Alex Bregman’s Deferrals Lower AAV to $30.9 Million (Maybe Less?)
There have been some conflicting reports about how Alex Bregman’s contract structure impacts his average annual value, but I’m going with what the folks at Roster Resource calculated. As Bruce Levine may have reported, however, the deferrals in the deal will lower its net present value to $28 million for purposes of the team’s competitive balance tax payroll. That’s $2-3 million lower than initial estimates, and RR’s recent update has the deal at nearly $30.9 million AAV.
According to league sources the structure of the Cubs deferment package for Alex Bregman was $28 million dollars in present day value compared to Boston’s offer.
— Bruce Levine (@MLBBruceLevine) January 15, 2026
Unless Levine isn’t talking about AAV at all, which is possible given the wording of his tweet. We’ll get to that in a bit.
The estimate from RR is based on the structure of the $70 million in deferred payments, which the AP reported as $15 million in 2026 and ’29, $10 million each in ’27 and ’28, and $20 million in 2030. That deferred money is due in eight installments on July 31 from 2034-41. Those installments will consist of $1.875 million each for ’26 and ’29, $1.25 million for ’27 and ’28, and $2.5 million for 2030. We all tracking so far?
Per both Ethan Hullihen, a lover of all things MLB minutia, and Roster Resource analyst Jon Becker, that should come out to $30,893,902. A couple million might not seem like much in the grand scheme, but these things matter for a Cubs team that currently sits at an estimated $470,000 below the first penalty level.
Ethan beat me to this but I read it the same way he did and got the same number ⬇️ https://t.co/QpjJzLoBCd
— Jon Becker (@jonbecker_) January 15, 2026
Based on my initial understanding of what Levine tweeted, the Cubs appear to be viewing this as a deal that is technically worth $140 million in net present value. Whether that’s because the reported deferral schedule is inaccurate or the league is using different interest rates from Hullihen and Becker, I don’t know. There’s also the idea that Levine is actually saying the Cubs’ offer ended up being $28 million more than what Boston presented.
That’s how Becker took it, and the wording of the tweet certainly creates room for interpretation. We also know from earlier reports out of Boston that part of the reason Bregman spurned the Red Sox was that they wanted to defer a much higher amount much further into the future. As Bregman discussed during his introductory press conference, the no-trade clause was a big part of it as well. But if that $28 million is actually the gap between the net present values of the two deals, it would mean the Red Sox were at only $126.5 million or so.
They reportedly offered $165 million total, so their deferrals would have slashed roughly $38.5 million from the NPV. That is nearly double what the Cubs trimmed with their own financial engineering, so Boston must have really tried to kick a ton of money down the road. Not that such a move is unprecedented, what with the Dodgers punting nearly all of Shohei Ohtani’s salary well into the future.
I don’t know that the AAV says much about the Cubs’ plans one way or the other, as even getting that $28 million figure provides precious little room to add this winter or at the deadline. At best, it’s a buffer against a few performance incentives. The bottom line is that trying to avoid tax penalties at this stage would be malpractice. We’ll update this with more details as we have them.
