A Bregman Bounce Back?
Alex Bregman underperformed his high standards in 2021. With a healthy wrist, projections indicate he'll regain much of his power strike again in 2022.
Will the Astros return to the top of the AL West in 2022? There are lots of reason for optimism for us Astros fans. The team the largest collection of above average players in the division, and early projections show they have the most talent in the division. The Astros success in 2021 was driven in large part by the lineup, which led the American League in runs scored. They will again have a deep lineup at their disposal in 2022.
There are also reasons to expect decline in the Astros offense. The team is older, and some veterans may decline as they age. Yuli Gurriel and Michael Brantley finished 1-2 in the AL in batting average in 2021, but as players in their mid-to-late 30s, there’s more reason to think they will decline than hold steady. Jose Altuve had an excellent season in 2021, but will turn 32 during the season. And it seems likely that the team will replace Carlos Correa at shortstop with a lesser offensive player, whether that is prospect Jeremy Pena or a veteran free agent like Andrelton Simmons.
The Astros may decline at several positions due to the vagaries of the aging curve and the owner’s budget. Where might the Astros offense improve from 2021? To me, the most obvious candidate to improve from his 2021 form is in the person of Alex Bregman.
After an extraordinary year in 2019, when Bregman had a slash line .296/.423/.592 on his way to a 2nd place finish in AL MVP voting, Bregman declined in both the shortened 2020 season and in the full season of 2021. In 133 games over those two season, Bregman slashed .262/.353/.431. Could Bregman bounce back from that?
There are also reasons to expect decline in the Astros offense. The team is older on average, and some veterans may decline as they age. Yuli Gurriel and Michael Brantley finished 1-2 in the AL in batting average in 2021, but as players in their mid-to-late 30s, there’s more reason to think they will decline than hold steady. Jose Altuve had an excellent season in 2021, but will turn 32 during the season. And it seems likely that the team will replace Carlos Correa at shortstop with a lesser offensive player, whether that is prospect Jeremy Pena or a veteran free agent like Andrelton Simmons.
So the Astros may decline at several positions due to the vagaries of the aging curve and the owner’s budget. But is it all decline; where might we expect them to improve? To me, the most obvious candidate to improve from his 2021 form is in the person of Alex Bregman.
After an extraordinary year in 2019, when Bregman had a slash line .296/.423/.592 on his way to a 2nd place finish in AL MVP voting, Bregman declined in both the shortened 2020 season and in the full season of 2021. In 133 games over those two season, Bregman slashed .262/.353/.431. Could Bregman bounce back from that?
One baseball writer who thinks the answer to that question is yes is Eno Sarris of The Athletic. Last month, Sarris wrote an article headlined “Next season’s four most intriguing bounce-back candidates,” Bregman not only made the list, but editors chose Bregman’s image for the photo that accompanied the article.
Sarris identified his bounce back candidates by figuring the players who had the greatest difference between their projected 2022 wRC+ (via Steamer) and their actual 2021 wRC+. Bregman had the 17th highest difference among all major leaguers—projected for a wRC+ of 140 in 2022 after a wRC+ of 115 in 2021.
wRC+ and Bregman’s Floor
wRC+ stands for weighted Runs Created Plus. It is designed to be a comprehensive offensive stat which takes into account all aspects of a player’s offensive value and to measure it in runs. The weighted part tells you that each component of a player’s offensive contribution is weighted to their actual value—home runs of course have a higher weight than singles. It accounts for park factors so you can compare players across different ballparks. And then it is calculated from the average player, who is given a value of 100 (that’s the plus part of wRC+). Values below 100 tell you the player is below average, and those above 100 tell you that the player is above average.
So Bregman’s 115 wRC+ tells you that he was 15% better at batting than the average MLB player in 2021. In 2020, Bregman had a wRC+ of 121; 21% better than the average player that season.
The good news about that number is that it’s actually pretty good, even if it is below Bregman’s career norms. Or as Sarris put it, “The worst-case scenario isn’t all that bad — Bregman has still been nearly 20 percent better than the league average with the bat the past two seasons, even if those two were basically the worst of his career.”
