EDIT: Meh, I've been wrong about worse. To be fair, our playoff outlooks is widely different than it was when this was written.

I've got good news for you guys: Alex Bregman is good. Like, really good.

He's just mashing all over AA pitching and pounding out a much-used trail on the base paths. He's proving that the humble confines of Whataburger field are no longer able to hold his considerable might and I feel safe staking my reputation, or lack thereof, on the idea that he'll be in a Frenso uni fairly soon.

Now for the bad news: He's likely to be wearing that same uniform at the end of 2016.

Shhhhh sh sh sh sh, there there. Let me explain.

Experience matters

I know some people are of the impression that numbers in the minors are all that matters. The idea is that once a player has shown he has nothing left to prove he should be immediately upgraded to the next level, and that it's worthwhile to have them skip steps if their numbers are bonkers good, which Bregman's are. Some have even pointed to Jose Altuve as an example of a player who leap-frogged straight to the majors from AA based off of good to really good AA performances. But there's a slight difference. Bregman has yet to play even 100 games in the minors and hasn't reached 500 plate appearances. Altuve had 318 games and 1,399 plate appearances before he got his ticket to the show.

Alex did also play college baseball, but college baseball is much different from professional baseball. The seasons are only from Feb to May, you play less games without traveling as often, and you usually play one series a week on the weekends with scattered games against local teams here and there. It's a different culture and players need to adjust to the mental and physical grind of being a professional baseball player who plays hard every day of the season across multiple months. I have no doubt that Bregman is adjusting, but it is an adjustment and not one you really want your players making on the fly while also competing at the highest level.

Speaking of the highest level...

The Astros kind of stink right now

I know this seems counter intuitive to some, but most struggling teams aren't too high on propelling top prospects straight to the majors just to see what they have. There's almost always a time frame in place that gets re-evaluated at certain points in the season. There usually needs to be some sort of great need before a second year minor league player is called directly to the majors with so little professional experience under his belt. Teams that do that tend to only do it with players who are already close enough to the majors to justify it, not just because someone is hitting hot in AA. The other type of team that might move time tables up are teams that are seriously contending for the playoffs and are hoping that a hot young rookie will make an impact, a situation the Astros currently are not in.

You also have to consider the psyche of these players. Plucking someone from a team that's crushing it in AA (as Corpus is right now) and bringing them to a team that's struggling on the ML level is just not a great mental place for some of these kids. When players get into losing funks it can be hard to shake, and when you have them at the highest level of competition opposing players are going to take advantage of that and exacerbate it. While major league players can break out of it, they usually have several thousand more PA's and understand that slumps will come and go. A young guy who's had nothing but success suddenly struggling in full view of the entire country can have his confidence irrevocably shattered in that situation.

Speaking of player's psyche...

The Correa Conundrum

Alex Bregman's natural position is shortstop. Scouting reports written by Serious People have pegged Correa as a good candidate for 3rd base. So let's move Correa to 3rd base to clear up the log jam and bring Bregman up right away, right? Not really.

Even if Bregman came up in 2016 you're not going to break up an established defensive tandem in the middle of a season. Being a team means understanding your teammates and molding your play style to suit theirs so that the team as a whole is comfortable. Correa and Altuve have developed such a working relationship and you don't just completely throw that out the window during the middle of a season. You also need to consider the ramifications of coming to a team leader, who is an established MLB player, and telling them they're out at their preferred position because the team wants to see what this kid has got.

That's not to say that Correa will always be at SS forever or that he's not open to the possibility of moving, but a more robust discussion will probably happen during the offseason when there's time to train and become comfortable at the position followed up with spring training games. There are still too many unknowns concerning Bregman's career to ask Correa to move right now.

Speaking of Bregman's career...

Your entertainment is not worth more than Alex Bregman's career

Look, I get it. You want him here, like yesterday, to give you something to root for on a struggling team. I get it because I do too. I want to see Alex Bregman humbling pitchers right now too. I want to see the tattered remnants of the baseball he just hit reach escape velocity as he trots around the bases. I want that so bad. But that might not happen even if he was on a plane to Houston right now. He might get here and suddenly find himself over matched and out of luck. His career could end before it starts because he was rushed straight into a much more cutthroat competitive environment before he was ready. And then what?

Well, for you, nothing. You shrug your shoulders and begin combing the farm system for the next guy who's hitting over .300 and mashing homeruns (something which is already beginning to happen with Moran). But for Bregman, he goes back to the minors, but with a much heavier weight on his soul than he had before he got here. He has to work through his mental issues now, and he may not be able to. And that's what it comes down to. Teams aren't going to have a trial by fire for someone who is simply not ready for it. His day will come once he's been fully groomed and prepared, but they're not going to jeopardize this guy's future career, which they hope will be long and fruitful, just to let him take some hacks against ML pitching right away. It's just not good strategy.

And speaking of strategy...

Time and money go hand in hand

I'm sure people are familiar with the term "service clock." Basically once you call someone up to majors their time on how long the team has control of their contracts starts. If there's one thing the Astros have proven that they take seriously, it's team control on players. With the intangibles of his career still up in the air, you don't want to bring him up to have a look and then have to send him down and spend a chunk of his controllable service time sitting in AAA. It doesn't make sense until you come to the point that you feel like he's definitely has a shot of sticking in the majors.

Finally, the team would also need to DFA someone to make room for him on the 40-man, which is less of a hurdle, but why force such a situation if you don't feel the immediate need to do so? Better to keep the players you want to protect protected before you hang one out there just to give Bregman a look.

In conclusion

Ultimately, none of us knows what's going to happen. Maybe ownership will decide to throw caution to the wind and bring him straight to Houston so he can have an extended tryout. But the track record of this team and a majority of other MLB teams suggest he'll most likely finish the year at Fresno.

And, for now, that's for the best.