Houston was hard-pressed to keep its third baseman already, and the first big domino of free agency certainly didn’t help.

From the moment their season ended with a Wild Card upset at the hands of the Detroit Tigers, the Houston Astros made it clear that their top priority this offseason was finding a way to keep third baseman Alex Bregman around for the long haul. And with good reason: Not only is Bregman one of the faces of the franchise, he’s still a very solid player as he enters his 30s, and there simply aren’t a ton of great third-base solutions for GM Dana Brown to explore should he walk. Houston has no interest in taking a step back in 2025, and re-signing Bregman feels like table stakes for the team to dream of more than just winning an uninspiring AL West.

There’s just one problem with that plan, however: Bregman is a Scott Boras client, and he and his agent are looking to get paid this winter. His initial ask was reportedly something approaching the 11-year, $350 million deal that Manny Machado got from the San Diego Padres (at least in terms of average annual value), and while that’s obviously not in the cards, recent reports suggest that price is somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 million. With owner Jim Crane looking to duck back under the Competitive Balance Tax threshold and players like Framber Valdez and Kyle Tucker approaching free agency themselves, that math becomes awfully dicey.

Unfortunately for Houston, it just got even dicier on Saturday afternoon, when the San Francisco Giants inked former Milwaukee Brewers star infielder Willy Adames to a seven-year, $182 million deal. If Brown was hoping that Bregman might cut the Astros the slightest of hometown discounts, he can officially kiss that pipe dream goodbye.

For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work onThe Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop between now and the MLB offseason.

Willy Adames signing might price Alex Bregman out of Houston

First, because Bregman’s market is now firmly established. Adames has played the more valuable position, but Bregman has consistently outproduced him at the plate, and he’s not so shabby with the glove himself. You can guarantee that he and Boras will be loath to accept anything less than what Adames just got, especially considering how few impact infielders remain on the market.

Which brings us to the other reason why this is bad news for the Astros. A bunch of deep-pocketed teams — from the New York Yankees to the Atlanta Braves to the Toronto Blue Jays to the Los Angeles Dodgers to the Boston Red Sox — were reportedly eying Adames, and with him now signed, the only other non-Bregman option is … Ha-Seong Kim? Gleyber Torres? A trade for an aging Nolan Arenado? Bregman is a far better bet than any of those names, and you can bet that some team (especially one that loses out on the Juan Soto sweepstakes) is going to panic and hand Bregman the bag he’s looking for. Houston better find a way to up its current offer, because if not, they can kiss their franchise cornerstone goodbye.