Bregman has a “high floor” as a baseball player in large part due to his fabulous bat-to-ball skills and strike zone judgment. Bregman walked in 11.0% of his plate appearances in 2021, above the American League average of 8.5%. Bregman struck out in only 13.3% of his plate appearances, while the average American Leaguer K’ed 23.0% of the time. Bregman swings at pitches out of the strike zone only 21.0% of the time, a full 10% less than the average American Leaguer. Bregman’s ability to lay off pitches out of the strike zone forces forces pitchers to throw the ball inside the strike zone. And when Bregman swings at those pitches, he don’t miss. Bregman makes contact with 93.5% of the pitches throw in the strike zone; again, that’s better than the average player, who only makes 84.6% of the time.
The Steamer projections that Sarris used to develop his conclusion that Bregman was a strong bounce back candidate in 2022 expect him to continue to have excellent contact skills and strike zone judgment. They project him to strike out in only 13.3% of this plate appearances. They expect him to walk more than he strikes out—in 14% of his plate appearances. All told, Steamer projects that Bregman will have an on base percentage of .380 in 2022, which is their 7th highest projection in all of baseball. Any player who gets on base that much is very valuable to his offense.
Is Bregman a Power Hitter?
Bregman’s strike zone judgement and contact skills have kept his overall numbers well above average over the last two seasons. So what accounts for the dip in Bregman’s numbers? It’s his ability to his for power. Bregman slugged 41 home runs in 2019 but only 12 in the 2021 season. His isolated power (which is the difference between a player’s slugging percentage and batting average) declined from .296 in 2019 to .209 in 2020 to .152 in 2021.
Can Bregman get his power back in 2022? Bregman does not have the traditional metrics of a power hitter. He is not a big beefy slugger like a Yordan Alvarez, and he does not hit the ball all that hard. In his peak season in 2019, Bregman had an average exit velocity of 89.3 MPH. He recorded a hard hit (>90 MPH) on only 38% of the balls that he hit, and recorded a barrel on only 4.8% of the balls that he hit. The numbers are average to below average for a major league hitter.
And those numbers were basically the same in 2021. Bregman’s average exit velocity was 89.0, and he hit the ball hard on 38.1% of his at bats. His barrel rate was even up, if slightly, to 6.4%.
These numbers make Bregman’s power surge in 2019 as hard to explain as his decline in 2020 and 2021. Bregman does not hit the ball exceptionally hard like a big slugger, so how did he manage 41 home runs in 2019?
One answer is the Crawford Boxes. Below is Bregman’s spray chart for the last 4 seasons, and you can see the big cluster of home runs in the purple dots in left and lef-center field. Bregman does not have all field power nor the ability to drive it to the far reaches of ballparks. But he can get enough power to pull the ball, and, as Sarris notes, “Pulled hard-hit balls regularly outperform opposite-field balls with the same exit velocities and launch angles.”
But if it is hard to explain Bregman’s power surge to 41 home runs in 2019, it is also hard to explain his decline. As noted, he never hit the ball especially hard, but his hard hit and barrel rates have not declined since 2019. And Bregman’s pull rate went up in 2021 to a career high 52.2%, about 7% higher than in 2019. He is hitting the ball just as hard and pulling it more.
There are a couple of things we can point to in Bregman’s swing profile that have changed since 2019. First, he he hit a higher share of ground balls in 2021 (40.8%) than he did in 2019 (31.5%) and a lower share of line drives (from 22.5% to 18.4%) and fly balls (45.9% to 40.8%). You can’t ground a ball over the fence for a homer, not matter how close the Crawford Boxes are to home plate.
The other thing that has changed for Bregman since 2019 is his health. That season, Bregman played 156 games, the third straight season where he played 155 games or more. In 2020, Bregman went on the IL for the first time in his career with a hamstring injury. He played only 42 of the 60 games that season.
In 2021, Bregman missed more than 2 months in the middle of the season with a quad injury. He then injured his wrist toward the end of the season, which led to a slump in the World Series. Bregman had wrist surgery immediately after the season ended.
