Former LSU star Alex Bregman talks career, Red Sox opportunity

For the first time in his decade-long Major League career, Alex Bregman opened season this weekend for a franchise other than the Houston Astros.

The decorated former LSU star, among the program’s all-time greats, signed with the Boston Red Sox last month, just days before the team’s spring training report date.

And Bregman visited recently with the Ryen Russillo Podcast to unpack his offseason of patience and change and share perspective from his career overall.

“It’s definitely different, but it’s been great,” he told Russillo. “Just, first and foremost, when I got there, just trying to get to know all the guys and get to know everybody’s name and kind of get to find out a little bit about everybody and kind of what makes them go and what makes them tick, you know? Trying to learn my teammates, learn the coaches, learn the front office and kind of learn everybody in the organization.

“And once I’ve been fortunate enough to get to know all these guys, it’s been awesome. It’s been a great time. I think everybody is the right mindset. Everybody’s motivated and ready to compete this year.”

The signing, a three-year deal potentially worth $120 million, came weeks after the December and January heights of free agency activity — which Bregman admitted took some patience and an intentional mindset to navigate.

His agent, Scott Boras, is known for a track record of lengthy negotiations, leveraging teams against one another and pushing the envelope of timelines as tools to attempt to maximize salaries.

Bregman said multiple times throughout the offseason he and his family were mentally prepared for other destinations — with ESPN’s Jeff Passan reporting big offers having been on the table from the Chicago Cubs and Detroit Tigers — before ultimately landing in Boston instead.

“I was joking with everybody, like, ‘Hey, I was signed two days before spring training even started, so I was early,” like for some of his clients in the past,” Bregman said. “but, I handled it good. I think that the biggest thing that you have to do during that time is literally just put your head down and work — just work on the game, practice the game, get in the gym, be non-human to be like, ‘Hey, where am I going? Where am I going to go? Where am I going to go?’ in the back of your mind.

“I’ll say when it was done, it was a big sigh of relief for myself and my wife. We figured it out, and we were, I think, seven months pregnant at the time, so we were gonna have to get some stuff going into motion here pretty quickly. And they’ve been awesome about getting her all set up in Boston, so it’s been great.”

Bregman arrives already owning the highest career OPS (On-Base Plus Slugging) at Fenway Park all-time among hitters with at least 95 plate appearance at 1.240 and second-highest on-base and slugging percentages at .490 and .750, respectively.

“I feel like the biggest difference is left-center and center field isn’t super deep,” he told Russillo. “Obviously right field’s pretty far. But, kind of my batted-ball profile, I don’t really hit the ball in the air to right field — or not when I’m playing well, I don’t. When I’m swinging the bat well, I’m hitting the ball high in the air to left field and low to right field, and I feel like that kind of fits that mold of the layout of Fenway Park

“But I promise I could hit other places too. Everybody’s been telling me, ‘Fenway, oh you hit —,’ and I’m like, ‘I can hit elsewhere too, I promise!”

[Reactions to former LSU star Alex Bregman’s deal with the Boston Red Sox.]

Bregman actually admitted to “some things that I needed to address offensively” as he dipped in recent years below his career averages in some marks such as batting average, home runs and walks and saw an uptick last year in strikeout rate.

“It was basically like if I was swinging, the ball was going in play — and it’s a blessing and a curse sometimes,” he said. “When you swing at good pitches, it’s a blessing. When you swing at pitches around the edges of the plate, it’s kind of a curse, because you’re putting those ones in play. And last year, I think the pitch selection could have been a lot better.

“And I think we’ve kind of addressed some of the reasons here in camp why my walk rate went down a little bit. And I think it’s back up over the 15% mark now in spring training early, so hopefully continue to swing at pitches that I can drive out of the ballpark and, if I can’t drive them out of the ballpark or in the gap, don’t swing.”

Though Bregman joined his new organization late in the offseason, he expressed clear excitement and confidence in some of the early work he’s been able to get with the Red Sox staff setting him up for a potentially notable improvement at the plate.

“They showed me some stuff with my swing, how it was different earlier on in my career and how it’s changed over the course of my career, and we’re going to try and get it back to where it was before,” he said. “It’s pretty cool some of the technology that they have, some like overlays of how my body is in different positions and some different things that I’m doing mechanically that could be more beneficial if I went back to how I was swinging the bat mechanically in 2018 and 2019.

“Whether it’s my head position or the speed with which I’m loading or where my center of mass is, or how far my hands are back when I’m swinging the bat as opposed to how they used to be inside my frame, there’s a lot of things that they’ve showed me that have been really cool and really helpful that I’m looking forward to implementing this year.”

Bregman said the idea of wearing a uniform other than the Houston Astros’ felt a little weird initially.

But the opportunity to play for the Red Sox quickly sunk in, he said, and now he’s eager to try to provide the team another veteran presence in search of a first playoff appearance since 2021 and potentially a chase for a first World Series since 2018.

“It feels good to be here, feels normal,” he said. “Obviously I miss all my teammates. Playing with them for a while, it was awesome. Going to miss playing with them and the coaches and the front office. It was a great organization, but I’m super thrilled to be here. I’ve had a great time getting to know all of my new teammates and coaches and front office, and I’ve loved every second of it. And I hope we can go out and get back to the postseason and win some games there.”