How Chicago Cubs third baseman Alex Bregman is trying to tap into power
Chicago Cubs hitting coach Dustin Kelly stood against the batting cage on the PNC Park field last week with a camera phone ready.
As Alex Bregman stepped in for his round of batting practice, Kelly, positioned parallel to the Cubs’ third baseman, started to record. Kelly documented each of Bregman’s swings that day in Pittsburgh, providing a reference for the slugger through a side-angle view of his swing and mechanics.
“It really just reinforces what he’s feeling in the moment, matching up to what we want it to look like,” Kelly explained.
Bregman has been searching for more power. His solo home run in Sunday’s loss to the St. Louis Cardinals ended a stretch of 83 plate appearances without one. He finished May with two home runs and five doubles and begins June having recorded eight doubles, one triple and five home runs this season. All of Bregman’s home runs have occurred with nobody on base.
Bregman’s 41.2% ground-ball rate is the highest of his career; coming into the season, his career average GB% was at 35.7%.
“Figure out why I’m not pulling the ball out of the ballpark in the air, figure out why I’m hitting the ball on the ground, figure out why I’m getting a certain pitch types and I’m not getting others and make an adjustment and beat them to the spot, flip the script,” Bregman told the Tribune.
“I know what my game is. It’s pull the ball in the air, it’s swinging at pitches that I can do damage on. Right now I’ve covered offspeed away and stuff away, and changeups and cutters and stuff like that, and I haven’t covered the fastball, so I’ve got to get back to doing that.”
In the last 10 days, Bregman has felt he’s been pulling the ball in the air at a better rate and has been pleased with where his swing is. His 23.2% Pull Air% is nearly on par with what he produced last year with the Boston Red Sox and is better than his last two seasons in Houston (20.9% and 20%, respectively, in 2023 and 2024).
But the Cubs need Bregman to be more of a run producer, after tallying 18 RBIs through the first two months, and that largely will result from driving the ball. Part of that involves making more contact. Bregman’s Contact% (down 4% from 2025) and Zone Contact% are both the lowest since his debut season with Houston in 2016.
When his swing or approach isn’t where it needs to be, Bregman relies on a combination of cage work and watching video to try to address the problem. This isn’t an unfamiliar position for Bregman, at least early in the season. He is a notoriously slow starter - 2025 in Boston was an outlier - with a career .408 slugging percentage and .769 OPS in March-April and .461 SLG and .804 OPS in May over the last 10 seasons. Between June and August, Bregman has averaged at least a .476 SLG and .840 OPS each month.
“It’s all I think about 24/7,” Bregman said. “I lock in and figure it out every year because, besides last year, I get off to a slow start every single year but find a way to have a good year, so I plan on doing the same thing this year.
“I think it helps, obviously, having the track record, but I think it helps also knowing that I’m one of the best players in the world, and I’m going to figure it out.”
Leading up to the Cubs’ last road trip, Bregman’s focus with the hitting coaches was on his lower half. Specifically, getting his back hip stacked, which then creates a feeling that his legs are underneath him and naturally cleaned up a little bit of his hand path.
“We feel like his hand path right now is really short and direct, which is where he wants it to be,” Kelly said. “Groundball numbers are going down, so all of those signs are kind of trending toward the right ball flight, and then now it comes to intent, knowing that he can get the ball flight. I think that’s where we’ll see some of the uptick in the ball actually starting to leave the yard.”
Will it be another big year for Alex Bregman, the Chicago Cubs’ hitting-obsessed newcomer?
Bregman comes into Tuesday’s series opener against the Athletics riding an 11-game hitting streak in which he is 14-for-46 (.304 average) with a .373 on-base percentage. The slugging component still isn’t fully there during this stretch (three extra-base hits), however, the Cubs continue to believe in Bregman’s track record and his recent adjustments.
When president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer joined the Cubs in Pittsburgh early last week while they were still stuck in their eventual 10-game skid, he showed Bregman his 2024 numbers through the same date. This year’s production, for as much as Bregman has struggled, is a lot better in comparison and a reminder that he has gotten through worse stretches before.
“He’s had, I think, what he would say is a frustrating start,” Hoyer said last week. “No one wants to get going more than he does. It’s not a batting average or on-base thing, it’s really a slug thing, and hopefully he’ll get that going because we need those kinds of multi-RBI extra-base hits.”
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