Next year is here
Already stoked for opening day, Bregman enters 2nd season as integral lineup piece
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — It was a day for opening up new things and rediscovering old faces that had been missing for months.
Luke Gregerson went through stacked boxes while cracking jokes. Ken Giles discussed the offseason muscle weight he’d intentionally added and mental weight that had finally disappeared. Just-married Evan Gattis warmly hugged ex-Yankee Brian McCann.
Pitchers found their catchers, Jeff Luhnow said it all felt like Christmas, and the Astros’ 2017 spring training officially began on Valentine’s Day.
Then Alex Bregman, coffee cup in hand, walked through a clubhouse that was still waking up Tuesday morning.
“What’s up?” he calmly said.
Two bats rested on the top shelf of his locker. Every other similar space inside the Astros’ sparkling new room was empty and clean. Only Bregman’s was preloaded with wood.
He’d been waiting for everybody else. He was already ready.
Arms and mitts reported Tuesday. The Astros’ first workout is Wednesday, the initial full-team session Saturday.
Bregman arrived last weekend at The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches. And if the second overall pick of the 2015 amateur draft had it his way, this year’s Astros would already be firing away in mid-April, playing the real games that count.
“He’s built the right way,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “He’s a baseball rat.”
He’s the next critical component if these Astros are going to pull off what last year’s could not.
Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa and George Springer get the huge banners and oversized posters. Bregman has played in only 49 big league games, won’t turn 23 until March 30, and is going through major league camp for the first time as a locked-in starter.
Up to the task
But then you recall that sweet, soft glove down the third-base line last summer. The 52 hits, eight homers, 13 doubles and 34 RBIs in his final 179 at-bats, erasing a frigid 1-for-32 start. The spark, swagger and pride that privately screamed, “I can do this — and I can do this very well.” And when you picture the best-case version of the Astros’ new future, Bregman is just as powerful and essential as the faces on all those banners and posters.
“Expectations are high,” Luhnow said. “This is a guy that was in college two years ago, and he’s penciled into our everyday lineup right now. It’s a hard transition to make. But if anybody can make it, I think Alex can.”
The baseball rat is a hardball workaholic.
Springer messed with Bregman during the team’s recent FanFest, joking that the longanticipated July 2016 callup was so hyped last season that he arrived for 7:10 p.m. Minute Maid Park starts at noon, then walked around everywhere with his batting gloves glued on and was in full uniform before every other teammate.
“I don’t know why you do that, but you do,” Springer cracked.
Because the same guy who cranked out a .306 average with 20 homers, 61 RBIs and a .986 OPS in 80 minor league games last season now spends his downtime sprinting up mountain hills with former UFC champion Holly Holm in Albuquerque, N.M.
“It’s someone who inspires you. … She kicks my butt,” said Bregman, who has known Holm since childhood and was coached in high school by her husband, Jeff Kirkpatrick. “She’s got a warrior mindset, and that’s the kind of mindset I want. A tough mindset, (an) I’m-gonna-win mindset.”
Even with the 1-for-32 hole he started in, Bregman was ultimately so impressive last season that he knocked $47.5 million Cuban free agent Yuli Gurriel from third to first base and enters 2017 as one of the Astros’ brightest hopes.
So of course the ex-LSU star sounded like he absolutely meant it Tuesday when he insisted he was just trying to “win a job.” Then the World Baseball Classic representative for Team USA — who received a personal call from Joe Torre to celebrate his spot — spent much of his clubhouse morning walking from locker to locker, catching up with every Astro who’d just entered the room.
“He’s built the right way. He’s a baseball rat.” Astros manager A.J. Hinch on Alex Bregman
Obsessed with the game
“I’m just obsessed with (baseball),” Bregman said. “It’s all I want to do every day. I love it. … I love my job. I feel very fortunate every single day to be able to do that, so I’m not going to take a day off.”
His bats are ready. He beat the pitchers and catchers to the park.
The Astros are just beginning another spring in their new world. Bregman, their baseball rat, is already waiting for the real thing on opening day.