I like to analyze what’s happening with individual batters as a way to have a broader discussion about hitting. The story I wrote about Oneil Cruz back in January also covered how unusual it is for long-limbed hitters to crush high pitches. Digging into Brent Rooker’s excellent 2024 campaign in December offered me an opportunity to look at how batters can make subtle adjustments to command the top of the zone. And today’s piece on Brewers second baseman Brice Turang doubles as a primer on the best way to make bat speed gains.

It’s almost always a good thing for hitters to increase their bat speed. That sounds obvious, right? If you swing faster, you can hit the ball harder, get to more pitches, and have more time to react. No arguments there.

But when training to increase your bat speed, you don’t just swing some weighted bats around and magically become a better hitter. Your goal should be to swing faster while preserving the strengths of your swing. Sometimes higher-effort hacks can have unintended consequences, so hitters and their coaches need to pay attention to how individual swing components interact with all the others. For Turang specifically, this meant he had to figure out how to swing harder while maintaining his elite contact skills, which come from his bat angle variability and short stroke. With bat speed, intercept, and swing length data now in the public sphere, we can better understand how Turang is doing this. But first, let’s take a look at how much better Turang has been this season than he was in 2024:

Yes, somehow, this is the same hitter. Turang’s Barrel% has jumped from the third percentile to the 56th, while his Hard-Hit% surged from the ninth percentile to the 80th. That’s ridiculous. Turang was essentially a bottom-decile guy across the board when it came to contact quality. Now, he’s well above average, and he’s improved without compromising the other parts of his game, which I’ll get into later. He’s also increased his power ceiling, with his max exit velocity climbing from the 33rd to the 64th percentile.

All these improvements are due to the fact that Turang is swinging significantly faster. No qualified hitter has increased his average bat speed more than the 2.8 mph that Turang has added, from 66.2 mph last year to 69.0 mph in 2025. That’s important when you consider that last year batters posted a .164 xwOBA on swings below 66 mph. Looking at how the distribution of Turang’s swing speeds has changed further demonstrates why it was especially crucial for him to take harder hacks:

This visualization specifically focuses on swings when Turang made contact. In 2024, about a tenth of his swings were at or below 60 mph, and those swings yielded a .165 xwOBA. Now, nearly all of his swings have a speed above that threshold. He has raised his floor a ton by minimizing how often he swings that slowly. The midpoint of his swing speed distribution has shifted beyond 70 mph – more often than not he’s giving himself a chance to do real damage, and that just wasn’t the case in the past.

Going back to what I mentioned earlier, Turang has kept other components of his swing almost exactly the same even as he’s made these gains. His point of contact relative to his body is the same. Last year, his intercept point (which also includes swings without contact) was 31 inches versus his center of mass. This year, that’s shifted, but barely, 30.6. This is fantastic. To understand why, I need to get a little nerdy and bring in some more context. There are ways to cheat bat speed gains that can actually be detrimental to a hitter. Yes, I know that’s a bit contrary to my previous point, however, it can be true! If a hitter does everything the same and shifts his point of contact further out in front of his body (even if that creates suboptimal contact) his bat speed will increase!

It comes down to physics. One component of measuring bat speed is the distance from the bat’s knob (assuming that is the reference point) to the point of impact. If that radius increases, so will your bat speed, though obviously there is a limit here. That means that you can keep your angular speed (how quickly the bat rotates) the same while lengthening your radius to increase your bat speed. There is a sweet spot for that radius increase to be beneficial. If you exceed it, you’ll start to yank all your solid contact foul, and if you want to keep the ball fair, you’ll have to alter your bat angles, which leads to suboptimal contact. Like with every part of baseball, balance is needed.

Based on this calculation of bat speed, we can deduce that Turang is creating more angular speed in order to increase his overall bat speed without changing his average intercept point much. Very good! Along with that, Turang’s swing length is still elite (90th percentile this year compared to 100th last year), and he is now standing more toward the back of the box. The former means his swing is still short and sweet, and the latter adjustment might mean that when he does shift his point of contact farther out in front, he has more wiggle room to keep the ball fair. All this combined leads to the type of improvements we’ve seen so far.

Lastly, I’ll leave with you some video highlighting how Turang has drastically changed his setup compared to last year, which likely is one of the main factors driving his bat speed gains:

2024

2025

He stands more narrow with his hands higher and begins his load with a big leg kick. This has helped him swing the bat faster on average by cutting down on his slower, non-A swings while also maintaining his previous point of contact. For many hitters, the leg kick is a timing mechanism and not just a way to set up their rotation. I think this is the case for Turang. And to make sure this change wouldn’t leave him off balance, he has paired it with higher hands to keep his upper and lower halves connected. Really good process decisions here.

