Has Bregman's status with Houston changed after Tucker trade?

HOUSTON -- After the Astros traded right fielder Kyle Tucker, one of their cornerstone players, to the Cubs on Friday afternoon, the attention now turns to the future of free agent third baseman Alex Bregman, who may have also played his final game in Houston.

Astros general manager Dana Brown said Monday he was optimistic the club could re-sign Bregman, who’s been given a six-year offer worth about $156 million from the Astros. Among the players the Astros acquired from the Cubs is Isaac Paredes, an All-Star last season who has played most of his career at third base, but has spent time at first base and second base. He could be Bregman’s replacement.

The trade was a stark change of direction for the Astros who have let star players like George Springer and Carlos Correa walk in free agency and continued to win. The club felt it wasn’t in position to do that with Tucker, considering there was no chance they would re-sign him after ’25 and the lack of Major League-ready talent in their farm system.

If the Astros re-sign Bregman, which some in the organization insist is a longshot, they could move Paredes to first base, a position at which he’s appeared in 71 games in the big leagues. If Bregman doesn’t return to Houston, Paredes could start at third and the club would look to upgrade at first base, where the Astros had the fourth-lowest OPS in the Major Leagues last season.

“Pretty much, Alex Bregman’s status [remains] the way it is,” Brown said Friday. “Nothing has changed since the last time I’ve talked to you guys. We’ve been busy with a lot of different things, as I think he’s probably been busy trying to find a landing spot. It’s still pretty much the same where we were Tuesday.”

By trading Tucker, who was likely to make more than $15 million in arbitration next season, the Astros have some added financial flexibility they could use to make a run at free agent first baseman Christian Walker or free agent right fielder Anthony Santander. No matter what, the sentiment is that Houston needs to add another impact bat, whether that’s Bregman or another player at the corner infield spots or right field.

The Astros have discussed trading for Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado -- if the Cardinals can eat a substantial portion of his contract -- but Brown doesn’t necessarily want to move any more players off the big league roster to get a deal done.

“We’ve said from the outset, we wouldn’t take anything off the table,” Brown said. “If there is some type of opportunity where we could continue to keep this 2025 club strong and get even stronger in the future, we’ll listen. For the most part, we’re not aggressively moving towards that direction, but we are listening.”

Bregman and Tucker were selected with the No. 2 and No. 5 overall picks, respectively, in the 2015 MLB Draft. Bregman, drafted out of LSU, reached the big leagues in 2016 and became a key member of the Astros’ dominance in the AL the last decade. Tucker, drafted out of Plant High School in Tampa, made his debut in ’18 and became an everyday player in ‘20.

Astros owner Jim Crane isn’t a believer in signing free agents to lengthy deals, and any deal to keep Tucker after next season wasn’t going to happen in Houston. Tucker could command $300 million or more in free agency, which would be twice as much as any player has gotten in Astros history.

That’s why it remains a longshot the Astros can retain Bregman, who became the top free agent position player on the market once Juan Soto signed his 15-year deal with the Mets earlier this week. Bregman won’t get Tucker-type money considering he’s three years older and not at his level, but it’s growing more likely he’ll find a suitor elsewhere.

“You have to be cognizant of that because the longer the contracts on the back end, it gets difficult to carry it and you decrease your ability to be competitive when you've got a lot of money tied up,” Crane said earlier this year. “We have some money coming off the payroll next year, as you well know. We run it like a business, and we make good decisions.”