2015’s top 2 draftees meet for first time
Last July and August, Atlanta Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson and Astros third baseman Alex Bregman became the quickest pair of No. 1 and 2 overall draft picks to reach the majors since 1993 top selections Alex Rodriguez and Darren Dreifort. On Tuesday at Minute Maid Park, they will meet as big leaguers for the first time.
The Astros and Braves’ two-game series will mark the first time Swanson and Bregman, who were drafted in 2015, have shared a field since last July’s Futures Game at San Diego’s Petco Park, the annual prospect showcase held two days before the MLB All-Star Game.
While the debate over which former SEC star shortstop is better won’t be settled until years down the road, Bregman has the upper hand less than a calendar year into their respective tenures.
The former LSU star has a .265/.330/.425 line in 306 career at-bats, while Swanson, his rival while at Vanderbilt, is batting .234/.299/.340 in 235 career at-bats. Since debuting, Bregman has been worth 1.2 wins above replacement and Swanson just 0.3, according to FanGraphs’ version of the metric.
Yet to break out with a hot streak and still without his first home run this season, Bregman has amounted to a league-average hitter (.267/.361/.324) through 105 at-bats in 2017. Swanson has been dreadful offensively through the season’s first five weeks. He’s batting .151/.222/.217 in 106 at-bats.
Forever linked by virtue of their draft slots, Bregman and Swanson are also friends, having playing together on USA Baseball’s collegiate national team a few summers ago. Although as of last weekend they hadn’t spoken since the start of the season, Bregman said he planned to reach out to Swanson via text message before Tuesday’s game.
“It’s definitely fun getting to compete against each other,” Bregman said.
Team USA eagle up for auction
When he returned to the Astros’ spring training complex in March after the World Baseball Classic, reliever Luke Gregerson wasn’t sure what would become of Team USA’s good luck charm.
Perhaps, Gregerson suggested at the time, he would find a stand on which to display the 45-pound bald eagle sculpture at his home. But as he and family members considered it more, they decided there was a better use for the unique piece of memorabilia.
Gregerson will auction off the eagle, which is autographed by 28 members of Team USA, and donate 100 percent of the high bid price to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. The bidding is being run through Goldin Auctions, whose website lists May 20 at 7 p.m. CDT as the bid-by time for “Lot #41.”
“We never anticipated the eagle becoming famous, but it did,” Gregerson said. “I was just talking with some people about it, and we thought we could capitalize on something like that where we can take something that’s probably sought after now by a lot of collectors and do something good with it.”
Gregerson chose St. Jude’s, the famous cancer center based in Memphis, Tenn., as a way of honoring his father, Duke, who died of brain cancer on Jan. 1. Gregerson’s fatherin-law, the one who gifted the porcelain eagle to the pitcher at the start of the WBC, also lost his wife to cancer about nine years ago, Gregerson said.
As Team USA advanced through the WBC en route to its first title, the eagle statue became its unofficial mascot. Gregerson brought it to each stop, from Miami to San Diego to Los Angeles, and the players would touch the bird for good luck before each game. After a brief layover at the Astros’ spring facility in West Palm Beach, Fla., the eagle is currently at an auction house in New York, according to Gregerson.
“It got a lot of attention throughout the WBC, and a lot of people have been asking me questions about it,” he said. “We just thought this was a good way to honor my father and (my father-in-law’s) wife and all those other people out there who have been affected by this disease.”
Odds and ends
In their 32 games, the first-place Astros (22-11) played only four against an opponent that entered the game better than .500 — a 10-9 Tampa Bay Rays team on April 23 and the Cleveland Indians at 10-8, 10-9 and 11-9 from April 25-27. …
Tuesday’s matchup between 40-year-old Astros outfielder/designated Carlos Beltran and 43-year-old Braves righthander Bartolo Colon will feature the only two active major leaguers who played in the 1990s. That list will grow to three players when Texas Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre returns from the disabled list. …
Colon is one of two active pitchers Astros manager A.J. Hinch homered off in his seven-year career. Yankees lefthander C.C. Sabathia is the other. The former catcher, who had 32 career homers, got the then-Indians duo of Colon and Sabathia on back-to-back days in May 2002 while playing for the Kansas City Royals. …
Jose Altuve was tied with Seattle’s Jarrod Dyson for the American League lead in stolen bases (nine) coming into Monday’s games. Cincinnati’s Billy Hamilton led the majors with 19.