The Boston Red Sox aren’t rushing their Plan B after the Alex Bregman miss.
The most revealing part of Chris Cotillo’s update wasn’t the name attached to it. It was the lack of movement.
“Very little traction” on Eugenio Suarez is not the kind of phrasing that signals a deal is imminent, but it does tell you something important about where the Red Sox actually are right now.
Not where they were a week ago, not where fans want them to be, but where the front office has landed in the immediate aftermath of losing Alex Bregman.
The loud part of the offseason is over. What’s left is quieter, more uncomfortable, and far more reflective of how Boston wants to operate.
The Bregman chapter closed loudly, expensively, and with more friction than the organization would ever admit publicly. He was the clean solution - the one that made sense on paper, in the clubhouse, and in the lineup. Boston pursued him seriously, but deliberately (to a fault), and when the bidding crept past their internal line in the low-$160 million range, they stopped.
That decision didn’t just cost them Bregman. It reshaped everything that followed.
In that context, Suarez becoming a legitimate Plan B option made perfect sense.
According to Cotillo and Sean McAdam earlier this month, the Red Sox “like” him. That word matters. It’s not urgency. It’s not aggression. It’s interest, filtered through restraint.
Suarez is not Bregman. He’s not Bo Bichette, either. What he is, however, is a very specific kind of bat - one Boston’s lineup has lacked at times.
The power is real.
Forty-plus home run power is not a projection with Suarez; it’s the foundation of his value. He launched 49 home runs in 2025 between Arizona and Seattle, and for a Red Sox offense that too often stalled when the ball stopped leaving the yard, that kind of thump plays.
But so do the compromises.
A near-30% strikeout rate isn’t a footnote. It’s a defining trait.
His defense at third base is serviceable at best, and nobody is confusing this with a long-term, stabilizing solution at the hot corner. Suarez doesn’t smooth out a roster. He fits into it, warts and all.
And that’s where Cotillo’s report starts to read less like a dead end and more like a snapshot of Boston’s current posture.
“Very little traction” suggests the Red Sox are not pushing. It suggests they’re content to let the market breathe, to see whether price and years come down, to avoid another negotiation that forces them to choose between structure and star power. After how the Bregman talks ended, that’s not surprising - it’s instructive.
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Tom Carroll is a contributor for Roundtable, with boots-on-the-ground coverage of all things Boston sports. He's a senior digital content producer for WEEI.com, and a native of Lincoln, RI.
Category: General Sports
