The 2020 Alex Bregman narrative is completely silly

Former LSU baseball standout Alex Bregman is off to a slow start.

Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman is off to a slow start in the 2020 season.

And the majority of baseball fans are downright giddy about it.

Bregman is hitting just .224 with three home runs through 16 games. His OPS is a paltry .764. And his WAR (wins above replacement player), according to baseball-reference, is currently 0.1.

Not good. Not good at all.

So why are fans giddy about Bregman’s early-season struggles?

That’s easy. It’s because of the Astros cheating scandal that dominated the headlines this past winter (it was the biggest story in sports before COVID-19 took over).

The narrative is essentially that Bregman (and other Astros) aren’t good unless they’re able to cheat.

The Alex Bregman not being good narrative is silly

Bregman is a tremendous baseball player. He’s always been a great player. The New Mexico native was projected to be a first-round draft pick out of high school. That didn’t happen because of a wrist injury, so the talented infielder headed east and enrolled at LSU.

In Baton Rouge, Bregman proved he was a first-round talent, batting .338 during his career with the Tigers. Bregman was eventually drafted with the No. 2 overall selection in the 2015 MLB Draft.

The talent has always been there. Bregman is an incredibly hard worker who eats, sleeps and breathes baseball.

Early-season struggles in baseball aren’t uncommon. And they aren’t uncommon for Bregman.

Last season, Bregman hit .265 during the first half of the season, while hitting .338 during the second half of the season.

In 2018, Bregman hit .259 over the first month of the season (his worst average by month for the entire season).

This is just how baseball goes. It has nothing to do with what happened in 2017.

I know the Astros, and Bregman, became public enemy number one during the offseason, but I think it’s entirely unfair to discredit Bregman’s abilities as a baseball player because of the mistakes that were made three years ago.

Bregman is eventually going to take off this season. And then fans will be eating their words.