Alex Bregman Will Be Fine
Bregman's expected batting numbers, quality of contact, and swing decisions are all at rates similar to 2022. These numbers indicate his early slump is mostly caused by bad luck.
It’s not good to be an Astros fan right now. The team has now lost 5 of its last 6, losing series to the Giants and Mariners and losing the opener in Anaheim to drop the team to below. 500 on the season.
It has left fans searching for silver linings. And I am here to provide one.
One of the Astros most frustrating players this season has been Alex Bregman. Bregman is of course one of the team’s stars. But he has not been producing like one.
Bregman is slashing .206/.327/.341 for a .668 OPS. His OPS+ is 86, which means that he is 14% below league average at the plate. Over his career, Bregman has been much better. He has a career 135 OPS+, meaning he has been 35% better than a league average batter.
Where has that Bregman gone?
The answer is nowhere; he’s basically the same hitter this year as he was in 2022, when he had a 132 OPS+, about the same as his career average.
How can I say that Bregman is the same as last season? Data from Statcast—which measures the exit velocity and launch angle of each ball a player hits allows Baseball Savant to calculate “expected” numbers for each player. It allows one to tell what a player’s stats should be based on the quality of contact he is making at the plate.
The table below shows Bregman’s actual numbers in both 2022 and 2023, and Bregman's expected numbers for each season. You can see that in 2022, Bregman has a batting average of .259, a slugging percentage of .454, and a weighted On Base Average (wOBA) or .358. These were basically in line with his expected numbers from 2022: .259 xBA; .454 xSLG, & .358 xwOBA.
Bregman’s expected numbers for 2023 so far are pretty much in line with his expected and actual numbers from 2022. He has an expected batting average of .244, an expected slugging of .424, and an expected weighted On Base Average of .351. Those would be pretty good numbers.
Unfortunately, his actual numbers are much lower. Why is this the case? The best answer I can find is bad luck. Bregman is hitting the ball in a similar way to how he did in 2022, but the ball is just not falling in.
Bregman’s Quality of Contact Has Not Changed
Further evidence that Bregman is hitting the ball in a similar way so far in 2023 as he did in 2022 is provided in the chart below, which looks at the quality of contact that Bregman makes when he hits the ball.
You can see some small changes to the worse—he has a lower rate of barrels, a lower exit velocity, and a lower expected weighted on base average on contact (xWOBACON). But these differences are relatively small, and do not account for the large difference in Bregman’s production this season compared to 2022.
Further, we see evidence of Bregman doing some better things in 2023—he has a (slightly) higher Sweet Spot % and is hitting the ball in the air more.
The most worrisome number in these data is Bregman’s pull percentage—no one takes advantage of the Crawford Boxes more. Bregman is pulling the ball 5.5% less this season.
Bregman’s Swing Decisions Remain Elite
You can also see the similarly between Bregman’s 2022 and 2023 by looking at his swing decisions in the Table below. Bregman is striking out slightly less and walking more in 2023 than he did in 2022. Bregman’s plate discipline is at an elite level and he has not compromised that in his slump this season.
Bregman does have a slightly higher rate of chasing pitches this season and is swinging and missing more often. His slump has not compelled him to swing at more pitches this season though. He swings right at 40% of the time this season, just like last year.
This look under the hood at Bregman’s numbers shows that he is doing pretty much the same things this season as he did last season. There are some small differences that are mostly to the negative—more whiffs, lower exit velocities. But these differences are small and one may question whether I have identified a set of distinctions without a difference.
And thus, these data point to the same conclusion. Bregman’s slump this season is mostly the result of bad luck. His quality of contact and his swing decisions are basically the same this season as they were in 2022.
Which means that is it likely that Bregman will not stay in this slump for long. Over the long haul of the season, his numbers should tend toward his expected numbers.
That Bregman’s numbers should improve is a silver lining in the gray clouds of the sluggish start for the Astros. Good numbers from Bregman would address one of the problem areas for the Astros. It will not solve all of them, but it is one area where we can expect improvement. Hopefully sooner rather than later.