Alex Bregman should be a monster at Fenway Park

That sweet swing was made for America’s Most Beloved Ballpark.

On this blessed St. Patrick’s Day, let us once again revel in how lucky we are that we are blessed by a glorious ownership group who has decided to pump resources into exactly one (1) marquee free agent this winter.

Jokes aside, I’ve got no complaints about the Alex Bregman era thus far. So far, so good. The new Red Sox infielder has, by all accounts, demonstrated a sense of veteran leadership— a presence that could go a long way for the 2025 iteration of the club and beyond. Riding the bus with the younglings, buying them suits prior to their inevitable call-ups in the near future, all the stuff that boosts the serotonin if you’re a softie like me.

The off-the-field qualities are all well and good, but of course anecdotes like the ones mentioned above only go so far if the play on the field isn’t up to snuff.

Bregman’s acquisition has primarily been lauded thanks to his defensive reputation. Adding his glove to an infield that has been, to put it diplomatically and to put an Irish twist on it due to the occasion, dog shite in recent years is certainly a plus—regardless of where on the dirt he slots into. Six outs above average at the hot corner in 2024 is certainly nothing to sneeze at.

However, I wanted to put Bregman’s potential offensive output—especially at Fenway Park—into focus. I think there’s something under the hood worth getting excited about thanks to that big ass wall in left field. His power numbers on the surface are solid (.260/.349./.449 average triple slash over the last three seasons and 74 dingers across that time, with those homers almost equally distributed between ‘22 and ‘24), but we might see even more production during home games this year. Hey, we’ve already seen some flashes of offensive brilliance down in Florida this month!

By now, I’m sure you’ve seen his track record at America’s Most Beloved Ballpark. His 1.240 OPS at Fenway is the highest mark in history among players who have had at least 75 plate appearances in Boston. That’s a small track record, admittedly—he’s only played in 21 games at Fenway, so your mileage on his results to date may vary—but I think there’s something to be said about what we might see during some beautiful summer nights on Jersey Street.

Two things that jumps out when looking at how Alex Bregman swings the bat is how often he’s able to loft the ball and how often he pulls it to left field. His average launch angle across his career is just a tick below 18 degrees, according to the handy dandy website Baseball Savant (I honestly should reach out to them and see if I can get some compensation from them, considering how often I refer to their data). It’s 5.5 degrees higher than the league average launch angle. The only time it’s technically dipped below 16 degrees was in 2021, and that figure was 15.9 degrees.

Bregman’s career pull rate is also above league average. He’s progressively hit the more to the opposite field in each of the last four seasons, but even his 39.9% pull rate in 2024—the lowest pull rate he posted since 2017—was still higher than the standard league rate of 37.2%. Just look at his spray chart from last season (with Fenway’s dimensions, for good measure).

As for his maximum exit velocity (looking at the average exit velo doesn’t make much sense in this instance, in my opinion, since no player is hitting homers and doubles on average), Bregman has consistently topped out around 108 MPH—nothing out of this world, but the ability to clobber a ball is in there.

So the right-handed Bregman can hit the ball in the air to left field on a consistent basis, and he has the facilities to hit it hard. You don’t have to be Theo Epstein to know that’s a recipe for success at Fenway Park, but luckily we do have data (from a few years ago, to be fair) to suggest that Bregman’s swing profile is a great fit for this team. A 2018 article from FanGraphs shows a cool lil’ parabola for what constitutes a swing that could put the ball……

………

…….

……..

………………Over The Monster.

At realistic exit velocities on the order of about 100 mph, the track of the ball is an arc. So, the launch angle must be greater than 6.8˚, but how much more? That depends upon the exit velocity. If the exit velocity is high, there should be a variety of launch angles that will clear the wall. As the exit velocity drops, there will be fewer and fewer launch angles that will work.

The combinations of exit velocities and launch angles that just clear the wall should create a curve above which you get a homer and below which you don’t. The “limiting curve” of EV versus LA should look something like this.

Again, shoutout to David Kagan and The Hardball Times for finding this data all those years ago.

Now I’m no math expert (just ask my high school teachers). But given what we just established—that Bregman lofts the ball at about an 18 degree clip on average and that he can drive a ball at a few ticks under 110 MPH—take a look at the parabola. Bregman’s profile fits right onto the line of that arch, no? That seems to suggest that Bregman has the bandwidth to knock a bunch of doubles and homers at Fenway, right?

Plus, consider the rest of Bregman’s approach at the plate. He’s demonstrated a great sense of control of the strike zone—he doesn’t chase a junk and doesn’t swing-and-miss much (82nd percentile chase rate and 98th percentile whiff rate last season)—and he squared the ball up about a third of the time in 2024. With a solid lineup in front and behind him, I expect he’s gonna see his fair share of pitches in the zone.

All of these factors get me buzzing for Alex Bregman’s offense at Fenway. The Green Monster could do wonders for him in 2025. Refer yourself back to the 2024 spray chart; at Fenway, some of those singles could turn into doubles and some of those doubles could turn into round trippers. If that doesn’t get you excited…well, maybe the rest of the offense can.

Sláinte, my friends. Raise a pint of Guinness to Alex Bregman’s bat in the year to come.