WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Alex Bregman was a star shortstop at LSU earlier than he turned a star third baseman for the Astros. However Bregman, due to the way in which he performs the sport and the way laborious he performs the sport, actually makes you recall one thing former UMass males’s basketball head coach John Calipari as soon as mentioned about considered one of his star gamers, Marcus Camby.
Camby was 6-foot-11, lengthy, quick and versatile, and someday, somebody requested Calipari if Camby’s true place was both middle or ahead. And coach Cal merely mentioned, “His place is basketball participant.”
That has been Bregman’s place with the Astros since he made the massive membership in 2016 and have become a star the following season after that. And his true place is much more than that, as he enters what is likely to 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, by seven straight American League Championship Collection for the Astros and 4 journeys to the World Collection 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 can seemingly hold him in Houston for the remainder of his profession. There isn’t any means of figuring out what’s going to occur with Bregman, each bit as a lot of the guts and soul of the group that Altuve has been.
However on Friday morning, with a variety of the Astros on their means 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 standard — in speaking about his outstanding baseball group than about himself.
“Nothing modifications right here, this yr or any yr,” Bregman mentioned. “We at all times need the identical factor: To get again to October, after which get again to the World Collection. 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 way in which to a different Sport 7 of an ALCS earlier than shedding to the Rangers ultimately.
“Who’re you guys going to be this season?” I requested.
“We’re going to be the Astros,” he mentioned.
I requested then if he’s ever in a position to step again and absolutely recognize what he and his teammates have completed.
“What I do know is how shut we’ve come to enjoying in seven World Collection whereas I’ve been right here,” he mentioned of a group that in his tenure has received two World Collection, misplaced two and misplaced within the ALCS three different instances, “what number of instances we had been only one sport away. It’s one thing that drives all people on this room and makes us wish to do it once more.”
He talked about what a particular participant Altuve is. He talked about how Lance McCullers Jr., by 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 mentioned.
He has performed a profession full of massive video games, has had all these Octobers. He talked about how when children come up by the Astros’ farm system and the way they know full properly what the expectations are as soon as they do make it to the Main Leagues. And so they hold discovering technique to hold the machine working. Correa left the Astros after the 2021 season, which is the yr when Yordan Alvarez started to blossom as probably the greatest 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 mentioned. He smiled. “And yeah, it was actual. And we had been able to go proper there.”
Then he was speaking once more concerning the upcoming season, and the way Verlander will ultimately 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 contains Ryan Pressly. The Rangers are the group that received all of it final yr. However how can anyone probably wager towards the Astros going deep into October once more? October, by now, is part of the group’s DNA.
“I take delight in successful,” Bregman mentioned.
It’s who he’s. It’s who they’re. A protracted technique to October from West Palm Seashore. Bregman is aware of the way in which.
