College ball and minor league ball - even high A and AA - are light years different. They don't play nearly every day in college, for six months at a time. They play weekend series for like 3 months and barely travel. The grind... it's real. I'm not saying Bregman couldn't come up here and mash for a few weeks, but let's let him get a little more seasoned, make sure he's ready for the long haul. I'm not saying leave him down there until he has 1,500 ABs (or any arbitrary benchmark), but he could definitely benefit from staying down a little longer, IMO.
uh, his current BABIP is at the level of his rookie year. If anything, I'd expect BABIP regression upward over the rest of the season, at least to last year's level. Unless you think his BABIP goes down because of the increased HR rate (and increase flyball %)
But by your logic, you put college players and teenage players on the same developmental schedule. Yes, the grind is real... but so is the physical attributes that differ between a mature young adult who's out of college and a teenager. Its all arbitrary.... some guys get fast-tracked, make adjustments, and eventually stick. Some get fast-tracked, slump early, and never make it. Some go the ultra-patient route and have success, some fail no matter what you do because they just don't have what it takes to succeed at the MLB level. All players have something to learn at every level... so not going to say he's wasting his time... but if he could *help* the big league club win games now, he should be getting an imminent callup (and by imminent, I mean on June 10th).
Nick, your reputation precedes you. I'm going to just agree with you here, as I don't want to get drawn into a week-long, thread-derailing argument about it. They'll be posting game discussions between our 10-quote, 1,500 word responses. No thanks, lol. I'm kidding of course. I agree with you that everyone has their own "clock." Our team sucks this year and third base happens to be a huge hole... Bregman happens to be a huge, third-base-shaped peg. I get it. I guess I'm trying to dampen the excitement because not many people have been successful with that time accrued/reps taken in the minors. Could he be an outlier? Absolutely - and in fact, I'd probably place a bet that he is - but I guess I'd like to just split the difference between those that are ready to start him tonight against the O's and those who want to keep him down all year. Just exercise a liiiiiiitttle bit of caution.
Well now it is down because of this recent skid. Wasn't it higher than his career before this past skid? I checked when his OPS+ was like 200 a few weeks ago and remember BABIP being higher than his career.
I'm sure it was, but given where it is now, I can't imagine it was way over. BABIP can vary in general for a player, season-to-season. If he was up at .400, then I'd say yeah regression downward is due.
I agree with the patient approach when there is clearly not a need. I tend to disagree that early/aggressive promotion can ruin a player (more often than it basically prolong's/delays a player's adjustment period to the majors), but if there's no way to guarantee regular playing time to a promoted player, that's also something to keep into consideration. This front office has shown the ability to go both ways. Aggressively promoted Correa throughout his development. Promoted McCullers straight from AA. Put Tyler White on the opening day roster when Marwin could have held down the 1B job for 3 weeks. Kept Springer down an extra half season till the team was closer to competing. Its clear they don't necessarily employ the universal timeline when it comes to select individuals... and they've also softened their stance about being reluctant to demote players to work out kinks. Anyways, good to always get opposite viewpoints. I see what you're saying. Like I said in the minor league thread, if Gomez can figure out AA pitching after just 2 games, perhaps Bregman hasn't really seen anything close to resembling quality competition in order to draw future projections on.
