Astros rumored Alex Bregman backup plan would seal Dana Brown’s fate

After nine outstanding seasons with the Houston Astros, Alex Bregman is officially a free agent. No, that doesn't mean Bregman is a lock to depart. In fact, the Astros have made it abundantly clear that they'd like to bring him back.

However, Bregman being the best third baseman available by far also makes him incredibly expensive on the open market. The Astros can re-sign him even with that in mind, but given the fact that their payroll is already pretty high and guys like Framber Valdez and Kyle Tucker are only under club control through 2025, there's only so much money that they can spend.

Losing out on Bregman would sting, but if GM Dana Brown found a creative way to replace him, it wouldn't be the end of the world. One potential fallback option linked to Houston by Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (subscription required) would not be close to good enough and could end up costing Brown his job.

"The Houston Astros are continuing their efforts to re-sign Bregman, while also setting up contingencies. The team is staying in contact with Adames, and has expressed interest in another free agent, Jorge Polanco, as a fallback option," Rosenthal wrote.

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Dana Brown must do better than rumored Astros Alex Bregman fallback option

Losing out on Bregman but replacing him with Willy Adames would be more than acceptable. Adames isn't Bregman, but he's coming off an outstanding year in which he hit 32 home runs and drove in 112 runs. Having him play 81 times with the Crawford Boxes could result in an even larger power output. Adames has not played an inning of third base at the MLB level, but the bat is so good to the point where Houston should be fine taking that risk.

Where the fallback options fall apart, though, is Rosenthal linking Jorge Polanco to the Astros. Adames would be good enough, but Polanco would not be.

The biggest reason why the Seattle Mariners missed the playoffs, even with their incredible starting rotation, is that they didn't hit enough. Arguably the biggest reason why they didn't hit enough is that their offseason additions did not produce. Polanco was the biggest culprit.

The 31-year-old had a 110 OPS+ during his 10-year career with the Minnesota Twins, consistently performing like one of the most underrated middle infielders in the American League, but slashed .213/.296/.355 with 16 home runs and 45 RBI in 118 games for Seattle this past season.

Sure, having to play half the time in one of the most pitcher-friendly ballparks won't help anyone, but Polanco's numbers weren't close to where they once were. Do the Astros really want to replace a guy who has hit in the middle of their order for almost a decade now with a player who was a below-average hitter in 2024?

Not only did Polanco struggle, but he missed time due to injury as evidenced by his 118 games played. He has played over 120 games just three times in his 11-year career. On the flip side, Bregman has played in at least 145 games in six of his seven full seasons (excluding 2020). The Astros wouldn't only be downgrading production-wise, but they'd be forced to rely more on their depth by bringing Polanco in.

To top it all off, Polanco has a total of 24 games played at third base in his career. 15 of those did come in 2023, so fairly recently, but for the most part, he is a middle infielder. Jose Altuve and Jeremy Pena having spots in the middle infield forces Polanco to be the third baseman. This isn't to say he's incapable, but if the Astros were going to bring in a mostly inexperienced third baseman, Adames would obviously be preferred.

The 2024 Astros clearly weren't good enough. The 88 regular season games that they won were their fewest in a full 162-game season since 2016 — Bregman's rookie year. They were swept in the Wild Card Series by the Detroit Tigers. Letting one of their most productive players walk only to replace him with a player who was a below-league-average hitter in 2024 would be a disaster.

Brown is tasked with fielding a team that can win the World Series. Downgrading from Bregman to Polanco would make it even tougher for an Astros team that already wasn't good enough to win. Without winning, Brown's job security could be at risk.