Rosenthal: When the Red Sox drafted Alex ‘Bergman’ in 2012, plus more MLB notes

The morning after Alex Bregman made his free-agent decision, Fred Petersen sent a text to his former boss with the Boston Red Sox, Amiel Sawdaye.

“We got BERGMAN,” Petersen wrote.

With that, a running joke between those who were with the Red Sox when the team drafted Bregman in 2012 came full circle.

Sawdaye, now an assistant general manager with the Arizona Diamondbacks, was the Sox’s amateur scouting director when the Sox chose Bregman out of Albuquerque (N.M.) Academy in the 29th round. Petersen, who at the time was a crosschecker and remains with the club as an area scout, was announcing the names of the team’s later picks on the conference call set up by the league.

“Part of the shtick was that I would do this AM-FM radio voice,” Petersen recalled. “Ami (Sawdaye) was down the hall and he literally flew into the room, screaming, ‘You ass—-! You can’t do that! You’re embarrassing the club!” And I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ He pointed at the card. ‘Oh, it’s Bregman. My bad.’”

Sawdaye said no one listening to the picks on MLB.com actually could hear “Bergman”; the only audible voice was of the MLB official repeating the selection. But that didn’t stop Sawdaye from jokingly accusing Petersen, for more than a decade, of blowing the Red Sox’s chance to sign Bregman out of high school.

“Ami said — and I don’t know if this is true or not — that when he called (Bregman) to congratulate him on being a Red Sox selection, that Alex was all pissed off. ‘I can’t believe guys would mispronounce my name. It’s bush league. I have no respect for the Red Sox.’ He relays that to me and of course I’m feeling like a real jerk.

“I just misread the card.”

Bregman, in a text, said he was not aware of Petersen’s miscue. Sawdaye said Petersen “deep down” knows he has been kidding all this time. But Petersen countered, “Ami hasn’t been here for 10 years and it still comes up. ‘Who is he going to mispronounce now?’”

The truth was, the Red Sox ran out of money to sign Bregman. The 2012 draft was the first with a soft cap on teams’ signing-bonus pools. The Red Sox selected another shortstop, Deven Marrero, with their top pick, the 24th choice overall. They also committed sizable bonuses to two other high picks, left-hander Brian Johnson and right-hander Ty Buttrey. After that, they were pretty much tapped out.

Still, the Red Sox were enamored with Bregman, who Sawdaye said might have gone in the first three rounds if he had not missed his senior year after breaking his right middle finger on a bad hop off a fungo. When Bregman was a junior, the Sox were the first team to work him out privately, at the urging of their area scout in New Mexico, Matt Mahoney.

Sawdaye had flown to Albuquerque, only intending to see the catcher the Sox eventually would draft No. 26 overall, Blake Swihart. He had never heard of Bregman, who was a childhood friend of Swihart’s, a year younger and undersized. But that season, Bregman set a New Mexico state record with 19 home runs.

“He’s small,” Mahoney told Sawdaye, “but he hits bombs.”

Bregman proved that description accurate during his joint workout with Swihart. Sawdaye remembered that workout even after Bregman missed his senior year. And after Bregman recovered from his finger injury, another Red Sox scout, Jim Robinson, went to see him play in a summer event.

“Jimmy calls me. He’s like, ‘Wait, we can sign this guy?’” Sawdaye recalled. “And I said, ‘I don’t know if we can sign him. We can try. We don’t have much money left.’ If this was 2011 when there was no pool, we would have signed him easy. I still remember him telling me: ‘This guy is the best shortstop in the class.’”

That class included Carlos Correa, Corey Seager and Addison Russell, but Bregman went to LSU, where he wore No. 30 as a freshman to remind himself of the number of teams that declined to draft him in the first round. The Red Sox strongly considered drafting him again in 2015, but Bregman went second overall to the Houston Astros, and the Sox chose outfielder Andrew Benintendi with the seventh pick.

For so long, Bregman was the one who got away. But no more. In his text exchange with Sawdaye after Bregman agreed to join the Sox, Petersen recalled his mispronunciation once again, saying, “Not sure if you wanted to fire me or hit me, but I’ve never seen you so pissed.”

Sawdaye couldn’t resist another jab.

“It’s why he was never a Red Sox,” Sawdaye said.

Cubs flailing and failing

Cubs owner Tom Ricketts authorized the fourth-largest offer Alex Bregman received during his free-agency negotiations. (Drew Angerer / Getty Images)

Theo Epstein famously used the phrase, “If not now, when?” to justify the Chicago Cubs’ trade for Aroldis Chapman during the 2016 season. Epstein, then the Cubs’ president of baseball operations, was trying to end a 108-year title drought.

Nine years later, the Cubs’ position is not as urgent, but the availability of Bregman amounted to a new opportunity. The team, after years of exerting financial discipline and making a win-now trade for Kyle Tucker, had every reason to revive Epstein’s mantra from 2016 in its pursuit of Bregman. Instead, owner Tom Ricketts authorized an offer that was only Bregman’s fourth highest in total guaranteed money: four years, $115 million, with opt-outs after the second and third years, according to The Athletic’s Patrick Mooney.

