Four Hitters Who Should Have Your Early-Season Attention

After just two weeks of play, there are several hitters off to scorching hot starts. Some are expected; for example, Giancarlo Stanton, Freddie Freeman, and Mike Trout all have xwOBAs over .460 so far. Given their vast history of offensive prowess, it’s not surprising to see them put together a stretch like this. But if you look near the top of the xwOBA leaderboard, you might do a double take when you see some of the names aside those aforementioned stars. Without larger batted ball samples, we may not be able to draw any concrete conclusions about the unexpected players, but there are some sticky traits that are worth paying attention to as the season develops.

For this exercise, I’m going to highlight four players that have caught my eye this season and who I’ll be watching over the next few months to see if they can keep up their early performance. The criteria for picking these players were relatively loose: It could be an under-the-radar bat that has impressed me, or a veteran who has reached a new height due to an interesting adjustment. With that said, let’s jump into it.

Matt Chapman

Matt Chapman has never hit the ball this hard. Period. He’s barreled 12 of his first 34 batted balls; to put that into perspective, last year he had 48 barrels in 373 batted balls. This is not sustainable — not even Aaron Judge’s 62 home run season had a Barrel rate above 30%. But you can’t fake getting this hot, and when you consider that Chapman has adopted a toe tap approach in his swing in hopes to return to his previous offensive from his early days in Oakland, there is more reason to buy into this stretch.

I’m going to show you two swings that highlight the toe tap versus last year’s leg kick. The first is from late last year, and the second is from last week against Amir Garrett.

The difference in Chapman’s connection to the ground is drastic. Last year, he hit full front knee extension and immediately flew off the ground as he over-rotated to the pull side (watch his lead foot come disconnected). This year, his toe tap is allowing his stride to stay closed through foot strike and his feet to stay connected to the ground even after full knee extension, suggesting an improvement in rotational direction. If this is what a toe tap does for him, then I’m excited about his potential going forward.

Adley Rutschman (the righty version)

Adley Rutschman was a five-win player in his debut year in only 113 games, but he somehow still has room to grow. When I watched him last year, he looked rushed and overmatched on the right-hand side; in 115 plate appearances against lefties in 2022, he had a 64 wRC+. That isn’t good, and there is no question he looked to improve upon it in the offseason. The difference in fluidity from last year to this year is stark. The following two clips are from last September and earlier this week, in that order:

He opened his stance a bit relative to last year, which has allowed him to use his hips more. Against Framber Valdez, his rotation was rushed, and his hips ceased to move. He had nothing to load into. In theory, a hitter loads into their hips and can hang there and wait to unload until they make their swing decision. If they never create that movement, then it can be difficult to adjust to different speeds. By opening his stance a few more inches, Rutschman has created space to cue his hips to rotate. The early returns have been there so far, with a .487 xwOBACON (13 batted balls) compared to last year’s .294 mark (73 batted balls), but we’ll see if this continues to trend in the right direction.

David Villar

I’ve been asking myself this question since the end of last year: does David Villar flat-out rake? As an older prospect who played in a hitter-friendly minor league environment, you can fly under the radar until you prove it in MLB. Villar seems to be on the right track to prove his Triple-A and Double-A performances in 2021 and ’22 were no fluke.

The torso bend in his swing that results from his load puts his bat path on an ideal plane for pull-side power. It may also be the reason for his whiff-heavy profile, but if he can continue to square up the ball on a consistent basis when he does make contact, he may be able to get away with a high swing-and-miss rate. Check out these two swings from this year that were both 100-plus-mph rockets off the bat:

The first is a phenomenal 0–2 swing on a 102-mph Aroldis Chapman fastball at the very top of the zone. It resulted in an out, but from a process perspective, it’s a win. The second swing came in an advantage count on a middle-middle fastball with the bases loaded. This is what good hitters do: When presented with an opportunity to damage a mistake in the heart of the plate, you put the barrel on the ball and let your bat do the work.

So far, Villar’s 21.7% barrel rate has resulted in a .507 xwOBACON, and he is crushing mistakes off right-handed pitchers. I initially thought he would be a platoon hitter who plays mostly against lefties, but the Giants have given him the full-time job, and he hasn’t disappointed. ZiPS projects him for a 115 wRC+ over 490 plate appearances, and I’m feeling quite bullish on that.

Nolan Gorman

To be frank, the entire Cardinals’ lineup excites me. Up and down, they have hitters who are either already studs, or young guys like Nolan Gorman who look primed for a fantastic season. After his initial rush of home run success last year, he struggled mightily and was sent back down to the minors, where he ultimately finished the season. He took that to heart and has come back in 2023 looking like a completely different hitter. It’s immediately noticeable when you compare his mechanics from last year (first clip) to his swings from this year (second clip):

Gorman’s violent head thwack is completely gone! His steep shoulder plane and sideways head suggested he would be highly susceptible to fastballs at the top of the zone, and pitchers caught onto that in ’22. Strictly focused on mechanics, they weren’t sustainable movements. With a flatter entry into the zone resulting from a more neutral shoulder plane, Gorman has put himself in a position to square up upper-third fastballs. Like the other hitters discussed so far, that has resulted in improved batted ball numbers, such as a .554 xwOBACON. But what is even more impressive is his 14.9% chase rate. Overall, he is swinging 10.1 percentage points less frequently than last year, but when he does swing, his process is as sound as can be.

I genuinely enjoy this time of year; the idea of the unknown is exciting to me. As we patiently wait for more data to roll in over the next few months, I’ll continue to search for interesting mechanical adjustments that provide insight on top of the developing data. For now, these are the hitters on my mind who I’m going back to re-watch the following day.