Astros: 3 players missing from Top 50 Postseason Player Rankings

MLB.com released their ranking of the Top 50 players in the 2021 MLB playoffs. The list seems to be a hodge-podge of players ranked by a mixed criteria of historical post-season performance and 2021 regular season performance.

There are big names on the list that certainly earned their place such as Max Scherzer, Garrett Cole and Houston Astros‘ Jose Altuve. There are also some newcomers to postseason play that warrant extra attention such as Corbin Burnes, Kyle Tucker and Nolan Arenado.

Here is where the Houston Astros were featured amongst the top 50:

9. Carlos Correa

14. Jose Altuve

26. Kyle Tucker

28. Yordan Alvarez

32. Yuli Gurriel

We could certainly debate this ranking is insane. You simply cannot have the player with the second-most career postseason home runs amongst active players, Altuve, ranked at 14th and Aaron Judge who struck out 51 times in 131 postseason at-bats. However, I am more concerned with glaring omissions from the list, including three of your Astros.

Third baseman Alex Bregman might be having a down year, but you can’t count out his bat.

Not to be overly dramatic, but the fact that Alex Bregman was omitted from this list almost invalidates its entire existence. Bregman has proved time and time again that he is a big time performer under the bright lights of late-October baseball.

In the 2017 World Series, after a back-and-forth game in which the Astros came back from two separate three-run deficits in Game 5, Bregman hit a walk-off single in the bottom of the 10th inning off Kenley Jansen to give the Astros a 13–12 victory and a 3–2 series lead.

In the 2018 American League Division Series, Bregman continued his postseason tear, batting .556. His .714 OBP was the third-highest all-time in a division series, while his 1.333 slugging percentage was fourth-highest all-time.

If you want to discount Bregman simply because he only played 90 games this season, that is fine. Bregman certainly proved he lost zero baseball chops after his return to live action on August 25th. So, to fully omit him from the list seems like an oversight. I think many fans of the Astros would confidently take Bregman over any of his other teammates featured on the list with the exception of maybe Altuve.

Michael Brantley was top three in batting average this season but not in the top 50 players.

Michael Brantley doesn’t quite have the multi-postseason pedigree that some of his fellow Astros teammates have had. Brantley missed the 2016 Cleveland Baseball Team’s World Series run with a shoulder injury. Brantley, however, got his fair share of at-bats over the previous two postseason runs with the Astros in 2019 and 2020.

During those series, Brantley slashed .311/.391/.426 over 138 plate appearances. Not only has he been great at the plate. He may very well have one of the greatest defensive plays in recent Astros postseason history with a double play against the Astros’ biggest postseason rival, the Yankees.

While Brantley spent time on the injured list, he is coming off of one the best seasons of his long, successful career. Over 121 games, Brantley slashed .311/.362/.437. His .311 batting average was second only to his teammate, Gurriel, in the American League when the season ended this last weekend.