Astros: Could George Springer become Mr. October 2.0?

Most Astros fans know who Mr. October is.

For those Astros fans who don’t, his name was Reggie Jackson, who played in 77 games in the postseason throughout his 21-year career. He won four World Series titles and won the World Series MVP twice. He batted .278 in the postseason with 18 homers and 48 RBI in 281 at-bats, stats from Baseball-Reference. Jackson was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1993 and is now 72-years-old. Will there ever be a player who equals his production in October?

Let’s take a look 29-year-old George Springer, who is paving his own path to postseason glory. No one is comparing Springer to Jackson, except for how they raised their performances in October. Springer only has five seasons under his belt but has already played in three postseasons. During his first stint in the postseason, Springer struggled with his free-swinging ways of 2015.

Springer and company led the team to a surprise season in 2015 as they made the playoffs. We all know how that season ended with Game 4 of the ALDS versus the Royals. Springer got off to a slow start that year in October but batted .217 with one homer and 3 RBI. In Jackson’s first postseason in 1971, he batted .333 with two homers before being eliminated after only three games.

Since Springer’s slow start in 2015, he has become an offensive powerhouse in October. Through Game 2 of the 2018 ALCS, Springer has played in 29 postseason games, batting .299 with ten homers and 19 RBI via Baseball-Reference. If you take out the 2015 stats, Springer would be batting .319 with nine homers and 16 RBI. Since the start of the 2017 World Series, Springer has batted .392 with eight homers and 14 RBI.

With all the attention to Alex Bregman on this team, Springer just continues to impress in the spotlight. The Red Sox pitchers are being careful to Bregman, but maybe they need to start watching out for Mr. Springer, aka, Mr. October 2.0. There is a lot of postseason remaining, hopefully. Springer has a long way to go to catch up to Jackson’s tenure in the big leagues and October. If the Red Sox can use the Killer B’s…

Springer could lead to another World Series in 2018 and beyond before he reaches free agency in 2020. Hopefully, the Astros will lock up Springer and Bregman for the long-haul because they make the team better. As Bregman so elegantly pointed out, the Astros hit back to back to back homers off Nathan Eovaldi earlier this year. It was Springer, Bregman, and then Jose Altuve. Let’s keep the fun times rolling.