Houston Astros: Three legitimate MVP candidates reside on the roster
By T.A. Mock
Alex Bregman, 3B
The next guy that has MVP potential is none other than the Houston Astros third baseman, Alex Bregman. He hasn’t been in professional baseball very long since he was just drafted in the first round of the 2015 draft.
He rapidly ascended through the Astros farm system, working his way through two levels of baseball in half a year. The started the 2016 season in AA and spent a decent amount of time there. Then he was promoted to AAA about halfway through the season but he only spent a couple of weeks there before he was promoted to the big leagues.
That’s right, Bregman forced the Houston Astros to promote him to the major leagues just over a year after they drafted him. That’s how good of a ballplayer this guy is. However, I don’t think anyone would have projected his rapid ascension since then.
He sort of struggled in his first partial season with the Astros but he started to figure out over the final few weeks of the season. The promise was there, that was easy to see, the production just hadn’t quite caught up yet.
More. Bregman on his way to becoming the face of the MLB. light
In 2017, the production began to catch up as he settled into the big leagues. His batting average, homers, RBIs, and walk percentage all rose while his strikeout percentage dropped. His increased production help the team get to the World Series.
He had his coming out party in the World Series where he had two clutch homers and drove in five RBIs. He parlayed this abbreviated coming out party into a true breakout season in 2018. He made history when he hit 30 homers and had 50 doubles. He placed 5th in MVP voting and also won the All-Star game MVP. There’s no reason to believe he won’t be able to continue his dominance and keep improving his game to have yet another MVP caliber season.