Bregman in 2022
So what can we Astros fans expect from Bregman in 2022. The pessimist’s case is that he will play like he did in 2021. He will use his excellent strike zone judgment to earn a healthy number of walks, to limit his strike outs, and to get on base with great frequency. But the power surge of 2019 proves to be a mirage, a fluke fueled by wall scrapers landing just in the Crawford Boxes.
But the pessimist case is that Bregman is an above average player like he was in 2021, just not a superstar.
But the optimist’s case that that Bregman returns to being one of the top handful of players in baseball. Bregman stays healthy and his wrist is back to 100%. He can pull balls over the Crawford Boxes to help power an effective and division winning Astros offense.
The good news for those who want to make the optimist’s case is that the Steamer projection is on your side. It projects Bregman to hit more like his 2019 self—with a slash line of .269/.380/.484 with 27 home runs.
His wRC+ is projected to be 139, 39% better than the average major leaguer and 12 highest among all major leaguers. Bregman established himself in 2018 and 2019 as one of the best players in baseball. Projections indicate he will get close to that again in 2022. The optimists have this one.
Bregman’s average exit velocity was at the 53rd percentile among major league hitters in 2019. His hard hit rate was at the 42nd percentile, and his barrel rate was at the 21st percentile.
One baseball writer who thinks the answer to that question is yes is Eno Sarris of The Athletic. Last month, Sarris wrote an article headlined “Next season’s four most intriguing bounce-back candidates,” Bregman not only made the list, but editors chose Bregman’s image for the photo that accompanied the article.
Sarris identified his bounce back candidates by figuring the players who had the greatest difference between their projected 2022 wRC+ and their actual 2021 wRC+. Bregman had the 17th highest difference among all major leaguers—projected for a wRC+ of 140 in 2022 after a wRC+ of 116 in 2021.
wRC+ and Bregman’s Floor
wRC+ stands for weighted Runs Created Plus. It is designed to be a comprehensive offensive stat which takes into account all aspects of a player’s offensive value and to measure it in runs. The weighted part tells you that each component of a player’s offensive contribution is weighted to their actual value—home runs have a higher weight than singles. It account for park factors so you can compare players across different ballparks. And then it is calculated from the average player, who is given a value of 100 (that’s the plus part of wRC+). Values below 100 tell you the player is below average, and those above 100 tell you that the player is above average.
So Bregman’s 115 wRC+ tells you that he was 15% better at batting than the average MLB player in 2021. In 2020, Bregman had a wRC+ of 121; 21% better than the average player that season.
The good news about that number is that it’s actually pretty good, even if it is below Bregman’s career norms. Or as Sarris put it, “The worst-case scenario isn’t all that bad — Bregman has still been nearly 20 percent better than the league average with the bat the past two seasons, even if those two were basically the worst of his career.”
Bregman has a “high floor” as a baseball player in large part due to his fabulous bat-to-ball skills and strike zone judgment. Bregman walked in 11.0% of his plate appearances in 2021, above the American League average of 8.5%. Bregman struck out in only 13.3% of his plate appearances, while the average American Leaguer K’ed 23.0% of the time. Bregman swings at pitches out of the strike zone only 21.0% of the time, a full 10% less than the average American Leaguer. Bregman’s ability to lay off pitches out of the strike zone forces forces pitchers to throw the ball inside the strike zone. And when Bregman swings at those pitches, he don’t miss. Bregman makes contact with 93.5% of the pitches throw in the strike zone; again, that’s better than the average player, who only makes 84.6% of the time.
The Steamer projections that Sarris used to develop his conclusion that Bregman was a strong bounceback candidate in 2022 expect him to continue to have excellent contact skills and strike zone judgment. They project him to strike out in only 13.3% of this playte appearances. They expect him to walk more than he strikes out—in 14% of his plate appearances. All told, Steamer projects that Bregman will have an on base percentage of .380 in 2022, which is their 7th highest projection in all of baseball.
Is Bregman a Power Hitter?
