Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman has the support of his manager and teammates, but the impending free agent doesn't know if he will be back next season.

"I hope so," Bregman said Wednesday after the Astros were eliminated by the Detroit Tigers in a two-game sweep in the American League wild-card series in Houston.

"We'll see what happens. I'm going to let Scott (Boras, his agent) and the team handle that. Obviously, it's free agency, and I've never really experienced that before."

A career Astro since Houston selected him second overall in the 2015 MLB Draft out of LSU, tBregman earned $30.5 million in each of the past two seasons. He's expected to be one of the top hitters on the free-agent market, with the Astros having a five-day window to exclusively negotiate with him and any of their other free-agent players following the end of the World Series.

Manager Joe Espada said Thursday at the team's end-of-season news conference that he hopes Bregman makes a deal to remain an Astro.

"I think what makes this team really good is the character of the people that we have in that clubhouse, and he's one of the best I've ever been around," Espada said. "So I would love to have Alex Bregman playing third base for us next year."

Bregman's fellow All-Star infielder, second baseman Jose Altuve, said Wednesday that he would be "heartbroken" if Bregman left the organization.

"I don't want to think about my last game with Breggy," he said. "I'm pretty confident he's going to be our third baseman next year. We have to. We're not going to be the same organization without him. In my mind, there's not a chance this is the last game."

General manager Dana Brown, who will be part of the negotiations, said the organization will have conversations with Bregman about coming back, but on Thursday he didn't provide a timeline.

"He's been a really good player and he's been outstanding in terms of helping this team play a lot of postseason games and he's posted each and every year," Brown said. "So that weighs heavily. We will have some discussions with Boras and also Bregman. We've had some small talk, but ultimately, we'll have some discussions. We know what he means to this organization."

Bregman, who turns 31 at the start of the 2025 season (March 30), started slowly in 2024. He finished with a .260 batting average, 26 home runs and 75 RBIs in 145 games while dealing with a right elbow ailment late in the season. His .315 on-base percentage was close to a career low. He had a .453 slugging percentage, and his .768 OPS was a career low.

He is a career .272 hitter with 191 homers and 663 RBIs in 1,111 regular-season games (2016-24). He was an All-Star in 2018 and 2019 and the Silver Slugger award winner for American League third basemen in 2019.

Bregman also has hit .238 in the postseason with 19 homers and 54 RBIs in 99 games from 2017-24 as Houston won the World Series in 2017 and 2022.

"Bregman is a special, special human and a special baseball player," Brown said. "I hope I see him back here, that's all I've got to say."

After the Astros' season ended on Wednesday, Bregman talked to his teammates in the clubhouse about how proud he was of them and their improvement over the past six months. He said it was "one of the funnest seasons I've had."

Later, he told reporters that he hadn't thought about free agency.

"I haven't really had a chance to process this," Bregman said. "I was planning on being here tomorrow."

Later Wednesday, he posted on his X account: "Thank you Houston."

--Field Level Media