WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Alex Bregman was a star shortstop at LSU earlier than he grew to become a star third baseman for the Astros. However Bregman, due to the best way he performs the sport and the way exhausting he performs the sport, actually makes you recall one thing former UMass males’s basketball head coach John Calipari as soon as stated about considered one of his star gamers, Marcus Camby.
Camby was 6-foot-11, lengthy, quick and versatile, and in the future, somebody requested Calipari if Camby’s true place was both middle or ahead. And coach Cal merely stated, “His place is basketball participant.”
That has been Bregman’s place with the Astros since he made the large membership in 2016 and have become a star the subsequent season after that. And his true place is much more than that, as he enters what could be his final season with the Astros earlier than turning into a free agent:
Bregman’s true place is winner.
He has been one of many nice winners of his time in baseball, together with Jose Altuve, who performs throughout the infield from him at second base. 12 months after yr, via seven straight American League Championship Sequence for the Astros and 4 journeys to the World Sequence since 2017, Bregman and Altuve have develop into a storied pair in Houston — for this time or any time the Astros have ever had or will ever have. Carlos Correa left. Bregman and Altuve are nonetheless there.
Altuve signed a brand new contract with the Astros, one that may doubtless maintain him in Houston for the remainder of his profession. There isn’t any approach of figuring out what’s going to occur with Bregman, each bit as a lot of the guts and soul of the workforce that Altuve has been.
However on Friday morning, with numerous the Astros on their approach throughout the state to play a sport in Clearwater, Fla., and Bregman a type of who has remained behind to work out at CACTI Park of the Palm Seashores, he was so extra — as common — in speaking about his outstanding baseball workforce than about himself.
“Nothing modifications right here, this yr or any yr,” Bregman stated. “We all the time need the identical factor: To get again to October, after which get again to the World Sequence. It’s why we play the sport. It’s why I play the sport. And there’s no purpose for me to vary now.”
I requested him what he expects from the 2024 Astros, who made all of it the best way to a different Recreation 7 of an ALCS earlier than shedding to the Rangers in the long run.
“Who’re you guys going to be this season?” I requested.
“We’re going to be the Astros,” he stated.
I requested then if he’s ever in a position to step again and absolutely recognize what he and his teammates have achieved.
“What I do know is how shut we’ve come to enjoying in seven World Sequence whereas I’ve been right here,” he stated of a workforce that in his tenure has gained two World Sequence, misplaced two and misplaced within the ALCS three different occasions, “what number of occasions we had been only one sport away. It’s one thing that drives all people on this room and makes us need to do it once more.”
He talked about what a particular participant Altuve is. He talked about how Lance McCullers Jr., via all his accidents, has been round with the Astros a yr longer than Bregman has been. He talked about how Justin Verlander, who solely performed just a few months for the Mets final season, has mainly been round for all of the successful, too.
“We’ve all been a part of the machine,” Bregman stated.
He has performed a profession full of huge video games, has had all these Octobers. He talked about how when children come up via the Astros’ farm system and the way they know full nicely what the expectations are as soon as they do make it to the Main Leagues. They usually maintain discovering technique to maintain the machine working. Correa left the Astros after the 2021 season, which is the yr when Yordan Alvarez started to blossom as among the finest and most gifted and most harmful hitters within the sport.
Bregman then spoke of how he and a few of his teammates had been doing offseason exercises this winter when all of their telephones virtually blew up with the information that the Astros had signed Josh Hader, one of many elite closers within the sport.
“It was 10:30 within the morning, and we checked out one another and it was like, ‘Is that this actual?’” Bregman stated. He smiled. “And yeah, it was actual. And we had been able to go proper there.”
Then he was speaking once more in regards to the upcoming season, and the way Verlander will finally be wholesome and be part of a rotation that features Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, José Urquidy, Hunter Brown and J.P. France. And what it’s like including Hader to the again of a bullpen that already consists of Ryan Pressly. The Rangers are the workforce that gained all of it final yr. However how can anyone presumably wager towards the Astros going deep into October once more? October, by now, is part of the workforce’s DNA.
“I take pleasure in successful,” Bregman stated.
It’s who he’s. It’s who they’re. An extended technique to October from West Palm Seashore. Bregman is aware of the best way.