Bregman’s strike zone judgement and contact skills have kept his numbers well above average over the last two seasons. The biggest decline for Bregman over the past two seasons has been in his power numbers. Bregman slugged 41 home runs in 2019 but only 12 in the 2021 season. His isolated power (which is the difference between a player’s slugging percentage and batting average) declined from .296 in 2019 to .209 in 2020 to .152 in 2021.
It is this power outage which is the biggest reason for Bregman’s decline from 2019 to 2021. Can he get his power back in 2022?
Bregman does not have the traditional metrics of a power hitter. He is not a big beefy slugger like a Yordan Alvarez, and he does not hit the ball all that hard. In his peak season in 2019, Bregman had an average exit velocity of 89.3 MPH. He recorded a hard hit (>90 MPH) on only 38% of the balls that he hit, and recorded a barrel on only 4.8% of the balls that he hit. The numbers are average to below average for a major league hitter.1
And those numbers were basically the same in 2021. Bregman’s average exit velocity was 89.0, and he hit the ball hard on 38.1% of his at bats. His barrel rate was even up, if slightly, to 6.4%.
These numbers make Bregman’s power surge in 2019 as hard to explain as his decline in 2020 and 2021. Bregman does not hit the ball exceptionally hard like a big slugger, so how did he manage 41 home runs in 2019?
One answer is the Crawford Boxes. Below is Bregman’s spray chart for the last 4 seasons, and you can see the big cluster of home runs in the purple dots in left and lef-center field. Bregman does not have all field power nor the ability to drive it to the far reaches of ballparks. But he can get enough power to pull the ball, and, as Sarris notes, “Pulled hard-hit balls regularly outperform opposite-field balls with the same exit velocities and launch angles.”
But if it is hard to explain Bregman’s power surge to 41 home runs in 2019, it is also hard to explain his decline. As noted, he never hit the ball especially hard, but his hard hit and barrel rates have not declined since 2019. And Bregman’s pull rate went up in 2021 to a career high 52.2%, about 7% higher than in 2019. He is hitting the ball just as hard and pulling it more.
There are a couple of things we can point to in Bregman’s swing profile that have changed since 2019. First, he he hit a higher share of ground balls in 2021 (40.8%) than he did in 2019 (31.5%) and a lower share of line drives (from 22.5% to 18.4%) and fly balls (45.9% to 40.8%). You can’t ground a ball over the fence for a homer, not matter how close the Crawford Boxes are to home plate.
The other thing that has change for Bregman since 2019 is his health. That season, Bregman played 156 games, the third straight season where he played 155 games or more. In 2020, Bregman went on the IL for the first time in his career with a hamstring injury. He played only 42 of the 60 games that season.
In 2021, Bregman missed more than 2 months in the middle of the season with a quad injury. He then injured his wrist toward the end of the season, which led to a slump in the World Series. Bregman had wrist surgery immediately after the season ended.
Bregman in 2022
So what can we Astros fans expect from Bregman in 2022. The pessimist’s case is that he will play like he did in 2021. He will use his excellent strike zone judgment to earn a healthy number of walks, to limit his strike outs, and to get on base with great frequency. But the power surge of 2019 proves to be a mirage, a fluke fueled by wall scrapers landing just in the Crawford Boxes.
Thus, the pessimist’s case is that Bregman is an above average player like he was in 2021, just not a superstar.
But the optimist’s case that that Bregman returns to being one of the top handful of players in baseball. Bregman stays healthy and his wrist is back to 100%. He is able pull balls over the Crawford Boxes to help power an effective and division winning Astros offense.
The good news for those who want to make the optimist’s case is that the Steamer projection is on your side. It projects Bregman to hit more like his 2019 self—with a slash line of .269/.380/.484 with 27 home runs.
His wRC+ is projected to be 139, 39% better than the average major leaguer and 12th highest among all major leaguers. Bregman established himself in 2018 and 2019 as one of the best players in baseball. Projections indicate he will get close to that again in 2022. The optimists have this one.
Bregman’s average exit velocity was at the 53rd percentile among major league hitters in 2019. His hard hit rate was at the 42nd percentile, and his barrel rate was at the 21st percentile.