Turang has always been a great baserunner and an excellent fielder, but because of the gains he made during the offseason, he has elevated both his ceiling and his floor. And as a result, he is now emerging as a valuable everyday player for Milwaukee.

No player wants to suffer a significant, season-ending injury like Jung Hoo Lee did last May, especially in their rookie year. But when players do find themselves in that situation, they can at least use the time to reflect on their performance and make adjustments that they think will improve their game upon their return. Despite it being early in the season, it seems that is exactly what Lee has done.

The Giants center fielder’s offensive improvements warrant a look under the hood to see exactly what he has changed, because right now, he seems like a completely different player from the one we saw last year. So far this season, Lee is sporting a 192 wRC+, a .394 xwOBA (86th percentile), a 43.1% sweet-spot rate (87th percentile), and a .446 xwOBACON. Those are all big improvements compared to his limited 2024 sample. Read the rest of this entry »

Spring is a time of batting stance changes. As players come back from their offseason workouts and sessions with their private hitting coaches, they may have new setups and mechanics that they believe will make them better hitters in the year ahead. Typically, we can notice stance changes right away, but throughout spring training and the first few weeks of the regular season, it can be difficult to determine whether an alteration will have any real impact on a player’s performance. A lot of times, a change can be noise, so filtering through why it was made is critical to understanding its eventual effectiveness. I approach this by thinking about a hitter’s weakness and how the change might address it. In the case of Corbin Carroll, there is a straightforward story to be told that makes me confident his new stance will be impactful in the long term.

Before we get into why Carroll changed his stance from a data perspective, let’s discuss his reasoning behind the change and what it looks like, much of which was reported on during spring training. As Carroll told Alex Weiner of Arizona Sports, his intention with the stance change was to “have a better hand position to fire from.” Carroll has been tweaking his hand position since the second half of last season, but where his hands are now versus then is different, as you can see below in this side-by-side screenshot posted by DBacks Dispatch:

Corbin Carroll has changed his batting stance in spring, he’s brought down his arms and has crouched in a little more pic.twitter.com/MVihuS5I2x

— DBacks Dispatch (@DbacksDispatch) February 24, 2025

My main focus is how he’s shifted his hands forward, closer to his face than they were even after he made his tweak last summer. That change alone puts him in a much different position before his downswing, and therefore, sets him up for a different bat path. Let’s get into why. Read the rest of this entry »

Man, it sure is nice to have baseball back, and we’ve already been treated with fantastic performances from across the league. There have been the usual Aaron Judge home runs, the return of Jacob deGrom’s dominance, the stretch of surprising Marlins walk-offs, and so much more. But for the next few minutes, we’re going to focus on the elite defense on display so far this season.

Great defense can come about in so many ways. Sometimes, it’s a feat of raw athleticism, while other excellent plays are a testament to the fielder’s intuition and preparation. Aside from actually making the plays, fielders must consider a multitude of factors in an extremely limited amount of time; the best fielders are also the best real-time processors. The best way to explain this is by watching it in action.

Let’s start with none other than defensive wizard Matt Chapman: Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re not familiar with Jerry Weinstein, you should be. He is a catching coach legend. After decades with the Rockies, he recently jumped to the Cubs, and lucky for us, he’s quite active online talking about catching philosophies and training. One thing he has discussed recently is “slam dunk” framing.

Some cues in baseball are universal, and slam dunk framing is one of them. It looks just like how it sounds: Catchers take their glove and quickly snap it down as if they were dunking a basketball. What’s the intention? By moving their glove down in a quick, fluid motion on pitches at the top of the zone, they’re attempting to give the impression that these pitches are lower than where they actually crossed the plate.

While this could easily just be another solo Patrick Bailey framing post, there is one other guy in particular, Cal Raleigh, who deserves to squat in the spotlight. To set the stage, here are the leaders in Strike% in Zone 12 (the upper third in the shadow zone) last season: Read the rest of this entry »

For the third consecutive offseason, Justin Turner has signed to play for a new team. This time, he is heading to the north side of Chicago, after he and the Cubs agreed to a one-year deal worth $6 million earlier this week. Turner, who turned 40 in November, will likely split time at DH and 1B. The reason to add Turner at this stage in his career is straight forward: He can still hit at an above league average clip.

