A preliminary look at Bregman and the HOF Index
I am admittedly walking a tight rope here. I am trying to accomplish two different things in one article without boring everyone to tears. First, I want to reintroduce the Hall of Fame Index and what it does. Secondly, we are using it as a way to evaluate what the Astros can do with Alex Bregman and how he differs from past Astros free agents like George Springer and Carlos Correa.
First of all, I should already admit that I am breaking the rules in his case. No player is eligible to be considered for the index until he has played ten seasons. Bregman will be going into his tenth season next year and that is assuming that you consider his cup of coffee in 2016 as a whole season. However, I think we are close enough to where we can get some ideas of how to treat him.
So, really I am answering two questions today. The first question is why we use the index in the first place? The second question is whether Bregman really is different from Springer and Correa? The first one is fairly easy to answer. The index is an analytical tool we use to protect ourselves from emotional decision making. It accomplishes this by allowing us to compare players with other similar players that we have no emotional connection with.
The index takes a players career baseball-reference.com’s WAR and combines it with Fangraphs.com’s WAR for a career value sum. Then, we take the top ten seasons from those two sources for a peak value sum. So, Bregman has one more season until his numbers can officially qualify him in the rankings, but we can look at where he is now and harbor a guess of where he could end up.
Alex Bregman: 39.6 BWAR, 39.7 FWAR, 39.6 BWAR10, 39.7 FWAR10 = 158.6 Index
If Bregman earned no more wins in his career, he would land between Ryan Zimmerman and Doug Decinces historically, However, we know this is not likely, so let’s pretend he does what he has done the last several seasons and adds somewhere between three and four wins in his tenth season. We could already peg him historically there according to his peak value.
As a peak value performer he would elevate himself into Bob Elliot, Toby Harrah, and Josh Donaldson territory as a peak value third baseman. Assuming he adds four wins to his total next season, those four wins would effectively be worth 16 index wins since they would count towards his career and peak value at the same time. That would put him around Larry Gardner and Matt Williams historically assuming that he does nothing else in his career.
The question at hand is whether Bregman is more like Jose Altuve or whether he is more like George Springer and Carlos Correa. Both of those were good players and very good while they were in Houston, but for various reasons are not likely to be Hall of Fame players. As we know, Altuve is very likely a Hall of Famer and could eventually take the unquestioned crown of best player in franchise history.
Is Alex Bregman a Hall of Famer? That’s a hard question in the middle of someone’s career, but I have applied a multiplier that could potentially get pretty close to what he might produce. If we take his current 2024 WAR and multiply it by 0.90 each season then we get what could approximate predictable decline as Bregman gets into his mid-thirties. We could also do the same with his counting numbers to approximate where he should be after a theoretical contract.
Contracts are always speculative and that is particularly true when Scott Boras gets involved. However, using the Jose Altuve contract as some form of reference, I could see the Boras team really pushing for six seasons. Doing so would effectively allow Bregman to retire as an Astro and if we used the financial comparisons with Altuve we could see the two sides landing at around 6/150. I obviously would expect Boras to ask for more but I’d also expect Houston to offer fewer seasons intially. Going down on the AAV in exchange for more seasons seems like a reasonable compromise.
2025: 3.7 BWAR/FWAR
2026: 3.3 BWAR/FWAR
2027: 3.0 BWAR/FWAR
2028: 2.7 BWAR/FWAR
2029: 2.4 BWAR/FWAR
2030: 2.2 BWAR/FWAR
By my crack math skills, that means that Bregman would have a career value of 113.8 or we can round that up to 114. That would push him into the bottom of the top 20 of the index historically. His peak value would be in the neighborhood of 92 or 93 which would give him a total index score 206 or 207. That would make him most similar to Ron Cey historically.
I should say two things on this. First, this is merely an estimate of what he might do in the next six seasons. Bregman could honestly come in above or below that. Secondly, it is assuming he plays only six more seasons. I could see an additional two or three seasons as very likely given his age. Even though, those would likely come in as sub two win seasons, An additional eight career value wins (assuming two additional years) could change his chances some.
Assuming the 90 percent rule across the board, Bregman would average 113 hits per season for the next six years. That would be an additional 679 hits which would put him just north of 1800 hits for his career. Obviously, those two additional hypothetical seasons would likely land him north of 2000 career hits if they were healthy seasons.
He has averaged 21 home runs a season so 90 percent of that would be an additional 19 home runs per season. That would be an additional 114 home runs over six seasons to give him just over 300 career home runs. We would estimate that he might end up around 330 career home runs with two additional seasons. He has averaged 77 runs scored which would be 69 runs scored with the 90 percent rule. That would give him in the neighborhood of 1100 runs scored or 1200 if we add those two additional seasons.
The 90 percent rule on the RBI is 66 additional RBI per season. That would be nearly 400 RBI over those six seasons which would put him around 1050 RBI. He would easily eclipse 1100 RBI with two additional seasons. Given all of that information he would easily be a borderline Hall of Famer. The biggest wild card is what happens to his postseason resume after an additional six or eight seasons.
414 PA, .789 OPS, 19 HR, 63 Runs, 54 RBI, 3 SB
That production comes with a number of caveats. Obviously, the OPS is good, but not special. However, few third basemen historically have played as many postseason games as Bregman. Chipper Jones has 417 postseason plate appearances and he is the only player at third base with more than Bregman. Does he get 100 more plate appearances? 200 more? It’s just as likely that the Astros run into a dry spell and don’t go back to the postseason.
If a player like Bregman came to me as a Hall of Fame voter I’d have a hard time making that call. There are seven retired third basemen in the index top 20 that are not in the Hall of Fame. I cannot in good conscience vote for someone that is barely in the top 20 when there are so many other worthy candidates.
Obviously, we don’t know what the future will hold, but there is very little chance of Alex Bregman becoming a top 15 third baseman according to the index given his career trajectory. That’s not an insult. Obviously, not many players can reach that level. Jose Altuve is already a top 20 second baseman overall and should crack the top 15 fairly easily if he remains healthy through the end of this current contract.
The estimates above would peg Bregman at about 8.67 million per win if the Astros gave him 150 million over six years. That ends up being pretty close to current market value for wins according to Fangraphs. If you gave him the 180 million then it would end up being 10.47 million per win. If I were Scott Boras I could make a defensible argument for that based on the general rate of inflation in the industry as a whole.
If the current standard for a win is somewhere between eight and nine million dollars then what would the rate per win be in six seasons? If I were Boras I could claim that in five or six seasons that could end up being at around ten or eleven million. As Astros general manager Dana Brown, I would counter with the fact that we gave Jose Altuve five years and 125 million and he and Bregman are similar players. So, six years and 150 million dollars is more than reasonable.
So, for the Astros the question is easy to ask and difficult to answer. Is Alex Bregman likely to be a Hall of Famer? Honestly, I would go 50/50 on that and if being a future Hall of Famer is the barometer then we should fairly ask if he has a better chance than Kyle Tucker. No one knows where Jim Crane’s spending limits are, but I think we might all suspect that only one of Alex Bregman, Framber Valdez, and Kyle Tucker can get a deal. Which one should it be?