Carlos Correa did it a year ago, and felt stronger and more fit, as the shortstop led Houston’s charge through the playoffs, and an eventual World Series championship. Now, this past offseason, Astros third baseman Alex Bregman has sworn off soda pop and pizza, streamlined his diet, and turned into a veritable gym rat.

Correa even greeted Bregman at the start of Spring Training with a bicep squeeze, so impressed was he at his teammate’s transformation.

“Lion Mode,” Bregman calls it on one of his social media sites. “No gazelles around here.”

Related: Bregman, Astros Climbing the Stares to National Meme Prominence

The Man Behind the Muscles

“Here” would be Houston’s Dynamic Sports Training (DST), where Correa worked with DST Sports Performance Specialist, Garrett Kelly, and Bregman was custom coached by fellow Specialist Kevin Poppe in their respective grueling two-hour workouts, six days a week. Causing a stir in some circles, in fact, were internet-strewn before-and-after shirtless photos of Bregman circa November 8 (a week after clinching the title) and on Valentine’s Day, just before reporting to Houston’s newly-named FITTEAM Ballpark of the Palm Beaches spring site.

“I’m in the kangaroo court box,” Bregman recently confessed to Houston’s ABC affiliate KTRK. “Because there was a shirtless pic on the internet. But it’s all right. I will pay the fine.”

The former Bregman was certainly fit, but not altogether muscularly defined. After three months of front squats, deadlifts, box jumps (55″ for Correa), and barbell hip bridges, Bregman now sports a defined and cut six-pack….of stomach muscles, not one of Dr. Pepper cans, his previous sugary drink choice. He also claims to have ditched pizza and burgers, ingesting, now, more salmon and “the high quality H2O.”

Can an increase in home runs from last year’s 19 to 30 in 2018 be expected for Bregman? Maybe, but then that’s not really the point (having said that, I have no problem, nevertheless, predicting a 30-dinger season for Bregs, as long as he stays healthy). Gaining the stamina to still be playing sans exhaustion in October is the goal.

Sending the World Series to a seventh game, in fact, propelled the Astros to playing into November; granted, it was “just” the 1st, but it ended up being a longer season than 28 other teams endured.

Related: Built to be a Hitter: The Physical Attributes of Alex Bregman

Fine-Tuning Defensive Skills

“His arm wasn’t moving the way it should. He had some tightness there,” DST’s Poppe revealed, referring to Bregman’s throwing motion from his 3B position. “He had some weakness in his hips and his core and mobility restrictions.” Part of DST’s formula, then, is to pinpoint where an athlete will be at various points of a season, from the basics of Spring Training to the fatiguing August dog days.

“We’re reverse-engineering our programming,” said Poppe. “We ask, where do they need to be when they report to camp, and work back.”

Regarding nutrition, where Bregman feels his biggest gains have been, Poppe continues, “We said ‘this is where you are. Here is where your body fat is. You are going to need to make these improvements to become a better version of the player you want to be.'”

“I haven’t had a Dr. Pepper since I celebrated with one on November 1,” Bregman added proudly. “I crave it all the time, but I can’t do it anymore. I switched over to the high quality H2O.”

Bregman, understandably, is pleased with his results. “I felt like I made a huge transformation, and I never felt better in my life,” Bregman beamed.

Infield Merry-Go-Round

Manager AJ Hinch has made it known around camp that he’ll be playing several players at more than their “regular” positions, in order to exploit the defensive flexibility of those players as the regular season grinds on, as well as having more “plug-in” options for when injuries occur.

Hinch will be getting spring game time for Bregman, for instance, at shortstop, his position for most of his LSU tenure, with a turn or two at 2B not out of the question.

First baseman Yuli Gurriel, too, will see time at different spots around the infield, particularly at 2B and 3B, with even SS an occasional possibility.

Tyler White, normally comfortable manning the corner bags, started Sunday’s game (February 25) at 2B, going 1-for-2 with a walk and a K, before yielding the position to prospect infielder Nick Tanielu, the Wazzu Wizard, in the team’s 7-3 win over the Cards, giving Houston a 3-0 spring record heading into play, Monday.

More Pound-Shedding ‘Stros

1B prospect AJ Reed and infielder JD Davis have both come to camp claiming a more healthy offseason routine, while peeling off a few troublesome pounds. While the 6’4″ Reed previously punished the scale at 275 lbs, his reported loss of 25 of those pounds he discounts as being merely “re-distributed.”