Considering Turner is entering his 17th major league season, you likely already know a lot about his game. His whiff and strikeout rates have stayed in the upper quartile even as he has aged, he doesn’t chase much, and has a great feel for spraying the ball to all fields. It’s the exact group of traits that a hitter without much explosiveness needs to survive this many years. Here is a quick reminder of his performance over the last handful of years to put into perspective where he is at right now:

There is no doubt his contact quality has dipped. That’s likely a function of his bottom decile bat speed. But along with that has come improved whiff rates. This compensation represents a new version of how Turner has been successful with his current physical attributes. It’s a benefit to any team to plug in this type of hitter, especially because he is productive and essentially platoon neutral.

To be frank, though, I don’t think a full on, comprehensive analysis of Turner’s offensive game is completely needed at this point. We’ve seen what he can do and have a good idea what type of hitter he is now. Instead, I want to use this time to highlight what I think is the most impressive part of Turner’s game, the part that makes me enthusiastic to watch him in the twilight of his career: His ability to hit sinkers. Read the rest of this entry »

As the reliever market picked up over the last week, two right-handers, both former closers, found new homes in the Central divisions. First, last Wednesday, Paul Sewald agreed to a one-year deal with the Cleveland Guardians. Then, on Sunday, Ryan Pressly waived his no-trade clause in order for the Houston Astros to send him to the Chicago Cubs for the final guaranteed year of his contract.

While both of these pitchers are likely past their peaks in terms of stuff, they’ll look to continue being contributors with their new clubs. Let’s examine the potential impact of these moves and discuss how the two pitchers will fit into the bullpens of their new teams.

Sewald Joins Elite Cleveland Bullpen

Coming off a down year relative to his previous three seasons, Sewald’s deal with the Guardians is for one year and $6 million, with a $10 million mutual option for 2026. The move solidifies the middle part of their bullpen, which already was one of the best in the majors. With Emmanuel Clase, Cade Smith, and Hunter Gaddis anchoring the group, Sewald will occupy a lesser role than he’s held over the last few years. That’s not a bad thing for him, as he can work to return to form without the pressure of having to deliver in high-leverage innings.

As velocities have increased over the years, and hitters have adapted to them, the margins for error for pitchers living in the low-90s band have grown thinner and thinner. What we saw from Sewald last season is a good example of what happens when pitchers with such a profile lose even just one tick on their fastballs.

From 2021-23, a three-year stretch during which Sewald was one of the better relievers in baseball, his four-seamer ranged from 92.2 mph to 92.5 mph. It was extremely consistent on that front. Then, in 2024, that number dropped down to 91.4 mph on average, and with that, his performance also dropped. Here is a quick summary of how Sewald’s performance on his heater regressed last season:

As his fastball velocity fell last year, Sewald saw a sharp decrease in its effectiveness by both whiffs and overall performance. This could be related to the pitch’s location and its release angle; over the last four seasons, he’s been throwing his fastball progressively higher and higher in the zone and releasing it closer to the middle of the pitcher’s mound. Combine that with a dip in velocity and, suddenly, the pitch was just more normal than it had been in the past.

Another problem for Sewald last year was his sweeper, the pitch that was most responsible for turning him into a high-leverage reliever upon joining the Mariners in 2021. His overall numbers with it suggest it was still a weapon — he held opponents to a .196 average (.214 xBA) and a .214 wOBA (.258 xwOBA) against it — but a closer look tells a different story.

During his aforementioned three-year stretch of excellence, he was comfortable throwing his sweeper to both lefties and righties as a way to keep them off his fastball. In each of those three seasons, he threw his sweeper at least 45% of the time against righties and at least 35% of the time when facing lefties, and it was effective against both sides. That’s especially important because Sewald is mostly a two-pitch pitcher. Last year, however, lefties teed off on his sweeper. Check this out:

So what changed? Perhaps some of it can be attributed to his diminished fastball velocity, which has cut the velocity gap between his fastball and sweeper to 8.3 mph, down from 9.7 in 2022. Except, the velo difference between the two pitches was also 8.3 mph in 2023, and that season both pitches were still effective against lefties and righties. The greater issue here seems to be the same thing that threw off his fastball: his release point, which also shifted more toward the middle of the mound when throwing his sweeper. As a result, he struggled to command his sweeper in 2024, as you can see in these two heat maps. The first one is from 2023, the second from 2024.

He started throwing the pitch more in the middle plate and less often out of the zone. Even with lesser command, he could still keep righties at bay with his sweeper because the pitch breaks away from them. Against lefties, though, he has less margin for error with his location. Sweepers that remain in the zone against lefties break nicely into their bat paths. That’s not a recipe for success.

