Albuquerque
Alex Bregman, Carlos Beltrán and our acceptance of living on the edge
In 2019, Alex Bregman was having the best season of his career. Charged with explaining the undersized third baseman’s ascension to MVP candidate, an Astros beat writer traced his journey back to an engine shop in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
That’s where Bregman found the beginnings of his hometown’s nascent baseball training infrastructure. It’s where baseball people began to understand how his mind worked, how far it could go in pursuit of an edge.
At age 10, he was stealing signs as a batboy for the University of New Mexico baseball team. By 11, he was angering opposing travel ball coaches by relaying incoming pitches to his teammates from second base. When, as a teenager, his pitcher was struggling early, he took the reins and called most of the game from shortstop, signaling pitches to the catcher.
That was a few months before the world would find out about the Astros’ sign-stealing scheme. Before we’d all hear Bregman’s initial non-answer, and eventually his stilted press conference apology. Before the mentor-student relationship between Carlos Beltrán and the ambitious young 2017 version of Bregman, in his first full major league season, took on a new meaning.
Six-and-a-half years on, Bregman is headed to the Chicago Cubs on a five-year, $175 million deal to make a home for the back half of his career. Part of his appeal, after making an immediate impact on a young Boston team, is that he’ll become the type of extra coach that Beltrán once was.
Beltrán, meanwhile, is tracking toward Hall of Fame induction in his fourth year on the ballot.
There are a lot of savvy ways to gain an advantage that don’t break any rules, that won’t live in infamy, that often won’t even seem relevant for people outside the clubhouse. They’ve surely evolved, but at the root of it, these are nuggets Bregman has been sifting for and sharing since he was a pre-teen.
He has an eye for spotting the glimmer of an edge in the dirt, and for being able to help his team sharpen it. That has served him well, and it’s cut him down. Edges don’t leave room for compromise; the point and the point of no return are close enough to be one and the same.
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Maybe there’s something about Albuquerque — a city whose proximity to vast nothingness made it such a fitting, stark setting for Breaking Bad.
Previous generations of the Bregman family hailed from the suburbs of Washington, D.C., where his grandfather was the top lawyer for the Washington Senators. Baseball led them to the high desert. Bregman’s uncle ventured to the University of New Mexico to play second base, and the family re-rooted itself in Albuquerque. Bregman’s parents are both lawyers, and his father, Sam, has long been active in local politics. He is now running for governor of New Mexico as a Democrat.
“Living that public life, no doubt it has helped me,” Bregman once told the Orange County Register. “Watching my dad deal with criticism, it’s helped me 100 percent. You develop a thick skin that way. I’ve seen him fight for what he believes in. You have to have confidence. You can’t let the outside noise creep in.”
That story and many, many others describe the younger Bregman as brash. Since the sign-stealing scandal, Bregman has aged and matured into a more considered presence. He’s still renowned for his intensity and work ethic in the clubhouse, but he has polished his more public persona. The in-your-face confidence, though? Clearly still there. Bregman is behind a new performance collective offering training to other pro baseball players. In almost any recent social media post, you’ll see him advertising it or wearing gear for the club he dubbed Nemesis. Also a horse racing enthusiast, Bregman now owns thoroughbreds competing in significant races. His top contender right now is named Governor Sam.
I was thinking about Bregman about a month ago, when another highly motivated athlete from Albuquerque was in the news. Diego Pavia, the quarterback who starred at New Mexico Military Institute and New Mexico State before transforming historic doormat Vanderbilt into a contender, finished second in the voting for the Heisman Trophy — college football’s highest individual honor.
He also wears No. 2, and seeeeems to be stretching the truth with his 6-foot official height listing.
After learning he was the Heisman runner-up, Pavia posted “F-all the voters 👎” before apologizing. The ESPN host Rece Davis, who had given Pavia the nod on his ballot, later said he regretted his vote.
“I voted for Diego Pavia because I know what the history of Vanderbilt is. I thought he was the most dynamic player,” Davis said on a podcast. “I am predisposed in Heisman voting to vote for guys who create ‘wow’ moments.” But maybe the slack-jawed greatness just doesn’t exist without some grimaces.
I think it’s safe to say Pavia and Bregman come from different spheres of Albuquerque. Bregman’s dad has been the district attorney; Pavia characterized his upbringing in the city as a real-life version of Grand Theft Auto after his brothers’ run-ins with the police this year, mostly for public intoxication.
