Last year, Alex Bregman's 1st professional season, the one after he was drafted with the 2nd overall pick of the 2015 draft, went pretty well. All told, Bregman hit .294/.366/.415. This was over the course of 311 plate appearances between Quad Cities and Lancaster.
Predictably Bregman fared better at the moonscape that is Lancaster, where he hit .319/.364/.475, compared to .259/.368/.330 at Quad Cities. The OBP is great - very similar numbers between the two levels, the power is a work in progress - 21 of his 80 base hits went for extras, and he had as many triples (4) as home runs. But it seemed likely that with only 37 games at Lancaster and the fact that he's in his Age 22 season, he would get a little more time at Lancaster. He didn't.
So Luhnow & Company got aggressive and bumped him to Corpus, and it has paid off in a big way. Through his first ten games, Bregman is 16x40 with 3K:4BB. He also has hit five home runs, eclipsing his 66-game home run total of 2015. So now he's sitting at a .400/.467/.800 line after ten games.
And it's not as though he's just loaded up in the last three games of the season. Bregman has hit safely in all ten games and has five multi-hit games to go along with it. His weekend included a 7x13 stint where he hit a grand slam, a walkoff, and 8RBI.
And it's also not as though he's loading up at Whataburger Field alone. At Corpus he's hitting .333/.385/.708, while he's hitting .500/.579/.938 away from home.
The question of "where will he play" is always going to be an issue, because not only is he behind Carlos Correa and - this cannot be emphasized enough - Correa is six months younger than Bregman - but if he moves to 3B he's technically behind Colin Moran, who is 23 and currently hitting .323/.371/.484 in eight games at Triple-A Fresno.
It's something worth keeping an eye on, but let's just enjoy this.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