It’s worth noting that some of Sewald’s struggles in 2024 could be injury-related, as he dealt with both neck and oblique injuries that could’ve caused his dip in velocity. These ailments might also explain his change in location and horizontal release point, as the neck and oblique muscles are especially important for a pitcher’s upper-body mechanics. Sewald turns 35 in late May, so some of his diminished stuff could be attributed to aging, but if he is healthy, we should expect him to have some sort of rebound — even if he doesn’t get back to the peak performance from his days with the Mariners.

Pressly Takes Over as Cubs Closer

For most of the offseason, the Astros have been trying to trade Pressly to shed some salary, and as they revived their efforts to re-sign Alex Bregman last week, moving Pressly seemed to become an even greater priority. Of course, Houston has not yet brought back Bregman, but either way, trading Pressly gave the Astros more financial flexibility.

Houston sent over $5.5 million to cover Pressly’s salary this season, but nothing if his contract vests for 2026. The Cubs sent back Juan Bello, a 20-year-old pitching prospect who was recently ranked no. 31 on the Cubs’ prospect list. Bello is a 35+ FV starting pitcher who, according to our prospect writers Eric Longenhagen and Travis Ice, “has enough projectability and existing stuff to be forecast in a depth starter role, but he’ll need to harness his secondaries in the zone more often to consistently get more advanced hitters out and turn over a lineup.”

The 36-year-old Pressly had been a valuable member of the bullpen since the Astros traded for him in late July 2018, and during the same three-year stretch in which Sewald shined, Pressly emerged as one of the top closers in the American League. However, Houston’s signing of Josh Hader before last season relegated Pressly to a setup role and ultimately made him expendable this offseason. Astros GM Dana Brown said earlier today that the Hader signing and Pressly’s corresponding demotion in the bullpen pecking order caused a “fracture” in his and Pressly’s relationship. Now with the Cubs, Pressly is expected to return to closing games.

Similar to Sewald, Pressly is coming off a season with a notable decrease in velocity, from 94.7 mph in 2023 to 93.8 mph last year. His diminishing fastball didn’t exactly come as a surpsise, though. In 2022, batters posted a .402 xwOBA against his four-seamer, and in response, he cut its usage from 32.9% that year down to 23.1% in 2023. He leaned more on his slider, which for years has been his best pitch by run value by a wide margin. It’s odd, then, that he used his four-seamer more often than any other pitch in 2024. This pitch mix shift didn’t pay off, as opponents slugged .500 against his heater with a .371 wOBA and a .365 xwOBA, compared to their .333 SLG, .276 wOBA, and .271 xwOBA against his slider. I imagine Chicago will get him back to throwing primarily sliders again next season. For some more context, here is a three-year snapshot of Pressly’s Stuff+ and usage for his three main pitches:

Relievers who switch teams looking for bounce backs are always fun stories to follow. Both Sewald and Pressly are in the later stages of their careers but have an opportunity to be important contributors on contending clubs. I’ll be paying attention to any potential adjustments they make come spring time.

Lately, I’ve been very interested in analyzing hitters who make a living off crushing everything in the upper third of the strike zone. As the rise of four-seamers up in the zone has turned that area into a hole for more hitters (especially in terms of whiffs), having someone in the lineup who excels in that area is very valuable. As I perused the leaderboards looking for the best hitters in the upper third, I had an expectation that most, if not all, of them would either have a very flat swing or be on the shorter side with shorter arms. It’s a simple story. If your swing is flat, you’re on plane with the pitch. And if you’re a shorter player or have shorter levers, you should be able to get on plane with pitches in the upper third very quickly.

That story is mostly true, but it wouldn’t be baseball if there weren’t an exception or two. Here is the list of the top 10 hitters against pitches in the upper third by xwOBA in 2024. I used a 15-hit minimum to ensure my focus was on the players who have had success with batted balls in this area:

Read the rest of this entry »

After last year’s disappointing follow-up to their 2023 World Series-winning season, the Texas Rangers jumped the first base market in December and improved the rest of their roster in the process. First, at the Winter Meetings, they acquired corner infielder Jake Burger in a trade with the Miami Marlins, a move that gave us one of Michael Baumann’s best headlines: “Everything Is Burger in Texas.”
Burger’s addition made incumbent first baseman Nathaniel Lowe expendable; sure enough, a few weeks after the Burger trade, Texas sent Lowe to the Washington Nationals for left-handed reliever Robert Garcia.

