The Case For Alex Bregman

Alex Sonty wrote the against case for Alex Bregman that you can find here.

Now I want to be clear that I’m not directly disputing everything Sonty said and making the case that Bregman is definitely going to hit another 40+ HR. I do, however, think he is more than a 25 HR hitter and someone worth targeting this year at a discounted price after his underwhelming 2020-21. One major point of contention that Sonty and others bring up is that Bregman’s 2019 was a luck-fueled home run barrage based on the otherwise mediocre underlying power metrics.

His Max Exit Velo, Hard Hit Rate, and Barrel Rate were all middling in 2019, but that glosses over a key aspect of his game: the pull power. It’s not that no one brings up how he often he pulls his homers, but it is a major part of how he is able to hit so many homers despite a modest StatCast profile in the power metrics. Here is his home run spray chart from 2019:

Alex Bregman lives in the Crawford Boxes! The seating area in Minute Maid’s left field is just 315 feet away from home, which is a big reason that the park is so friendly to righty power. In 2019 specifically, Minute Maid was second to only Camden Yards in right-handed HR park factor with a 123 mark and the three-year rolling mark at that time was tied for 4th with a 114 mark. Bregman was happy to take advantage of this feature in his home park, smacking 16 homers there in both 2018 and 2019, pulling 26 of the 32 shots.

However, he hit 72 HR in those two seasons meaning he wasn’t just a product of his home park with 40 road homers. He maintained the pull-happy approach on the road, totaling 55 pull homers of the 72. That count led the league while his 76% rate was tied for 10th-highest. In 2020-21, Bregman hit just 18 homers, 17 of which were pulled. The 2020 output of 6 in 180 PA feels like variance at play with his 41% flyball and 11% HR/FB rates falling well below the 45% and 16% marks from 2018-19. There may be some of that in 2021, too.

He had a 19% HR/FB rate in April 2021, but with just a 33% FB rate and then he was down to just a 6% HR/FB in May-June before a quad injury sidelined him for two months. He then suffered a wrist injury in September that eventually required offseason surgery. Neither injury can be blamed entirely for the power outage, of course, but they also can’t just be ignored. His 2020 and 2021 seasons are often lumped together to show the larger sample of his fall off and I’ve even done that myself here, but the actual problems are confined to ’21. He wasn’t great in ’20, but with the tiny season, it’s hard to say anything definitive about anyone’s numbers and he did still have a .209 ISO, which I’d gladly take in ’22. It sank to .152 in ’21 while his HR/FB was a career-low 9.8%. He was pulling the ball more than ever (52%), but it just wasn’t leaving the yard at the same clip nor was he elevating like normal with a career-high 41% groundball rate.

Many are looking for the glaring underlying metrics that point to an obvious rebound (see also: Nola, Aaron) for Bregman, but this is more an injury rebound and we are often more charitable with those in the fantasy community. The issue is that his last normal season was such an outlier and nobody wants to project him to return to that level. That’s fine and as I stated at the outset, I’m not here to do that, either, but there is a lot room between his ’19 and ’21 seasons where he can be a huge comeback player.

With a fully healthy wrist, he can get his flyball rate back into the mid-40s and pull big flies both home and away en route to a low-to-mid 30s HR output. I didn’t even get into the elite plate skills that have been a mainstay in his profile (career 14% K, 12% BB) and set him up to be a run machine (both scoring and driving in) for the Astros. I just haven’t seen enough in the 580 PA since 2019 to suggest this is now who he is as opposed to some low-end variance due to sample size and injury.

I see a .275-32-100-100 season and getting that somewhere after pick 80 is incredible. Alex Bregman’s 2019 will almost certainly stand as his career high watermark, but don’t let that blind you from his premium skillset that has yielded a .282-33-106-109 per 162 since 2018. He isn’t just a product of his home park and he doesn’t need a return to the 19% HR/FB we saw in 2019 to have an excellent rebound. Monitor the health updates once the league gets its act together and without any setbacks, bet on Bregman’s track record.





Paul is the Editor of Rotographs and Content Director for OOTP Perfect Team. Follow Paul on Twitter @sporer and on Twitch at sporer.

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dleoboydmember
2 years ago

Amen. And betting on his track record means a BA more in the .280 – .300 range.

Buhners Rocket Armmember
2 years ago
Reply to  dleoboyd

I’m not sure I see that coming without a complete change of approach. His entire career has been running a xBA between .250 and .269, and once the rabbit ball disappeared so too went his batting avg. I really think what he has shown the past 2 years is what he is in this offensive environment, which is about the worst starting 3B in a 10-12 team league.