Looks like he'll be playing 3B. So if you discount that huge falloff after the trade deadline with the Cubs last season (only 212 ABs), he had a 125 OPS+ for the past 2 2/3 seasons. That's a pretty damn good sample size. The pop in his bat suggests 25 HRs, and that number might be closer to 30 in Houston. Bregman's OPS+ is 122 over the past 5 seasons and 120 over the past 2 seasons. If we take what happened in Chicago as an anomaly, then the bats are very comparable with the only noticeable difference being about a 20 point delta in batting average (roughly .240 vs .260). He had 20 errors in his last 244 games at 3B for Tampa. Compare that to Bregman who had 25 errors in his last 302 games (past 2 seasons) with the Astros (definitely showed a decline there). That's almost an identical pace for errors. He's only 25. He's under team control for 3 seasons. Let's hope the best 3 years of his career are about to take shape. Ok that's my attempt at half glass fulling this change at third base. I do firmly believe that whoever signs Bregman is gonna be in for a rude awakening. Maybe that 1st year or two works out (that's even up for debate), but the overall contract will most likely end up in the George Springer area. They better pray it doesn't end up in the Carlos Correa area.
Nothing is guaranteed but to me he’s a better player than Pena and nobody was all that up in arms when Pena replaced Correa. And he may not have even had his best year yet.
Ok I wasn't aware of that, although not likely since he hit only a combined 19 last year. Playing only half the games in Houston, 19 can't turn into 44 magically. Maybe they were referencing 2023 when he hit 31 HRs. That i can believe.
Some of them might not have gotten over the wall but that’s a lot of outs/doubles that are past the fence line here. Have to assume the outs were fly balls that would have been high enough to go over the wall otherwise they wouldn’t have been caught.
Idk it might have been last year. Look at the chart I just posted. There are 25 outs/doubles that appear to be past the fence. I’d assume the ones that are outs would definitely be home runs as they had to be fly balls. The others might have been line drives so hard to tell.
Just gotta hope they pitch him exactly then same (they probably won’t… at least the Astros pitching coaches wouldn’t).
But we don't play all 162 games at Minute Maid. Lol That may be the miscalculation the author made in his assertion. If he is normally a 25-30 HR guy then getting to 32-40 is in play. Certainly.
Also, the new third base coach…I’ve got a feeling his infield practice will take paredes to the next level.
Don't think we'll see a jump in dingers. You still have to hit the ball. The dude was crawling on all fours in Chicago. He hit rock bottom from the end of May into Late September. That's a long ass slump. We'll be lucky if he gets to 15 HR.
