What does Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman's prime look like? We can take a look back to his 2018 and 2019 seasons for a snapshot at what it might resemble, as his awesome 162-game average over those two years is as follows:
173 hits, 36 home runs, 111 RBI, 118 runs, 111 walks, .291/.409/.561
Those are the types of numbers that earn you top-tier recognition throughout the majors, and so it's appropriate that he was an All-Star and top-five MVP candidate in both years, finishing as the runner-up in the 2019 season. But why are we choosing those two seasons as potential representatives of Bregman's prime when he was just 24-25 years old, as opposed to right now? Because the past two seasons, ones that should theoretically have been Bregman's prime, have been anything but.
He's played in only 133 of a possible 222 games, with injuries to his hamstring and quad hampering him in each of the past two seasons, respectively. And from what he told Ken Rosenthal before the World Series, he thinks that the injuries stripped him of what very well could have been his strongest stretch of his career:
Disrupted by injuries his past two seasons — a right hamstring issue in 2020, a strained left quad in ’21 — Bregman said before the Series, “I feel like I’ve lost two years of my prime.”
In the two-year span I referenced earlier in the article, when we witnessed the best of Bregman to date, Stathead shows us that he ranked among the best hitters in Major League Baseball based on OPS (min. 500 plate appearances):
Let's look where he ranks in the same statistic, with the same minimum criteria for eligibility, across 2020 and 2021:
Not bad, and still surrounded by good company... but a far cry from his 2018-2019 stats and the top tier of offensive superstars that the game has to offer. Those woes have worsened into this postseason run, as he's batting only .228 with a .634 OPS and 13 strikeouts in 66 plate appearances. The ALDS went well enough, with Bregman picking up six hits in 16 at-bats, but the World Series has been at the opposite end of the spectrum. Through five games, he has just two hits — that's it.
Bregman blames part of it on his mechanics — “I’ve got a really weak top hand right now,” he told Rosenthal. “I’m releasing the bat behind me, which is causing a ton of problems.” — but perhaps we need to factor some bad luck into the equation, too, as he's still getting good wood on the ball.
We'll likely see him back in the seventh spot with Game 6 just hours away.
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