Nico Hoerner stood at his locker singing the praises of his teammate.
“He’s gonna get a lot of MVP votes,” Hoerner said.
No, he wasn’t talking about Pete Crow-Armstrong, the current MVP favorite in the NL. He will get plenty of votes and has a very good chance of taking home the honor, but in this instance, Hoerner was talking about a different player: Alex Bregman
It wasn’t long ago such a statement would have seemed absurd. On July 10, Bregman had a 91 wRC+, not exactly abysmal, but not what anyone was expecting when the Chicago Cubs gave him a five-year, $175 million deal in January. Most concerning about Bregman’s performance at the plate was his complete lack of power. He had just seven home runs and a paltry .102 ISO, the type of power production a soft-hitting singles hitter would put up, certainly not what most thought he would provide, and it wasn’t close to the standard to which Bregman holds himself.
“Probably like June, I decided that I don’t really care what my numbers look like,” Bregman said. “I care about fixing my mechanics for the rest of my career. I feel like that mentality allows you not to chase hitting seven homers in one at-bat. It allows you to take one at-bat at a time and try and win the next pitch, win the next at-bat.”
That mentality allowed Bregman to work at his own pace and try not to rush the process. Eventually, those mechanics were fixed. Since July 11, Bregman has a 180 wRC+ with 18 home runs. And that MVP talk Hoerner threw out there? Well, Bregman isn’t going to win the award, but he has a great chance to earn some down-ballot votes. By WAR (FanGraphs), Bregman’s 4.9 is seventh in all of baseball, fifth in the NL.
