Franchise future
3B will get 5-year, $100M extension; reliever’s deal richest for non-closer
Astros lock down All-Star third baseman Alex Bregman with a six-year, $100 million extension, the second-largest deal in franchise history.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — On a rainy evening near the end of an otherwise anticlimactic spring training, lightning struck twice Tuesday as the Astros invested more than $100 million to keep a couple of club cornerstones in uniform for the foreseeable future.
According to people with direct knowledge of each deal, All-Star third baseman Alex Bregman is in agreement on a five-year, $100 million contract extension, while setup man Ryan Pressly will soon sign a two-year, $17.5 million extension.
Neither deal is official. General manager Jeff Luhnow did not respond to a text message seeking com-
ment late Tuesday night. In the span of 12 months, the 52-year-old executive has now negotiated two of the most lucrative contracts in Astros history.
When it is made official, Bregman’s deal will become the second largest in franchise history, trailing only Jose Altuve’s five-year, $151 million extension signed last season. Bregman’s contract will buy out all three of his arbitration years and his first two seasons of free agency, keeping him an Astro until 2024.
Bregman’s is the secondlargest contract given to a player before he reaches arbitration eligibility. Mike Trout signed a six-year, $144 million deal in 2014 to top it. Earlier on Tuesday, Trout reportedly commanded the largest deal in professional sports history, a 12year deal from the Angels worth more than $430 million.
In an interview with MLB.com last week, Bregman bemoaned the Astros’ renewal of his one-year, 2019 contract, saying he wanted to be “treated fairly for my performance.”
The club will still pay him
$640,500 this year — this new extension does not cover 2019 — but will no doubt sate any complaints he might have lodged beginning in 2020. The effervescent 24-year-old will rake in $20 million per season from 2020 until 2024.
To ascend the sport’s hierarchy and command such a massive deal, Bregman authored one of the greatest seasons by a major league third baseman in 2018. He finished fifth in American League MVP voting after becoming the first man to hit 30 home runs and 50 doubles while playing primarily third base.
Bregman’s 51 doubles were the most in the majors. He led the Astros in home runs, OPS, walks, RBIs and runs. In the American League’s 8-6 All-Star Game victory at Washington, D.C., he hit a go-ahead home run in the 10th inning to earn Most Valuable Player honors — the first Astro to take the award. His 6.9 wins above replacement led all Astros position players by more than one.
Pressly, meanwhile, is braced to sign the largest extension for a non-closer reliever in major league history. The shutdown setup man will get a two-year, $17.5 million extension with a vesting club option for a third season, according to a person familiar with the deal, meaning the 30-yearold righthander could be under team control through 2022. Closer Roberto Osuna is not scheduled to enter free agency until 2022 either, keeping the back end of Houston’s bullpen intact for the foreseeable future.
The stability is crucial for a relief corps bracing for change after the season. Three returning Astros relievers — Hector Rondon, Joe Smith and Will Harris — are slated to enter free agency after 2019. Pressly would have been a fourth.
A Red Sox draftee and former Rule 5 draft pick, Pressly has orchestrated a remarkable renaissance in Houston. After he was acquired in a July trade with the Twins, Pressly yielded two earned runs in 231⁄3 innings. As an Astro, he struck out 32 and walked only three.
“I always wanted to be that guy who, when I’m coming out of the bullpen door, the other team is kind of like, ‘Dammit,’ ” Pressly said earlier this spring. “I like being that guy.”