Throughout this offseason, before Alex Bregman signed a free agent contract with the Chicago Cubs, all the reporting on his time with the Boston Red Sox made one thing clear.

Bregman was more than just talent.

Everyone who wrote about Bregman’s time in Boston suggested his leadership had been crucial to what the Red Sox did.

He ended up spending just one year in Fenway Park after coming over from the Houston Astros, but that evidently was enough time to make that kind of impact.

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Now, he’s joined the Cubs. It’s a five-year, $175 million contract. And it’s a chance for Bregman to make that kind of impact at Wrigley Field.

In a new article on ESPN.com, Alden Gonzalez picks one player from each team he thinks is worth watching in the spring. For most teams, he picked less-heralded players. For the Cubs, he picked Bregman.

“A member of the Cubs’ front office called Bregman ‘a transformative presence’ whose impact ‘is impossibly widespread,'” Gonzalez writes. “One offseason after losing out on him in free agency, the Cubs landed Bregman with a five-year, $175 million deal. Bregman put up 3.5 fWAR despite playing in only 114 games last season and ranked 19th among position players in that metric from 2022 to 2025.”

Bregman will make an on-field and lineup impact, for sure. But he’s more than that.

“His presence greatly lengthens their lineup, pushing Matt Shaw into a utility role in which he should thrive, but it’s his influence on their culture that has Cubs officials so excited — and many of those with the Red Sox so distraught about losing him,” Gonzalez writes. “As one Cubs source put it: ‘The talent doesn’t even scratch the surface of what he brings.'”

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The Cubs didn’t win the NL Central in 2025 and had to settle for a wild card spot behind the Brewers.

This season, with Bregman, the sky might be the limit.

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