Bryson Stott Is Still a Work in Progress

Bryson Stott started this season with a 17-game hit streak, marking a brand new Phillies franchise report to begin a season. Eleven of these video games had been multi-hit efforts, culminating in 29 hits throughout his first 81 plate appearances. He’s added a handful of hits since his streak ended on April 18 and his general line now stands at .339/.368/.459, good for a 126 wRC+. His early season success has been one of many few shiny spots for the Phillies as they take care of a quite a lot of woes.

While Stott’s scorching begin is being not less than partially pushed by some lucky outcomes when he has put the ball in play — his BABIP at present stands at .417 — his success can also be the end result of various changes he’s made since making the Opening Day roster as a rookie final 12 months. His preliminary publicity to the large leagues didn’t go very nicely. He collected simply 4 hits throughout 31 plate appearances and was demoted to Triple-A on April 20 after taking part in in simply 9 video games within the majors. Upon getting recalled on May 8, he continued to wrestle till making an adjustment to his swing.

Here’s an instance of his swing from April 2022:

His stance is fairly open and he makes use of the mix of a toe faucet and an extended stride with a slight leg kick as a timing mechanism because the pitch is delivered. Those swing mechanics clearly didn’t work very nicely; he made contact on simply 73.8% of the pitches he swung at in April and struck out in 32.3% of his plate appearances.

Now right here’s an instance of a swing from late May 2022:

The stride and leg kick are gone. His entrance foot stays firmly planted by way of his swing, simplifying what had been some pretty noisy mechanics. From June 1 by way of the tip of the season, his contact price jumped as much as 86.2% and his strikeout price fell to simply 16.5%.

One of the explanations a batter would quiet his swing mechanics can be to place himself in a greater place to react to various speeds and pitch shapes. An exaggerated timing mechanism like Stott had when he first debuted would theoretically get him on time with the fastballs he’s seeing, however go away him susceptible to offspeed and breaking pitches:

Not solely did Stott enhance in opposition to each pitch kind after making his changes, he began completely crushing breaking pitches.

Finally, right here’s a have a look at his swing from this April:

His stance is a bit more closed, however he’s maintained the identical simplified method he launched final summer season. He did attempt to tinker along with his swing this spring, hoping to reintroduce a toe faucet into his mechanics to regain a few of his energy. That clearly didn’t pan out and he entered the common season with the identical swing that introduced him a lot success throughout the second half of final 12 months.

If you needed to boil down the ups and downs of Stott’s profession up to now, this graph does a reasonably good job of it:

Stott’s offensive manufacturing has ebbed and flowed along with his contact price, which is unsurprising since he doesn’t run a excessive sufficient stroll price to buoy his wOBA when the hits aren’t falling in. If you break up Stott’s profession into three distinct chunks based mostly on his swing mechanics, we will begin to see precisely how he’s improved his method:

Stott’s general swing price has stayed fairly steady, although he’s chasing pitches a bit extra usually since making the large change to his mechanics final May. Here you possibly can see simply how drastically his contact price improved after making these modifications, and it’s been even higher this 12 months. Unfortunately, an elevated chase price appears to be an unintended aspect impact of this new method. In an article by Matt Gelb of The Athletic this week, Phillies hitting coach Kevin Long talked about that Stott’s new swing mechanics have him so assured, he’s swinging at pitches he may not have earlier than as a result of he’s in place to place his bat on the ball irrespective of the place the pitch is situated. That’s a giant purpose why his strikeout price has bounced again to simply over 20% this 12 months after he was capable of minimize it down a lot final summer season.

Making extra contact is one factor, but when the standard of that contact is poor, then it’s not going to do a lot good. Luckily, Stott has additionally made some strides in enhancing his outcomes when placing the ball in play:

His contact high quality improved along with his swing change but it surely’s gotten incrementally higher this 12 months as nicely. His hard-hit price is up over the league common now, although he’s placing the ball on the bottom extra usually than ever. Still, his anticipated wOBA on contact is up and he’s clearly having fun with the outcomes of that added laborious contact.

It’s a credit score to Stott for figuring out his points final 12 months after getting despatched right down to Triple-A after which placing within the work to enhance his mechanics, method, and outcomes. If there’s one thing to be involved about, it’s that he’s making all these tradeoffs along with his changes. Yes, his contact price is now among the many league leaders, however he’s chasing pitches extra usually and making contact with pitches exterior the zone far too often to supply optimum contact. Yes, his contact high quality has improved, however he’s hitting it into the bottom an excessive amount of and hasn’t proven a lot energy along with his retooled swing. This model of Stott is actually higher than the one which debuted on Opening Day final 12 months, however there’s nonetheless tons of room for enchancment. The excellent news is that he’s conscious of these points and has already tried to handle a few of them this spring. That sort of self-awareness and willingness to be taught and regulate is necessary for any main leaguer. It’s an amazing signal that Stott has already taken them to coronary heart.