It was late Sunday afternoon at Wrigley Field, hours before Alex Bregman would sit in front of his cubicle in the home clubhouse and proclaim how terrible he has been this season.
Over in the visitors’ clubhouse, Matt Chapman of the Giants was talking about Bregman and how he has struggled at the plate.
“Just like a lot of us have,” Chapman said.
Chapman didn’t hit his first home run of the season until June 1, then had a huge game at Wrigley on Friday, hitting two home runs, including a grand slam, and driving in eight runs. He also drove in the winning run Saturday in the Giants’ 3-2 win over the Cubs in 10 innings.
“Just look across the league — it’s just been a weird start for a lot of guys,” he said.
Narrow the focus to third base, and some of the most richly compensated stars have fallen far short of expectations. Perennial All-Star Manny Machado is batting .169, the lowest average in the big leagues. He is being paid $31.8 million a year.
Bo Bichette of the Mets? He has five home runs, a slugging percentage of .330 that is fourth-lowest among all qualified big-league third basemen and an OPS of .615, which is the fifth-worst. He’s getting $42 mil a year.
The Braves’ Austin Riley has a .646 OPS and a $21.2 million salary. Chapman, who is being paid $25 million and change, is slugging .369.
And then there is Bregman, who in the offseason signed a five-year, $175 million free-agent deal. He has five home runs, 19 RBI and a .669 OPS and has left more runners on base than any player in the big leagues. He is batting .173 with runners in scoring position, 12th-worst in the league. Cubs teammates Seiya Suzuki (.136) and Dansby Swanson (.153) have been even worse.
“Breggy still hasn’t found his footing, in his opinion, probably,” Chapman said. “The list goes on. A lot of guys [are] not slugging, which is weird, because that’s something I’ve never struggled with, right? It’s been really weird for me.”
Bregman is a player Chapman has known since they played together on a U.S. national team while they were both in school — Bregman at LSU, Chapman at Cal State Fullerton.
“So we go back,’’ Chapman said, “and then we work out in the offseason together, in his facility.”
“I’d meet Breggy at the gym at like, 8 in the morning, and he would have already been there since 6. We would work out, run, play catch, train, hit, and then I would do some stuff and then I’d go home.
“Breggy would stay for the next group, watch them, watch them hit, talk to them, he’d be there for 12 hours. I’m like, ‘Bro, don’t you ever go home? That’s the kind of guy you feel good paying money, because you know he puts the work in.’’
Through the course of their careers — Bregman debuted in 2016, Chapman in 2017 — they have been elite players. Bregman has been the better hitter, Chapman the better fielder. Bregman won the Silver Slugger in 2019. Chapman has five Gold Gloves. As soon as Chapman left the American League, signing as a free agent with the Giants, Bregman finally won his first Gold Glove, in 2024.
Bregman has been to four World Series with the Astros, winning two. Chapman is still waiting for his first.
In one significant statistical measurement, Wins Above Replacement, they are virtually even. Bregman’s WAR is 44.4, Chapman is 44.0.
“Me and him are tight, so I talk to him a lot,” Chapman said. “We try to help each other out where we can. We know each other pretty well, so it’s cool to have somebody like that. He’s somebody I’ve always admired what he’s done. So it’s cool to be in the same conversation.”
And now here they both are, trying to figure out why, as the season hurtles toward its halfway point, hitting the ball with authority has proven so elusive.
Chapman speculates that the ABS system has lowered the top of the strike zone. He had flattened his swing to handle the four-seamers up in the zone. Now those pitches are being hit on the ground.
Indeed, Bregman has seen a spike in the percentage of ground balls he is hitting, and his isolated power (ISP), calculated by subtracting batting average from slugging percentage, is .099, the lowest of his career.
It’s another example, Chapman said, of how baseball constantly remains a game of adjustments. Bregman will figure it out, he said.
“It doesn’t always start out the way you want it to, but you’ve got to think big picture sometimes, long-term,” Chapman said. “Because of the slow start, it doesn’t look like the full season you’re accustomed to seeing, but then he helps the team down the stretch, they make the playoffs, and he goes crazy in the playoffs.
“He has a ton of playoff experience, he does all the things he’s always done, and then it’s right back to business as usual. He’s on this team for five years, and maybe there’s two or three months it didn’t go the way it was planned, but then the rest of the time is great.
“That’s why you signed the guy.”
