December 16, 2020

Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman was one of the biggest fantasy busts of 2020. Over 42 games last year, he slashed .242/.350/.451 with only six home runs, 22 RBI, and 19 runs. He was a consensus top-10 pick going into 2020 and now he's fallen outside of the top 30 in many preseason rankings. Bregman wasn't making the hard contact we're used to seeing from him last year. He saw his hard-hit rate drop from 38% in 2019 to 33.6% last year while his barrel rate took a dip from 4.8% in 2019 to 3.9% last year. He maintained his solid plate discipline in 2020 with a 14.4% strikeout rate and a 13.3% walk rate. Yet those clips were still inferior plate discipline numbers to 2019 when he had a 12% strikeout rate and a 17.2% walk rate. Bregman has shown some streaky play throughout his career and if we had a full 162-game season in 2020, we likely would have seen the best version of Bregman emerge through an extended stretch at some point. He showed his downside risk in 2020, but don't forget the upside potential he possesses. He's just a year removed from an MVP-caliber 2019 campaign in which he slashed .296/.423/.592 with 41 home runs, 112 RBI and 122 runs. Bregman is a great target in the third round or later. While he may be streaky and fail to reach his gaudy 2019 numbers, the upside potential is a player who can return a mid-first round value.--Andrew Ericksen - RotoBaller