Sports
Red Sox Sign Breakout First Baseman Jake Bauers to 4-Year, $58 Million Deal
Boston lands the 31-year-old slugger fresh off an NLCS MVP run with Milwaukee, but his fit in a lineup already anchored by Willson Contreras remains an open question.
The Boston Red Sox have agreed to a four-year, $58 million contract with first baseman Jake Bauers, rewarding the 31-year-old left-handed hitter for a breakout 2026 season that ended with a World Series title and an NLCS MVP award in Milwaukee, according to multiple reports.
Bauers set career highs across the board this past season, batting .266 with an .874 OPS, 26 home runs and 86 RBIs â a dramatic leap for a player who had never exceeded 372 at-bats or 12 homers in his first six major league seasons. He was a postseason standout, going 4 for 14 with a home run and six RBIs in the NLCS sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers, including a go-ahead homer off two-time Cy Young winner Blake Snell in an 11-pitch at-bat during Game 3 in Los Angeles. He cooled off in the World Series against Tampa Bay, managing just two hits in 21 at-bats with no homers or RBIs.
How Bauers fits into Boston's lineup is not immediately clear. Willson Contreras is entrenched as the starting first baseman, and the two could split time between first base and designated hitter.
Bauers's path to this point was anything but linear. Drafted by the San Diego Padres in 2013, he bounced through Tampa Bay, Cleveland, Seattle and the New York Yankees before landing in Milwaukee in 2024. He hit .202 for the Yankees in 2023 and .199 in his first season with the Brewers, and he seriously considered retiring before learning his wife was pregnant. He has said he returned to the game because his family needed health insurance.
His .235 average in 2025 was a career high before this year's surge turned him into one of the offseason's more sought-after power bats. The deal, first reported by ESPN, signals Boston's willingness to bet that the 2026 version of Bauers is the real thing.