How Alex Bregman Turned His First Cubs Season Around
After a rough first half, Alex Bregman made key adjustments at the plate and turned his season around. Here’s what changed.
Earlier this year, the Chicago Cubs signed Alex Bregman to a five-year, $175 million contract. They envisioned his production on both sides of the ball, along with his leadership, helping fuel multiple postseason runs.
The front office had their eyes on Bregman in previous years as well, being serious players to land him entering the 2025 season before he eventually signed a deal with the Red Sox. Clearly, the organization likes him, and for good reason. He has a long track record of success, along with being part of two World Series-winning teams.
However, his tenure as a Cub got off to a rough start. Across his first 94 games with the team, he posted a measly 97 wRC+ and .696 OPS, which would both be career lows.
He has always been praised for his work ethic and recognized for being one of the biggest baseball rats in the game. This mindset has led to a massive turnaround in his season, with him making in-season adjustments and tearing the cover off the ball in the second half.
Here is a look at where his season started, what changed, and how the results have followed.
All stats updated before play on August 19.
An Uncharacteristic Start
Coming into the season, expectations for Alex Bregman were high. Chicago hadn’t had any consistency from their third basemen since trading away Kris Bryant in 2021. From 2022 to 2025, players in that role combined to bat .222 and produced the fifth-least fWAR in baseball. Having an opportunity to change that is an exciting thing.
That production, however, would not come right away, as Bregman really struggled in the first half. He entered the All-Star break slashing .241/.336/.359 with just nine home runs.
While his elite swing decisions and bat-to-ball ability remained intact, his quality of contact tanked. In his career, he has been able to float around league average even with subpar bat speed, but that wasn’t the case in the first half.
He was running a 36.6% hard-hit rate and 4.2% barrel rate, which would both be well below his career numbers. That was the main factor in his struggles to open the season.
Even so, he was constantly tinkering, looking for a solution, and he found one.
A New and Improved Approach
Alex Bregman is obsessed with baseball. So much so that amidst his issues at the plate, he stayed up watching film into the morning looking for an answer.
In an article by Sahadev Sharma from The Athletic, this process was outlined. Bregman dug all the way back to his minor league days, watching video from when he was in Double-A. This would eventually lead to multiple discoveries about what he could potentially fix.
First, he felt that his hips and shoulders were disconnected, with his shoulders staying closed while his hips flew open. Bregman made it a point to get aligned again so that he could cover pitches all across the strike zone.
Along with that mechanical adjustment, he also changed his approach at the plate in a drastic way. Throughout his career, Bregman has played in ballparks that heavily favor his pulled fly-ball approach. Though after it hadn’t worked out quite as well at Wrigley Field, his philosophy began to shift.
Up until May 24 of this season, Alex Bregman was going to the opposite field just 14.8% of the time. Over 72 games since then, that number has increased to 20.1%.
This has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for his game. Driving balls from gap to gap has allowed his slugging to surge while dealing with the conditions of Wrigley Field.
These adjustments have paid dividends and have resulted in an offensive surge for Bregman as he helps the Cubs make a run in the second half.
The Results That Have Followed
It would take a couple of weeks for these adjustments to translate into results, but they came fast once things turned. Since July 9, Bregman’s offensive production has slowly begun creeping in the right direction. Then, after the All-Star break, the floodgates opened.
In 30 games in the second half, he is slashing .306/.382/.554 with a 159 wRC+ and has been worth 1.6 fWAR, which is just short of his 1.7 fWAR over 94 first-half games. His production has nearly doubled.
The quality of contact has come around as well. His second-half average exit velocity and hard-hit rate have both climbed to slightly above league average. Pairing that with his elite plate discipline has led to his resurgence.
This, along with Pete Crow-Armstrong performing at the top of his game, has led to a lot of victories on the North Side of Chicago. The Cubs are 20-12 since the break, which is the second-best record in baseball and tied for the best in the National League.
Why It Matters
Alex Bregman has a no-trade clause in his contract with the Cubs, meaning that he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. That makes it so much more important that he has found a way to thrive as a Cub and at Wrigley Field.
He is producing at a level that could carry the Cubs into a deep postseason run while also displaying great leadership skills and being there for his team. That is exactly why Jed Hoyer and the Cubs front office gave him the contract that they did.
It cannot be expressed enough how impressive the adjustments Bregman made are. Not only did he change the mechanics of his swing, but he also shifted his approach entirely and turned his season around.
After struggling to find his footing in Chicago, Bregman has made the adjustments necessary to become the player the Cubs envisioned when they signed him.
Become a Member of Just Baseball
Subscribe and upgrade to go ad-free!
* Save 25% by subscribing annually.
Written by
Carson Wolf is an intern at Just Baseball covering the Chicago Cubs and is the creator of The Wrigley Wire on X. He is currently studying…