Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman has the support of his manager and teammates, but the impending free agent doesn't know if he will be back next season. "I hope so," Bregman said Wednesday after the Astros were eliminated by the Detroit Tigers in a two-game sweep in the American League wild-card series in Houston. "We'll see what happens.
I'm going to let Scott (Boras, his agent) and the team handle that. Obviously, it's free agency, and I've never really experienced that before." A career Astro since Houston selected him second overall in the 2015 MLB Draft out of LSU, tBregman earned $30.
5 million in each of the past two seasons. He's expected to be one of the top hitters on the free-agent market, with the Astros having a five-day window to exclusively negotiate with him and any of their other free-agent players following the end of the World Series. Manager Joe Espada said Thursday at the team's end-of-season news conference that he hopes Bregman makes a deal to remain an Astro.
"I think what makes this team really good is the character of the people that we have in that clubhouse, and he's one of the best I've ever been around," Espada said. "So I would love to have Alex Bregman playing third base for us next year." Bregman's fellow All-Star infielder, second baseman Jose Altuve, said Wednesday that he would be "heartbroken" if Bregman left the organization.
"I don't want to think about my last game with Breggy," he said. "I'm pretty confident he's going to be ou.
