Most in Boston are not buying what the Red Sox are selling these days.

Such is life when it’s mid-January and you’re the only MLB team yet to make a free agent signing at the MLB level. But one of baseball’s top insiders is still buying Craig Breslow & Co.’s messaging, with Bob Nightengale reporting Tuesday that the Red Sox are expected to “aggressively pursue” free agent infielder Bo Bichette.

Boston’s reported interest in Bichette comes on the heels of Alex Bregman’s move to the Cubs, and with options dwindling (and in a hurry) for the Red Sox. Bichette is also the best of the rest when it comes to a true fit for the Red Sox; Kyle Tucker is a natural outfielder/designated hitter (and the Sox have too many of those as is) while Cody Bellinger is a first baseman and outfielder. Again, already have enough of those. Bichette, meanwhile, plays the infield, and has expressed a willingness to move off shortstop for his next team. The Red Sox could use him at either second or third.

A Blue Jay for his entire career to date, the 27-year-old Bichette is on the market after a 2025 season that featured a career-best .311 average and .840 OPS (minimum 50 games played). In addition to those numbers, Bichette also knocked a career-high 44 doubles, along with 18 home runs and 94 RBIs, in 139 games for Toronto last season. 

Limited by a knee injury late in the year, Bichette returned to the Toronto lineup for the World Series, where he hit .348 with a home run and six RBIs in seven games. 

But with numbers like that, Bichette is commanding a pretty penny. The New York Post’s Jon Heyman said earlier this month that it was thought that Bichette’s camp had an ask of $300 million as a free agent signing. If that’s what he’ll get, you could almost automatically count out the Red Sox as being the team to sign him, you’d think.

To this point, Bichette’s name has most frequently been linked to the Blue Jays, Yankees, and Phillies, with Philly emerging as a late contender following a Zoom meeting between the sides earlier this week. The Sox, meanwhile, have been sort of a late addition to the party following the fallout with Bregman, though they were linked to Bichette prior to Bregman officially leaving for Chicago.

But to think Boston’s interest in Bichette is serious, you’re going to have to bring yourself to this thought process: The Red Sox will in all likelihood have to outbid the Blue Jays, the Phillies, and the Yankees to sign him. That’s just not in line with the reality of how they do business these days, as much as one would like to think. In fact, when the Red Sox have lost out on players, it’s frequently been because they have been outbid by those teams, like they were with Kyle Schwarber and Max Fried.

There’s essentially two schools of thought here when it comes to wading through the Bichette-to-Boston rumors. One is that the Red Sox will continue to operate like they have in recent years, and are just happy to be considered “in the mix,” even if their idea of aggressive doesn’t match up with the reality of what aggressive means in terms of signing free agents in 2026. The other, and one you saw a year ago, is that Sox ownership will get fed up with the negativity regarding their spending habits and simply bite the bullet and spend to get the player they want. That’s how we got the picture of John Henry lighting up a cigar a year ago, though he probably didn’t imagine that the picture would age like milk in less than a calendar year.

But for most of Boston, it’s become “we’ll believe when we see it.”