Jake McCarthy Needs to Lose His Power Stroke

When the Colorado Rockies buy low on a former first-round prospect coming off an abysmal season, the null hypothesis is that the player in question is cooked. The Rockies’ front office might not be the laughingstock it was before the hiring of Paul DePodesta… but it could still be, and even if things are going to change for the better there, it’s going to take a minute to find out for sure.

If the Diamondbacks let Jake McCarthy loose in a my-garbage-for-your-trash trade, the smart money is on Colorado not rediscovering the magic that made McCarthy an enticing prospect a few years ago.

But what if the smart money is wrong?

McCarthy has had two good seasons in the major leagues: In 2022, he hit .283/.342/.427, for a 116 wRC+, and 2.2 WAR in just 99 games. In 2024, he hit .285/.349/.400 with a 110 wRC+, which came to 3.0 WAR in 142 games. In both of those seasons he had a high BABIP and bested his xwOBA by an appreciable — but not outrageous — margin.

And to some extent, that’s to be expected. McCarthy is a left-handed groundball hitter who runs like he’s evolved to evade predators on the plains of the Serengeti. But at the same time, his offensive production has been almost entirely dependent on his BABIP.

You’ll surely notice how far that red line dropped in 2025; McCarthy, whom you’d usually expect to be a high-BABIP guy for the reasons I mentioned, posted just a .233 BABIP in 222 plate appearances last year. Out of 348 hitters with 200 or more plate appearances, he was 333rd. It’s hard to post a BABIP that low without at least some bad luck. Indeed, McCarthy underperformed his xBA by 35 points and his xwOBA by 30 points.

In 2024, McCarthy was the vice-president of Corbin Carroll’s Speedster Outfielders Club. Just a year later, he got traded straight-up for Josh Grosz, who is either a pitcher or an unholy hybrid created when Jordan Groshans tried to buy beer using Josh Sborz’s ID. That’s quite a precipitous fall from grace, but McCarthy earned it.

It wasn’t just bad bounces; McCarthy stank in 2025. Compared to the previous season, McCarthy chased more, swung at pitches in the zone less, made more contact on pitches outside the zone and less on pitches inside the zone. He walked less, struck out more, hit more grounders and fewer line drives.

After checking out McCarthy’s swing data, this looks to me like he was trying to do the swing plane/selective aggression thing.

McCarthy has never hit for power; even in 2024, when he had a good year and played almost every day, he had eight home runs and a .115 ISO. But he’s not some waifish middle infielder who can’t reach the top shelf of the bat rack unless he gets uppies from a bigger player; McCarthy is 6-foot-1, 215 pounds. He’s a pretty big dude, and he ought to be able to hit the ball hard.

In 2025, he swung harder than ever, doubled his barrel rate, and broke the 110-mph exit velo barrier for the first time in his major league career. And it ruined him as a hitter. Even though McCarthy was putting his back into his swing, he still couldn’t hit the ball hard enough, and in the air enough, to do consistent damage.

Maybe that approach is the most effective way for a generic major league hitter to go about his business. You don’t even have to leave the 2025 Diamondbacks clubhouse to find a guy who turned into a superstar by doing what McCarthy tried to do. But it doesn’t suit McCarthy.

Here’s what does. In 2024, McCarthy posted a 94.0% Z-Contact%, which was among the 10 best in baseball. His HardHit% was in the bottom five percent of the league. Other guys who were in the bottom 10% for HardHit% but the top 10% for Z-Contact% that year: Steven Kwan, Ernie Clement, and Sal Frelick.

McCarthy has never been quite on that level of bat control. For all the contact he makes, he has a nasty habit of hitting the ball into disadvantageous locations. Even in 2024, when he hit .285, McCarthy hit three groundballs to the pull side — where they’re automatic outs — for every one he hit the other way, where the odds of eking out a single are better.

But in 2025, that ratio rose to more than five-to-one, and he actually hit more batted balls that got flagged as weak contact and fewer balls in the air to the pull side.

My suggestion for 2026, then, would be for McCarthy not only to go back to what he was doing two years ago, but also to give up all pretense of trying to drive the ball. Just put wood on the ball and run like hell.

The most recent Statcast breakdowns have Coors Field as the most offense-friendly park in the majors. But it’s only sixth-best for home runs, while ranking first for singles and second for doubles and triples.

When DePodesta left baseball for the NFL, the Rockies were running out the clock on an experiment. Occasionally, they’d find a center fielder who could mash the ball — an Ellis Burks or Larry Walker — but in the early 2000s, the Rockies had a run of center fielders with 70- or 80-grade speed and single-digit home run power: Tom Goodwin, Juan Pierre, Willy Taveras, and Dexter Fowler.

Let’s go back to our roots. Not all of those guys were good; Goodwin straight-up couldn’t hit, while Pierre’s speed in the outfield was negated to some extent by his throwing arm. (McCarthy’s somewhat noodle-armed for a right fielder, but Pierre makes him look like Alex Ochoa.) But you can be “not that good” and still be an upgrade for the Rockies in 2026.

With Brenton Doyle in center, McCarthy would move to a corner, where presumably he’d be excellent defensively. A return to slap-hitting offensive competency, with about 30 stolen bases, would make McCarthy a potential All-Star, given the state of the rest of the roster.