Now that Alex Bregman has played nearly two months with the Boston Red Sox, it’s an inarguably fact that he’s been one of the best signings of the MLB offseason. Bregman leads the Red Sox in OPS, batting average, home runs, WAR, and is second in RBI. If Aaron Judge didn’t exist, he’d be in the American League MVP conversation. Yet, perhaps the best thing Bregman has done for the Fenway Faithful is save them from ending up with Nolan Arenado.

Because Bregman’s start in Boston has been such a magical run, it might be easily forgotten how desperate the feeling around the Red Sox was right until he signed. The Red Sox were seemingly out of the Bregman sweepstakes entirely and were reportedly heavily pursuing a trade for Arenado with the St. Louis Cardinals. Then, at the 11th hour, Craig Breslow got the green light from John Henry, opened the checkbook wide, and got Bregman to Boston.

As mentioned, the results have been incredible with a .304/.388/.565 slash line and the most consistent hitter in Boston this season. Then you look at the Plan B, Arenado, that almost happened for the Red Sox. And the results have been dismal to say the least, and something that would’ve made Boston’s tepid overall start the season likely more miserable for fans.

Alex Bregman saved the Red Sox from a painful Nolan Arenado alternate reality

Through 45 games with the Cards, Arenado is slashing a decisively average .247/.320/.391 on the season. More importantly, though, he’s provided none of the spark that Bregman has. The Red Sox third baseman has 28 extra-base hits so far this year (11 homers, 17 doubles). Arenado, meanwhile, has just 15 ont he year with five homers and 10 doubles.

Again, the start the Red Sox season as a team has not been what fans were hoping, especially after signing Bregman. They entered Wednesday’s season finale against the Mets having just climbed back to .500 at 25-25. Yet, if you replace Bregman with Arenado, as was very much a real possibility at the time in the offseason, there’s a chance Boston is in the same conversation as the Baltimore Orioles in terms of the league’s biggest disappointments.

Put simply, signing Bregman instead of having to trade for Arenado has kept the Red Sox afloat. There’s no world in which they’d be even .500 if they were getting such a distinct lack of production from the third base spot.

Boston was exceptionally close to living in that world until Breslow and Henry did what was necessary to get Bregman where he clearly wanted to be, just needing the right price. That final push and what Bregman has delivered is something Red Sox fans should be thanking the baseball deities for every single day.