's
not a backup. But you know I started at a
star for for somebody else. So goes fast. When you
say well soon, I would suggest that offer soon means
like today, I would think so by tomorrow. It's because
if it gets to my point, I'm also somebody makes
me an offer that I can't refuse. Are you turning

(08:03):
it down? Are you gonna sit there and go back? No,
you're gonna say, oh, well you want to come up
seventy million dollars to catch me. I'm just signing. I'm
not going to miss out on it, which begs the question,
is Pete Alonzo staying in New York?

Speaker 4 (08:14):
Yeah, they're going to do both. I have no idea, man,
that's that's going to be.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
You think you'd want to You just add a great player.
You don't want to take a great player away from it? Right,
you get both those power bats in your lineup. You
really need that, Judge and Soto, Alonzo and Soto. Yeah,
you'll take that if you're the Mets. I'm not. I'm
not convinced he's leaving automatically. He California guy, isn't he?

Speaker 5 (08:36):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (08:37):
Pee Alonzo? Yeah, come on now, I.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Thought he's an Orange County or a California California. Well,
he wouldn't have handled the means he went to Florida.
Let's see Pete did. And Pete don't want to. He
didn't want to come to Esco.

Speaker 4 (08:52):
He could scared. Yeah, oh yeah, that big polar bear mother.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
You know, he don't want to roll up on my
in the mean streets. He's not He's not that dumb.

Speaker 4 (09:00):
Yeah, he looks smart.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Guy's not gonna roll up there.

Speaker 4 (09:02):
He looked a little lost walking through Esco.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
You don't want to do that.

Speaker 4 (09:05):
Hey man, what's that big white guy doing over here?

Speaker 6 (09:07):
Man?

Speaker 3 (09:07):
The only basic white guy we allow here. I know
he's actually from Tampa. Oh yeah, so he's a Florida guy. Yeah,
one of those coasts you know where there's water, Yeah,
right right, southern California. Yeah, you know, Florida's a big peninsula,
you know whatever. It is, left coast, West coast, best
good players from both. So he's a Florida guy.

Speaker 4 (09:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
I don't see him going to the Miami Marlins.

Speaker 4 (09:27):
I doubt it.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
But he rolled out, he rolling into Esco either. You know,
what do you say? The only one seals?

Speaker 4 (09:32):
Hey man, The only big greeno that we like around
here is Susy.

Speaker 6 (09:35):
Man.

Speaker 4 (09:36):
I don't like you pull up.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
It's gotta be that.

Speaker 4 (09:39):
I don't think so. No, I don't know, man.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
You know you're not allowing pads up. But what do
you mean, Oh, it's Whitey blows everything?

Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah, you know, it's it's it's it's hey man, what
l a?

Speaker 4 (09:53):
What do you call him? We call him Beeter.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
That guy's name, that Peter Alonzo.

Speaker 4 (09:59):
Man huh Alonzo, Yeah, I mean kind of Yeah, baby,
we'll welcome you, We would get maybe welcome him in.

Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, he's uh, he's I don't know if he's gonna
go back there.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
Willia Domas, by the way, headed to the Giants seven year,
one hundred and eighty two million dollar contract only twenty
nine years old.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, big signing for the uh for the Giants and
uh yeah, but but Pete Alonzo, he's fraid he's gonna
get paid. So there's another big catch in this, in
this price market.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
So yeah, and well Cohen's got a ton of money,
so I wouldn't be surprised if they dump money into
him too.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Well, look, the Dodger's philosophies. One's not enough. So if
you want to keep up.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
With you know what Steve Cohen's like, man, forget that
deferred money. Gets your bat here you go. Oh yeah,
ain't the dodder. No, he's a get it up, get
it out, let's go. How much money you're like, that's
final with me. I'm good to go.

Speaker 4 (10:49):
It's insane.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
I can get some interest off that principle. Man.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
Something else interesting coming from Bob Nightingale is that the
Astros are aggressively trying to train one of their bullpen guys.

Speaker 4 (11:02):
Who is it. We'll discuss the next right here on
Sports Talk seven y
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