A Rookie on the Rise, Daylen Lile Is Raking in Washington

Daylen Lile has been swinging a hot bat. Over his last nine games, the 22-year-old outfielder is 16-for-37 with a double, four triples, and two home runs. Moreover, he’s been one of the top position player rookies in the National League this season. Since debuting with the Washington Nationals in late May (and subsequently receiving a second call-up after a 10-day return to the minors in June), Lile has a 114 wRC+ to go with a .282/.327/.450 slash line over 286 plate appearances. His 74 base knocks include 13 two-baggers, eight three-baggers, and five round-trippers.

How well he’ll perform going forward is a good question. Ranked fifth with a 45 FV when our Nationals list came out in early July, the 2021 second round pick out of Louisville’s Trinity High School was described by Eric Longenhagen as a player whose “most important attributes are his hand-eye coordination and his bat control.” Our lead prospect analyst went to say that he has Lile “graded as a contact-oriented platoon bat.”

The youngster’s left-handed stroke did a lot of damage — albeit not of the fence-clearing variety — down on the farm. In 47 games between Double-A Harrisburg and Triple-A Rochester, Lile slashed .328/.377/.503 with four home runs and a 143 wRC+ over 213 plate appearances. That he’s heated up since getting off to a slow start in the bigs — a 56 wRC+ and a .571 OPS through his first 20 games — isn’t exactly a surprise.

Count James Wood among those bullish on his hitting ability. When I asked the Nationals slugger to describe his teammate, he comped him to a five-time All-Star whose line drive stroke produced a boatload of doubles and a .298 career batting average.

“I’m sure he’s heard this a lot, but he reminds me a lot of Michael Brantley,” Wood told me. “[Brantley] was one of my favorite hitters when I was a kid, too. I think Daylen has that kind of ability. He’s just so short to the ball, and can spray the ball wherever. And if you leave a mistake inside, he has the ability to put one in the seats. He’s just a really good hitter.”

Lile described his offensive game much the same way. One day after lining a pair of triples to the opposite field gap at Wrigley Field, he told me that he has a “simple, quick, straight-to-the-ball, line drive approach” and wants to hit the ball from foul pole to foul pole. When I brought up how he’d just juiced a few balls over the fence during batting practice, he smiled and said that while he may not go deep on a regular basis, he does have “pretty good power” when he lets it loose. Lile proved just that a few hours later, taking Matthew Boyd deep 369 feet to the pull side and over the ivy.

According to Lile, learning to launch isn’t something he’s necessarily tried to do, nor does he need to change his swing toward that end.

“I have a natural lift on my swing, so if I keep that natural swing, it will take care of itself,” he told me. “There’s nothing mechanically that I need to try to do to drive the ball in the air. It’s more timing-based. It’s just being on time and having rhythm, being in sync with the pitcher.”

Talking hitting with his teammate Wood is part of how Lile helps prepare himself to be in sync. Learning that they do a lot of drill work together in the batting cage, I asked Wood about their conversations, as well as their similarities.

“We share a locker room together, share an outfield together, so we talk pretty regularly,” said Wood. “It’s really about whatever. But we’re both left-handed hitters, so whether it’s how you approach the pitcher, or just how we think about our swings… I think our swings are pretty different — it’s just baseball, though, so everyone’s swing is going to vary — but there are some similarities. It’s probably our thought process more than anything.”

Which bring us back to Lile and the diligent approach he takes to his craft. Asked how hitting in the majors differs from the minors, he pointed not only to the quality of pitchers’ stuff — particularly their offspeed offerings — but also to the preparation involved.

“Their scouting reports are a lot better up here,” Lile said. “They do homework like we do as hitters; they study us to find our weaknesses and tendencies. I mean, hitting is the thing I work on the most. It’s the thing I watch the most. It’s what I love to do, so I just try to master as much as possible. Right now, I just have to find my groove and get comfortable. But I do feel like I’m getting more comfortable by the day.”