INSIDE INFORMATION
Media insider provides critical context to latest Astros, Alex Bregman report
Dec 5, 2023, 12:28 pm
It certainly looks like this will be Bregman's last year with the Astros. Composite image by Jack Brame.
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Bob Nightengale of USA Today, “the Nation’s Newspaper” mind you, dropped this nugget earlier this week:
“The Houston Astros have no interest in trading third baseman Alex Bregman, but have privately resigned to losing him in free agency in a year, realizing it may take $300 million to keep him.”
In addition to the $300 mil, it may take an eight or nine-year contract, both numbers that Astros owner Jim Crane doesn’t go near.
According to Nightengale, the Astros feel they can compete for a pennant in 2024 and they need Bregman to accomplish that. They’re willing to endure the long goodbye and lose Bregman after next season. If that’s how it plays out, the Astros will be left with nothing but a draft choice in return.
Are you buying Nightengale scenario for the Astros?
Here’s the thing about Nightengale. I once worked with him in Phoenix. Nightengale had a reputation for being an accurate, relentless digger. Today he has sources within the Astros – the very top of the organizational chart. You can’t get higher up than his whisperers. If he says the Astros have given up on negotiating a contract extension with Bregman, you pretty much can take it to the bank, where you may run into Bregman depositing large canvas sacks with dollar signs on them.
That’s about Bregman’s future prospectus, what does it mean for the 2024 season, which looks like it’ll be his last in an Astros uniform?
Bregman has been an Astros fans’ favorite the past eight years, his entire career in the majors. Will Astros fans, knowing Bregman is a short-timer in 2024, treat him differently? Sure, Bregman will tell the media that he’s fully committed to the Astros and he loves Houston and the fans. But it will be like your steady girlfriend saying, “Maybe it’s time we started seeing other people.” He may even pull the old, “It’s not you, it’s me.” (Invented by George Costanza, circa 1993.)
No one questions that Bregman is a baseball rat, it’s his obsession, his devotion. But he will spend 2024 under a microscope. What happens if he’s chasing a foul pop and pulls up before taking a header in a dugout? Will fans look suspiciously at him? Will they think to themselves, the old Alex Bregman would have done a Triple Lindy into the dugout? Is he avoiding injury on his agent’s orders so not to risk his big payday come free agency?
Will fans be less forgiving of a batting slump? Will his teammates look at him differently, like he’s not 100 percent in the foxhole with them? Will he choose to sit out games when nagging injuries happen – when he normally would play through them?
Last season, the Angels held onto Shohei Ohtani rather than trade him mid-season for a haul of useful talent. Many questioned that strategy, especially with crosstown rival Dodgers (among others) breaking their piggybank to land the MVP this offseason.
It’s understandable that the Astros are all in on 2024, with their World Series window possibly showing cracks. They’re apparently willing to bite the bullet and keep a lame duck Bregman.
But if Nightengale is right, and Bregman is headed out the door, wouldn’t the Astros be smarter to say goodbye now, with his trade value still high, and hope the return investment pays off? With baseball’s winter meetings in full swing, is it the right time for Astros general manager Dana Brown to approach other teams … “hey, you got a second to talk?”
It’s May 1, and the Astros are turning heads—but not for the reasons anyone expected. Their resurgence, driven not by stars like Yordan Alvarez or Christian Walker, but by a cast of less-heralded names, is writing a strange and telling early-season story.
Christian Walker, brought in to add middle-of-the-order thump, has yet to resemble the feared hitter he was in Arizona. Forget the narrative of a slow starter—he’s never looked like this in April. Through March and April of 2025, he’s slashing a worrying .196/.277/.355 with a .632 OPS. Compare that to the same stretch in 2024, when he posted a .283 average, .496 slug, and a robust .890 OPS, and it becomes clear: this is something more than rust. Even in 2023, his April numbers (.248/.714 OPS) looked steadier.
What’s more troubling than the overall dip is when it’s happening. Walker is faltering in the biggest moments. With runners in scoring position, he’s hitting just .143 over 33 plate appearances, including 15 strikeouts. The struggles get even more glaring with two outs—.125 average, .188 slugging, and a .451 OPS in 19 such plate appearances. In “late and close” situations, when the pressure’s highest, he’s practically disappeared: 1-for-18 with a .056 average and a .167 OPS.
His patience has waned (only 9 walks so far, compared to 20 by this time last year), and for now, his presence in the lineup feels more like a placeholder than a pillar.
The contrast couldn’t be clearer when you look at José Altuve—long the engine of this franchise—who, in 2024, delivered in the moments Walker is now missing. With two outs and runners in scoring position, Altuve hit .275 with an .888 OPS. In late and close situations, he thrived with a .314 average and .854 OPS. That kind of situational excellence is missing from this 2025 squad—but someone else may yet step into that role.
And yet—the Astros are winning. Not because of Walker, but in spite of him.
Houston’s offense, in general, hasn’t lit up the leaderboard. Their team OPS ranks 23rd (.667), their slugging 25th (.357), and they sit just 22nd in runs scored (117). They’re 26th in doubles, a rare place for a team built on gap-to-gap damage.
But where there’s been light, it hasn’t come from the usual spots. Jeremy Peña, often overshadowed in a lineup full of stars, now boasts the team’s highest OPS at .791 (Isaac Paredes is second in OPS) and is flourishing in his new role as the leadoff hitter. Peña’s balance of speed, contact, aggression, and timely power has given Houston a surprising tone-setter at the top.
Even more surprising: four Astros currently have more home runs than Yordan Alvarez.
And then there’s the pitching—Houston’s anchor. The rotation and bullpen have been elite, ranking 5th in ERA (3.23), 1st in WHIP (1.08), and 4th in batting average against (.212). In a season where offense is lagging and clutch hits are rare, the arms have made all the difference.
For now, it’s the unexpected contributors keeping Houston afloat. Peña’s emergence. A rock-solid pitching staff. Role players stepping up in quiet but crucial ways. They’re not dominating, but they’re grinding—and in a sluggish AL West, that may be enough.
Walker still has time to find his swing. He showed some signs of life against Toronto and Detroit. If he does, the Astros could become dangerous. If he doesn’t, the turnaround we’re witnessing will be credited to a new cast of unlikely faces. And maybe, that’s the story that needed to be written.
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