Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Please find Freddie or Jesse on either side of the stage to ask your questions. With that, I'll leave it to Jay. Awesome. Thank you, John. I just want to start out by first welcoming Reagan and Knox and Bennett to the Cubs family. All right. Bennett is particularly excited about that. But anyway, welcome to the family.
Chapter 2: What are Alex Bregman's initial thoughts on joining the Cubs?
We couldn't be more excited you guys are here. I just wanted to thank Scott. We've done a lot of deals together. We've had a lot of back and forth. A lot of back and forth. But I would just say that I appreciate the diligence, the dedication always. And it's also really comforting knowing that once we get a player
from the Boris Corp into the fold we talk all summer and it's always about how do we make that player better how do we put him in the right frame of mind and I always appreciate that so thank you and then I just want to thank Tom Ricketts who's in back and Laura and Todd for the constant support of our department so thank you very much
I think anyone that spent time around our office, around me, knows that this is a player that I've coveted for a long time, that our department has coveted for a long time. And I think the baseball reasons for that are pretty clear. Nine and a half years of great production, elite strike zone control. He's got elite swing decisions. He pulls the ball in the air for power. He plays great defense.
Chapter 3: How does Alex Bregman describe his commitment to winning?
He plays hard every day. I think that part is really clear. But the reason we're sitting here today is that whenever you're going to make a significant commitment in years and dollars to a player, you have to feel great about the person, about the human that you're investing in. And I couldn't feel better about that with Alex.
People that have spent time around Alex know that he is obsessed with hitting, obsessed with winning. And if that focus was entirely on just Alex's performance, that would be impressive. But I think where Alex takes it to another level is his focus on ace and his focus on the organization and how we can all do things the right way towards winning.
To me, when I think about the biggest compliment that you can give to a player in a team sport is to say they're an incredible teammate. And every account I've ever gotten about Alex, from college, minor leagues, to organizations in the major leagues.
is that this is truly an incredible teammate and someone that is focused every single day on us winning, us preparing the right way, and us playing the right way. So like I said, when you do make a significant commitment to a player, you want to make sure that the person and the player are both at the highest level. And with Alex, we know that.
So I couldn't be happier to bring Alex to Chicago, to this great fan base, to Wrigley, and couldn't be more excited to put this uniform on Alex. So thank you guys so much.
Hey, everybody.
I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a member of the winning baseball player and focused on winning and in talking with Jed and Carter throughout this process, I know that the Cubs organization is focused on winning and I'm looking forward to doing that and winning a championship here.
I want to say thank you to the Ricketts family, Tom, Jed, Carter, everyone in the Cubs organization for showing me how much they valued what matters to me the most, my family, and winning baseball games. Thank you, Alex. Bruce, we'll go to you first. Welcome to Chicago. Great to see you, Scott.
In the nicest way possible, you are known as the ultimate baseball rat. Where does that come from? How was it created?
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Chapter 4: What makes Alex Bregman a coveted player for the Cubs?
talk about uh winning and how committed they are to winning and getting to watch uh that team last year um to veteran group with some exciting young players as well and um just their
willing to do what it takes to win at this level and they're committed to doing that and through many conversations with Jed and Carter and a lot of the staff here already you can you can really sense that and just I'm really looking forward to it ready to get to work.
Maddie Lee from the Chicago Sun-Times. Just following up on that, I'd actually love to hear from Scott and Jed on how those conversations last spring maybe served as a foundation for talks then this winter.
I mean, obviously the timing was different last spring, and so the kind of contracts we were talking about were different. I think it was more just the level of interest. I think when the season ended and he opted out of his contract, I think that... I called them pretty quickly and made it clear that we were interested again. So I think that probably has led to a foundation of interest.
And there was a little bit more background, a little more knowledge about the organization that might happen if it was more of a cold call. But we'd just been through a part of this process seven, eight months before. So it kind of made it a little bit simpler.
Well, first, I want to thank Jed, the staff, and Scott Chamberino from our office, because when we do things, we do things in very thorough volume with one another, to say the least. But the... You know, when you find people that are fit for one another, they're kind of self-understood. They understand all their forums. They understand who they are.
And they understand what their needs are for one another. And in this relationship, you can see the synergy was... really, really something that both parties felt were something that could be highly successful. And when you find that in the game, you find the communication levels are greater. You find that the process from top to bottom in an organization is unified.
And so it's the classic light socket and the plug. And that's kind of how Jed and I think Alex will work as a baseball unit and should see some electricity from it.
John? Hey Jed, John Greenberg from The Athletic. Last year, there's a difference between a winning team and being a real contender. Were there points in the year last year where you were like, we're really an Alex Bregman, we're the Alex Bregman away from being a real contender? And is that how you feel what this move does to the Cubs for 2026?
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Chapter 5: How does Alex Bregman view his role as a teammate?
Do you find yourself taking things and learning things that you apply to baseball?
Yeah, I think so. I think you can take a lot from the other teams and apply it. I think that being here for the last few days and going to see how much the city loves its sports has been awesome. Actually, my father and I and uncle kind of did Bulls, Blackhawks, and Bears maybe in 2016 or so, one off season in like a three-day time period.
So they were jealous that they weren't at the games the last two days, but it kind of just – The city of Chicago loves sports, and they love winning, and hopefully we can win a lot for them. I had two, one for Alex, one for Jed.
Alex, how much does the hitting environment matter when you're looking at your free agent contract and where you're going to be for the next five years and how that looks in your legacy and things like that in terms of Wrigley Field and other places you've been? How much does it matter? Well, actually, one of the first things that we talked about on the Zoom was –
Just last year kind of overlaid my batted ball spray to Chicago, and it's definitely a good place to hit. I feel like, like Jed said, pulling the ball in the air here to left center is awesome. So, yeah.
Jed, for you, you had a third baseman that played goal-golf caliber, was one of the better hitters in the second half. What have your conversations been with Matt Shaw, and what's his role going forward?
Yeah, I think I'll keep the conversations, you know, internal. But we have a lot of really good, really versatile players. And I think that's a positive, you know. And, you know, we have guys that can play different positions really well. And, you know, in my experience in baseball, but also with the Cubs and, you know, players that, you know, have been a part of a lot of winning here.
moving guys around the diamond, it works and it can work really well. I think that we're going to be celebrating 2016 this weekend and Chris Bryant played a lot of third, a lot of left field that year. Javi Baez played everywhere. We didn't have to just have one position for those guys.
You can move really good players around and I think that you're not going to have perfect health throughout the year. You're going to need days off and there's a lot of There's a lot of bats out there if you can move around and play different positions.
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