Immediately after moving Lowe, the Rangers added some thump to their lineup with the signing of Joc Pederson to a two-year, $37 million deal with a mutual option for a third season. Altogether, the three moves essentially function as a two-for-one lineup swap, one that should provide more power to this offense, and also come with the bonus of fortifying their bullpen with a solid lefty who has yet to reach arbitration. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been a fan of Brent Rooker since he was crushing baseballs at Mississippi State, so it was exciting to see him elevate his offense in 2023 after three years of struggling in the majors. His improvements stemmed from changes he made to his load. He added larger, slower movements as he prepared to swing, which helped him to generate more power while keeping his body under control. To do this, he switched from a simple toe tap to a more dramatic foot hover, allowing him to do a complete hand row while loading and giving him more time to sync the rhythm of his upper and lower body before exploding toward the ball.

The result was a breakout season in which he batted .246 with 30 home runs and a 126 wRC+. Despite his improvements, though, Rooker was not a finished product. Strikeouts have always been part of his game, so his 32.7% strikeout rate wasn’t all that surprising even after his adjustments. Teams accept whiffs as a necessary tradeoff for more power, but all these strikeouts were indicative of a hole in Rooker’s swing that limited his value.

From 2020-2023, Rooker had one of the steepest swings in baseball, making it easier for him to launch the ball in the air. But unlike other steep hitters, such as Mike Trout and Freddie Freeman, Rooker didn’t have the variability to alter his swing to get to pitches outside of his wheelhouse. This left him exposed to high fastballs. Even as he slightly dropped his VBA in 2023, he still ran a 40% whiff rate and .285 xwOBA on pitches at the top of the zone. That was the 16th-worst whiff rate out of 217 hitters who saw at least 1,500 pitches that season.

This all relates to the balance that hitters with steeper swings have to strike. Yes, it’s easier to create launch with a steeper angle (duh!), but you don’t want to be one dimensional to the point where you’re taking the same swing every time. It’s a problem that a lot of younger hitters are forced to reckon with when they reach the big leagues because pitchers simply have nastier stuff and are better at executing. Although Rooker developed a better idea of how he could be successful in the big leagues, he still had a major hole to address. Boy did he do that this past season!

Across 614 plate appearances this year, Rooker was one of the best hitters in baseball, batting .292 with 39 homers, a 164 wRC+, and a .510 xwOBACON (99th percentile), while his strikeout rate dropped to 28.8%. Those are big improvements across the board. Perhaps unsurprisingly, his success this season came with a flatter swing, which had a positive impact on his performance at the top of the zone:

It’s a simple story to track. On average, Rooker’s swings were flatter at contact, giving him a better chance to be effective at the top of the zone where pitchers were likely to target him this season. He took the biggest hole in his game and made it a smaller one; as a result, his strengths played up more. Of course, that’s easier said than done, so it’s worth examining how he did it. Now comes the fun part of the analysis.

Thinking in terms of reciprocal movements, in order to get to a different angle at contact, it seems likely that Rooker changed his initial position. And what do you know? That’s exactly what happened! Once again, he altered his setup. The following swings are all against fastballs in the upper third of the zone, three from 2023 and three from this past season:

2023

2024

Here, you’ll notice two changes that had a direct impact on the path of his barrel: His hands are higher and his stride leg is slightly open. He most likely opened up his front leg to improve his balance and/or change his rotational direction. Right now, though, I’m more interested in his adjusting his hand position.

Typically, batters raise their hands to make it easier to maintain a flatter barrel, make contact deeper in the zone, and shorten their swing length. That all sounds wonderful, but some sluggers refrain from this adjustment because it becomes more difficult for them to create launch. Turns out, that wasn’t the case for Rooker; his flatter swing was still steep enough to crush balls in the air.

The other benefit here is just as important. Having higher hands allowed him to make contact deeper in the zone. Look at the final clip above from 2024. Even though he was late on this fastball, he could still rip a single to right center. We don’t have swing length data from 2023, so we can’t say for sure that Rooker’s swing was shorter in 2024, but batters with higher hands tend to have shorter, flatter swings. Pitches at the top of the zone get on batters more quickly than pitches in the middle or lower thirds. To hit those high pitches, batters need to get their barrels into the zone sooner, and shorter, flatter swings cut down the space that batters need to cover to get to the point of contact. This adjustment would explain Rooker’s improvement on pitches up in the zone.

Rooker’s path to stardom has been a fantastic player development story. He was not complacent after his initial breakout in 2023. Instead, he made additional adjustments to his profile. Many players want to fix their weaknesses, but it’s incredibly hard to do so. That Rooker identified and addressed the hole in his game so quickly is a testament to his talent and makes me more confident that he’ll continue to be one of the game’s top hitters for a while.