Swings and Takes: Rising back to the top

We are back with Year Two of Swings & Takes. When we introduced this column last season, we started with the king of contact, Luis Arraez, and diving deep into his swing decisions, and how he has the super power of not whiffing even when he chases. This remained true in 2024, as his swinging strike rate and K% were still by far the best in the league, but as he started chasing even more the quality of his contact dipped further and he became even more one-dimensional. 

This year, as opposed to doing a immediate deep dive into one hitter, we are instead going to do two things: 1) go over some new fun information added to Statcast before this season and what it means, and how we will use it here 2) look into the adjustments of two former #1 overall picks who struggled in 2024, but are hoping that adjustments in the box will mean better things in 2025. We are not going to put too much stock into these adjustments right away, but will contextualize them into signs that savvy fantasy managers can be tracking to determine whether these hitters are heading in the right direction in 2025.

Before we get into the hitters, here are some fun new metrics from Statcast. The first article from last year, linked above, would be a nice refresher for a lot of the core plate skills metrics we will use, but we are not going to be rehashing those today. Instead, here is the new stuff to dive into:

Batted Ball Profile Leaderboard -  A lot of this should look familiar, but there are some new wrinkles added by the MLBAM team of things we previously had to calculate manually. Two standouts are AIR% (LD + FB + PU), which allow us to see how consistently hitters are keeping the ball off the ground, and Pull AIR%, which is a very valuable skill for hitters to maximize their raw power. It is easier to hit the ball out of the park consistently if you are pulling it in the air consistently, as we noted last year with Isaac Paredes. José Ramírez is consistently near the top of the leaderboard in this statistic as well, which explains why his game power plays much greater than his raw power.

Bat Tracking – This is not new, as it was introduced part way through the 2024 season, and we now have data for it from the 2023 All-Star Break on, but it was worth bringing back up, as it is still relatively new and will be referenced frequently. Ben Clemens from FanGraphs wrote a great piece on this in February that I have linked here if you want to learn more, but as Clemens notes, this data requires a lot of nuance to evaluate. Specifically, a faster swing is not always better, and a shorter swing is not always better, and those things are interrelated. The way we intend to use this data in this column is to note when increases in bat speed correlate to improved batted ball authority and vice versa, as well as how these changes in bat speed and path relate to a hitter’s overall approach change. 

Batting Stance – This one is very fun and very new, as it allows us to quantify changes that we have always had to notice with our eyeballs in a scouting sense. Even more than the Bat Tracking changes, the quality of changes are very hard to observe out of context. This data will largely be used to inspire questions, as well as confirm changes observed visually through watching games.

With this new data documented, we will dive into the meat of the article: here are some hitters we are watching in 2025 and the approach considerations that could make or break their seasons. 

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Bending and Torking

Spencer Torkelson has had a rollercoaster of a start to his MLB career, as after struggling massively in his rookie season, with a 76 wRC+, he seemed to get himself on the right track in 2023, hitting 31 HRs and rising to a 108 wRC+. Torkelson went back to struggling in 2024, falling to a 92 wRC+, and losing his starting 1B job heading into 2025, as fellow former top prospect Colt Keith was shifted over to the position. 

Torkelson has long had a stiff upright stance, with little bend in his knees. This has allowed him to punish four-seam fastballs up in the zone and hanging breaking balls, but struggle with the ball down, particularly sinkers and changeups. In 2024 these issues peaked, as Torkelson only slugged .270 against sinkers and .125 against changeups. These two wOBA charts by pitch zone, on sinkers and changeups, from 2022-2024 showcase Torkelson’s issues with these pitches when located down in the zone:

Torkelson wOBA SI 2022-2024

Torkelson wOBA CH 2022-2024

Going into a make or break season, Torkelson has made some major approach changes. For starters, we can see from these three images, one from June 2024, when he was standing straight up, one from October 2024, when he was a little more crouched, and then one from March 2025 that Torkelson has added flexibility into his stance slowly over time. This should theoretically should help him get to more balls down in the zone:

Torkelson Stance June 2024

Torkelson Stance October 2024

Torkelson Stance 2025

In addition to just adding bend to his knees, we now know definitively, thanks to the stance data we described earlier, that Torkelson is in a very different position in the box compared to previous seasons. While Torkelson from 2023-2024 was 27-28 inches back in the box, he has shifted back to being 32.4 inches back in the box so far in 2025. In addition, he is now farther away from the plate, at 28.3 inches away compared to 25-26 in the previous 2 seasons. His orientation in the box is now different as well, as he is now showing his numbers to the pitcher in a slightly open stance. We will see if these changes lead to sustainable results changes, beyond slugging .680 in spring training, but he is giving himself a better chance than he did in previous years to cover his weaknesses with these adjustments. 

 

Holliday in the Strike Zone

Jackson Holliday, with the weight on his shoulders as a 20-year-old touted as the top prospect in baseball, had a rough MLB debut, slashing .189/.255/.311 in 208 PAs with a 33.2 K%, compared to a .304/.443/.486 line over his minor league career with a 20.3 K%. While Holliday had the one bright spot of hitting the ball hard in his major league debut, he had major issues with swinging and missing, particularly in the zone. Holliday, who came into the league with expectations of at least a plus or better hit tool, had a higher In Zone Swing and Miss% (24.3%) than notorious strikeout merchant Oneil Cruz (24%), 34^th highest among 365 hitters with at least 200 PAs. Holliday has above-average power, but to get to his All-Star potential, he needs to make a lot more contact than he made in his initial MLB taste.

In pursuit of this effort, Holliday made two sets of changes, one at the end of the 2024 season and more heading into 2025. Here are three Jackson Holliday swings, one from April 2024, one September 2024, and one from the game against the Blue Jays March 27^th of 2025:

 

Holliday April 2024

Holliday September 2024

Holliday March 2025

Notice that for both Torkelson and Holliday, we are showing three images, as adjustments at the plate often do not happen all at once or just in the offseason; hitters are always tinkering. Adjustments often come in stages for hitters, as they get more comfortable with concepts that coaches are trying to teach them. 

Holliday came into the league with a moderate sized leg kick, which he shortened by September of 2024 and eliminated, converting into a toe tap, by Opening Day of 2025. The intent is clear: to get Holliday into a more consistent position to hit, as when velocity rises it gets harder to consistently time a leg kick. Holliday is also notably more spread out, with 30.5 inches of distance between his feet in 2025 so far compared to 25.8 inches in 2024. This often goes along with the elimination of a leg kick, as by spreading Holliday out they are eliminating movement from his load in his legs. There are many hitters who can hit from a narrow stance with a leg kick, but when a hitter is consistently beat in the strike zone it is a natural adjustment to spread them out and shorten, or eliminate, the leg kick. 

With Holliday minor league track record and this adjustment, he is a good bet to make more contact in 2025 than he did in 2024, but this is something we need to track to start the year. If Holliday can show he can make more contact in the zone to start 2025 he is a good bet to have a much better sophomore year.

 

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