Breaking Down Alex Bregman's College Fielding Mechanics

Okay, so with the World Series going on between the Astros and Braves, I've gotten a couple of requests lately to look at Alex Bregman's fielding mechanics. And I found this video of him back in his LSU days. And it's interesting to see how similar his fielding mechanics were back in college, to now when he's been a veteran of the major leagues for quite some time now. We're going to break down his mechanics. And the big thing when it comes to fielding mechanics, I think all the best players, all the best fielders do everything very, very similarly. Those are the things we're going to talk about today. Now, how do they do it? Not all of them. In fact, I think most of them were not taught to do it this way. When I watch fielders from the Dominican Republic, or fielders that just field a lot of baseballs, if you look at a player from the South, from California, from Florida, from Texas, those infielders are typically more refined. They're going to be smoother. They're going to do a lot of these things. Versus a player that's maybe from the Northeast. We're from the Northeast. A player that hasn't fielded as many ground balls. They're not going to look as refined as some of the other players that have fielded a lot. When it comes to fielding, the more you do it, you start to learn. Okay, what's the best way? What's the most efficient way to field the ball? The more reps you get, typically the better you get. My goal here is that we can speed up that learning curve so that you don't have to field a million balls. It'd be great if you could, but you can learn some of these things and not just rely on the repetitions to teach you. And then you can practice this with repetition and you should be able to quickly pick this up and become a better infielder much more quickly. So let's get into it. So here we go. You're going to see he starts off with a little hop here, right? So we talk about this a lot. You want to feel like a tennis player. You're going to hop as the ball is basically being delivered to the plate and you want to read the ball just as you're coming down. You can actually see Bregman here as he's coming down. See how he puts his left foot down first because he's reading and then right here he goes, okay, that ball's to the right. Bang. So he hits with the outside foot and he goes to the right. You want to be able to explosively move. If you land and you're flat-footed or you just never hop and you're flat-footed, you're not going to be as quick to move as you would be as if you hop, you take the slack out of your muscles and now you can just hit and explode. If the ball's here, your right foot will hit first. If the ball's there, your left foot will hit first. So that's the first thing. Also notice he's not down in a fielding position. We talk about a thumbs-up position and so here he is ready to move. Ready to go in any direction. Ball's hit to his right. He moves to his right. Now notice when he gets ready to move here, notice how his posture, right? His chest is over. His nose are out over his toes. So as he moves for the ball, notice how he stays in that posture. He doesn't come up. A lot of players either don't get in this posture or they pop up. So he stays in this posture. He gets to the right of the ball. You see that small move to the right so that now he can get back going towards his target, right? To the right. Now to the left, right? Go back again. To the right. Now through the ball to the left. We're always throwing left. So we have to get to the right so that we can create a good angle, get our momentum and direction going towards where we're throwing the ball. Okay. Now as he approaches the ball, he's going to go right left. It's always right left. Right left field, right left throw. Now we have some extra time so he does two shuffles. Okay. So right left. As you're putting your right foot into the ground, notice how he's presenting the glove. Not a lot of wasted glove movement. It goes from a thumbs up position to an open glove. Fingers down. Bare hand is at a 45. It's not straight over the top. They're at 45 degree angles. Chest is flat. Butt is up. I get my butt up. I can get my hands out in front. I want to be able to see the ball and my glove at the same time. Okay. That's really key. Out front, see the ball and the glove. As the ball comes in, the bare hand traps the ball. My glove never closes. It traps the ball. Once I feel this ball, and let me back up for a second. Notice how he goes right left. The left heel hits first. The timing is ball goes into the glove as the toes come down. That allows you to make this move. See that small move? Going from this leg to that leg. See how he starts to work his body and his momentum towards his target right here? That's the timing of it. That allows you to work through the ball. After you feel the ball, you're going to bring the ball to the middle of your chest. Your elbows are going to go out. As you do that, you're going to take your right foot to your left. You're going to take your left foot to your target. If it is a quick runner or a slowly hit ball, you're going to get ready to throw right here. Right left throw. If you have time, which he has here, you're going to go right left. Right left. Okay. It all depends on how much time you have. Here's another look. Sometimes players do this and coach says, hey, you got to get rid of that ball. Don't take those extra steps. Well, if I have time, I'm going to take the extra steps. Why throw the ball right here if I've got plenty of time and I can continue to move, get my momentum going towards my target, cut down the distance, right? When I break my hands, I break my hands. I keep my fingers on top of the ball. I know it's a little bit tough to see here. Now I'm lined up to throw. Front shoulder on the target. And I throw and follow. So really quickly, those are all things you can work on. A lot of players that I've played with were never told to do any of it. But guess what? They do it all. Because they feel that so many ground balls that their body has figured out that this is the most efficient way to field. This is it. And sometimes as a coach, you've got to clean up some things, right? I'm sure he's been taught some things as he's moved on from LSU to the Astros. But a lot of this he's already done, right? And some players can have really good coaches that can help them. And some players are just on their own. But if you're a player that can't go out and field a thousand ground balls in a week, you're going to need to learn this stuff and then implement it. And you should be able to make these adjustments and make these part of your natural movements quicker than if you don't get the teaching and then you just rely on going out and having to field as many balls as a kid from the Dominican Republic is going to field, which good luck because they can field a lot of ground balls. Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions in the comment section below. Subscribe to the channel. Hit the notification bell. All that good stuff. We'll talk to you later. If you've enjoyed this video and want to learn more about building the elite swing, check out our new course. We have over two hours of content, almost 30 hitting drills. We break down the exact mechanics that you're going to want to implement into your swing. I've put the link in the description if you want to go check it out.