The Red Sox made the big-market push the Cubs backed away from, signing Bregman to a three-year, $120 million contract with opt-outs after the first and second years. The deferrals in the deal lowered its present-day value to $95.1 million, or slightly more than half of the $182 million the San Francisco Giants committed to shortstop Willy Adames.

At the start of the offseason, few would have predicted such an outcome between Adames and Bregman. In a relative sense, Bregman turned out to be something of a bargain. Yet the Cubs, who would have deferred only a portion of Bregman’s signing bonus, according to a source who briefed Mooney on the negotiations, still fell short.

The Cubs in 2023 were top five in both revenue and franchise value, according to Forbes.

But their current estimated luxury-tax payroll ranks 14th, according to Baseball Prospectus. They potentially are wasting what likely will be their only season with Tucker, who would have benefited from the addition of Bregman to the lineup. If Ricketts couldn’t land Bregman on a short deal, why should anyone expect him to keep Tucker long-term?

It’s not as if Ricketts’ payroll commitments are suffocating. Only two Cubs are under contract past 2026: left-hander Shota Imanaga (through 2027 if he exercises player options) and shortstop Dansby Swanson (signed through 2029). The team is more than $31 million under the luxury-tax threshold and possibly could have remained under even if it had signed Bregman, through deferrals or other moves. President of baseball operations Jed Hoyer, however, told reporters the organization “philosophically” has avoided the kinds of large-scale deferrals other teams employ.

These words from Hoyer, regarding his case to ownership for Bregman, were telling: “I realize this is a financial stretch above our budget, but I realize this is the moment to do it.” The Cubs are projected to win a weakened NL Central even without Bregman, but his addition might have sealed the deal. He was a better fit for their roster than he is for Boston’s. And by getting him on a short deal, the Cubs could have given additional development time to third-base prospect Matt Shaw.

If not now, when? Lately, with Ricketts, the answer seems to be “never.”

Jesse’s back — again!

Jesse Chavez finished 2024 with a 3.13 ERA over 63 1/3 innings. (Tim Nwachukwu / Getty Images)

Entering his 18th season, Texas Rangers reliever Jesse Chavez is in position to accomplish an incredible feat. When Chavez turns 42 on Aug. 21, his age will match the round in which he was drafted — the 42nd, by the Rangers, out of Riverside (Ca.) City College, in 2002.

Let’s see The Athletic’s Jayson Stark find another player who was drafted in as low a round and still was pitching in the majors at that age. It surely won’t happen again, because the draft now only consists of 20 rounds.

Chavez is in Rangers camp on a minor-league contract. His career not only is coming full circle in his fourth stint with the organization, but he also has fulfilled the prophecy of his former coach at Riverside, Dennis Rogers. Chavez said that while he was in school, Rogers told him he would pitch until he was 40.

“I thought he was full of s—,” Chavez said.

Rogers, though, said he saw a number of signs that Chavez was capable of a long career. Flashes of velocity as a freshman. A low-stress delivery. A fearless approach. And perhaps more than anything, “a psychological toolbox that many people didn’t have.”

“We talk about being mentally in tune,” said Rogers, who spent 26 years as Riverside’s coach and has remained a professor of kinesiology in the past nine. “He was already there as an 18-19-20-21-year old. It just grew and grew. He had repairable mental skills. He could repair on the fly, whatever he saw.”

In 2003, Rogers was doubling as manager of the Oakland A’s rookie-ball team in Vancouver when he crossed paths with Chavez, who was in his first year of pro ball with the Rangers’ organization.

“Hey coach, watch me play long toss,” Chavez said.

Rogers obliged.

“It was the farthest I had ever seen anybody throw with no stress,” Rogers said.

Rogers, 73, recalls telling Chavez he could pitch “forever” without mentioning a specific age. “Forever” will not happen. Chavez said this is his final season. He told his wife, Crystal, and three daughters, 21, 15 and 9, that he had one more year left in his body. And they responded, “If that’s the case, let’s do it.”

Angels: No insurance on Rendon

Adding insult to injury, the Los Angeles Angels do not have insurance on third baseman Anthony Rendon or any other player, according to sources familiar with the club’s policy. The reason: Owner Arte Moreno does not wish to incur the additional cost.

Moreno hardly is alone in his thinking. A number of other clubs choose not to purchase insurance. But with Rendon, who signed a seven-year, $245 million free-agent contract before the 2020 season, insurance would have been a wise choice.

Rendon, 34, is expected to miss the entire season recovering from hip surgery. If indeed he is out all year, he will have appeared in only 25.3 percent of the Angels’ games over five seasons. The team owes him $38.6 million in 2025 and another $38.6 million in ‘26.

The deductible for teams that purchase insurance generally ranges from 60 days to one year. Premiums and benefits vary depending on a player’s injury history. But one industry source briefed on players’ insurance policies estimates the Angels might have received a net benefit of at least $50 million on Rendon.

(Top photo of Alex Bregman: Kevin M. Cox / Associated Press)