Still, there’s a matching note that resounds in their brands of self-assurance. It registers as defiance, a winking insistence on their own greatness and the ferocity of the world’s doubts. Breaking Bad, in its original conception, was set in California. The studio pushed the creators to consider Albuquerque because it was cheaper.
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With the Hall of Fame writers vote set to be revealed next week, Beltrán is nearing lock status. That means the grappling with his “Godfather” role in the Astros sign-stealing scheme is both over and ramping up.
Esteemed Sports Illustrated scribe Tom Verducci wrote about his own consideration last week, ultimately deciding to vote for Beltrán despite a lingering queasiness.
“When you sign someone at those kinds of dollars, you should feel good about it,” said the GM, who had reservations about the player’s makeup and how he fit in the clubhouse.
The GM was prescient. The signing did not work well.
I feel the same way about the Hall of Fame ballot. You should feel good about checking the box next to a player’s name. An endorsement for the highest honor for a career should be done gladly. The candidacy of Carlos Beltrán challenges that tenet. It is complicated and unprecedented, a canary in the coal mine of the age of technology, even more tangled than that of spitball legend Gaylord Perry.
There’s an echo of the spoiled Pavia vote in there, and a dab of the hesitation you sometimes hear in the praise for Bregman’s clubhouse impact. Where you won’t hear anything like that is in young teammates’ appreciation for Bregman.
“I came up at a time when he was hurt and he was basically like a coach. He was like another hidden coach for me,” star Red Sox rookie Roman Anthony said recently. “When I came up and got into that DH role a little bit after we made that trade, he was sitting next to me every second of the game constantly showing me different things and helping me prepare. I can’t speak highly enough about him and what he does as a leader.”
That sounds like the way players used to talk about … Beltrán. As Verducci lays out, there’s no case against the all-around outfielder’s Cooperstown candidacy except the scandal. His plaque will mention 435 homers, 312 steals (plus an all-time best success rate) and a 1.021 OPS in the postseason, highlighted by his face-melting 8-homer run with the 2004 Astros. It might not mention his eagle-eyed capacity for spotting pitcher’s tells, or the steadying advice he proffered to attentive hitters like Bregman.
Similarly, there’s not much to dissuade you from wanting Bregman on your team, at least for the next few years. The new Cubs third baseman is not an objectively spectacular athlete, but he makes the most out of his talents every single year with a sharp, selective approach at the plate, pristine fundamentals and, yes, an eye for detail.
He’s a grinder, a spiritual descendant of childhood idol Dustin Pedroia, a baseball rat intent on outworking and outthinking everyone in the other dugout. The effort is visible — it almost has to be — to the point of being either irksome or endearing depending upon your perspective and/or your preferred professional wrestler. That doesn’t give Bregman or anyone else license or leeway to break rules or be a jerk, but it’s part of pushing for the edge that makes certain players who they are. It’s thrilling, until it turns to regret. It’s exhilarating, until it hurts.
Most of us can’t live this way. But in Bregman and Beltrán, we can appreciate it. From a safe distance.
The Bullpen
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Tarik Skubal and the Tigers are headed toward the rare newsworthy arbitration hearing.
The gut reaction to the news, in my slice of the baseball internet, was exasperation that the Tigers offered Skubal less than $20 million when he filed for $32 million, but there’s a broader structural battle here. As Ken Rosenthal explains, this is a case where Skubal, his agents and the players union (for which Skubal is on the executive subcommittee) have incentive to challenge the arbitration system. The two-time Cy Young winner entering his final year before free agency has almost nothing to lose in trying to set a bold new precedent for pitchers.
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Speaking of labor battles …
A secondary or tertiary reason to disdain the idea of a salary cap is the wild legalese that would tag along, making even the most mundane transactions more difficult to follow.
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This isn’t news, but there is a fun new video reminder that Ozzie Albies is a big fan. Of fish.
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“Oh, dear,” he said.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” I said.
“You’re a fan,” he said. “This is what it is to be a fan.” He said it so kindly, the way a doctor talks to a mental patient in the movies.
I’m enjoying this meditation on fandom from Taffy Brodesser-Akner in The New York Times Magazine. The subject of her obsession? Operation Mincemeat, a plucky Broadway musical about an absurd World War II British spy caper.
Great piece of writing Zack.
Beautiful. Love that quote at the end from Taffy. Gave me goosebumps. Or maybe it was the idea of swimming in a tank with catfish.