Alex Bregman Trending Toward Top-3 Career Season
I’ll never forget a debate I had with a buddy roughly 25 years ago over his claim that Reggie Miller wasn’t very good because he scored most of his points in the fourth quarter. Even if that statement was factually accurate, my counter was that coming up big late in games would actually make a player more valuable. I bring that up because we’re watching Alex Bregman turn it on late in the season after a first half that had many questioning the Cubs’ choice to hand him $175 million this past offseason.
The noted baseball rat and tinkerer seemed ill at ease with his swing mechanics at the outset of his Cubs tenure, constantly seeking the elusive feel that would get him back to his Astros days. Maybe not those prime seasons in 2018 and ’19, but something better than being basically an overpaid bench coach. Bregman’s 0.7 fWAR through April was tied for seventh on the team, just below Carson Kelly and Moisés Ballesteros.
Right there with the third baseman was his son Knox’s best buddy, Pete Crow-Armstrong. But as PCA’s rocket ship launched into orbit around what will eventually be his first MVP award, Bregman could not power through mediocrity’s escape velocity. When the first half ended, Bregman’s 1.7 fWAR was sixth on the team and 72nd among all qualified MLB hitters. PCA was at 6.0, in case you were wondering.
But then everything clicked and Bregman took off. It started with Dansby Swanson‘s heavier bat and really fell into place with a late-night video session that included clips from all the way back in his time at Double-A. You could almost see the shift in his body language at the plate, and all of his offensive metrics jumped by an absurd degree.
“It’s kind of getting on plane deeper,” Bregman explained “Hopefully, the heavy bat and also my hands being further back kind of holds me back more, because I’ve been kind of flying forward and cutting the corner and cutting everything. That’s why I’m popping up a lot and missing pitches in the middle.”
Since finding his groove, Bregman has been more valuable than every player other than Crow-Armstrong. And I’m not just talking about among his own teammates. Bregman’s 3.2 fWAR in the second half is second only to PCA, and his season total of 4.9 fWAR puts him eighth overall. If he’s able to generate another half-win or so, he’ll have the third-highest total of his career. Not bad for a guy who some thought the Cubs should have DFA’d back in May.
One of the reasons for his elevated metrics is his defense at third, which may be better than ever. And we’re talking about the man who won a Gold Glove in 2024. Bregman’s +12 defensive runs saved are tied with Caleb Durbin for best in MLB and are four more than in any previous season. His +7 outs above average are just one behind that ’24 campaign and two behind Manny Machado for best in the bigs. Bregman also has a +5 fielding run value that trails both of those aforementioned players by one.
“I take a ton of pride in that,” Bregman told MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian and other reporters. “Minus maybe the first week or so, I feel like I’ve been one of the elite defenders in all of baseball. And I feel like we’ve got a team of elite defenders. I feel really good on that side of the ball as well.”
Putting up around 5 fWAR would have led the Cubs in any season from 2020-24, and it would have given PCA (5.4) a run for his money last year. Authoring perhaps the “most well-rounded season by a position player in 116 years” has a tendency to overshadow just about everything else, but Bregman has provided the Cubs with one of the best performances they’ve seen in quite some time.
