Resurgence at the Plate: Five Batters Who Have Overcome Early Season Struggles

At any given point in the season, it’s not too hard to figure out which hitters are performing the best and which the worst — various leaderboards do a good job of that. But particularly when it’s early in the season and the samples are on the smaller side, it’s easy to miss when a slow-starting player has gotten it going, as his overall numbers may not be as eye-catching.

That isn’t exactly a new epiphany, but it’s one I was reminded of when writing about Oneil Cruz on Wednesday, and, to a lesser extent, when tracking Aaron Judge in the weeks before I finally wrote about his hot streak (which, remarkably, has continued). What may look like a stat line of fairly typical production can conceal some interesting developments or adjustments. Or maybe it’s just some positive regression.

With that in mind, I decided to take a look at players, such as Cruz, who started the season slowly but have come around more recently. I’ve used May 1 as the dividing line for creating my list, because the flipping of the calendar page is an obvious reference point, and in this case it’s still pretty close to the midpoint of the season to date; when I wrote about Cruz, for example, the Pirates had played 31 games before May 1 and 35 since.

To be eligible for this, players must have made at least 80 plate appearances on either side of May 1, and they must have an overall wRC+ of 100 or better; while I’m interested in the progress of extremely slow-starting players such as Randy Arozarena or Gavin Lux, their overall numbers still look pretty grim, and so they are stories for another day. (I did cover Arozarena’s rough April here.)

Here’s a list of the top 15 wRC+ improvements over the more recent segment of the season, which now amounts to six weeks. I’ve written about a few of them already — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is another one, here, though not in the context of in-season splits — so in the interest of length, I’ve chosen five of these players who particularly stand out to me; they’re highlighted in yellow below. All statistics are through June 11.

Largest wRC+ Improvements Since May 1Among Players With a 100 wRC+ or Higher Overall

Corey Seager, Rangers

After winning the World Series MVP award for the second time last fall, Seager and the Rangers hoped that a sports hernia that had been an issue during the postseason would heal sufficiently, but once he began working out in preparation for spring training, the discomfort lingered. He underwent surgery in late January, and missed almost all of spring training. It wouldn’t have been a surprise if he’d opened the season as the Rangers’ designated hitter, but despite playing just three Cactus League games, he was in the Opening Day lineup at shortstop, and went 4-for-5 in the season’s second game.

He had good numbers through the first two weeks before falling into an 11-for-76 slump that included just one double and one home run, and that carried into early May. Through April, Seager was hitting just .236/.319/.311 with two homers, but some of that may have been just bad luck; while his 88.9 mph average exit velocity, 9.3% barrel rate, and 38.4% hard-hit rate were all low by his standards, he was pulling the ball with his usual frequency, and had a .457 xSLG. Lately, he’s been swinging harder (21% fast swing rate, compared to 14.3% before May), and his blast rate — his rate of squared-up balls on fast swings — has more than doubled, from 9.2% to 20.5%.

His batted ball stats since the start of May are exceptional (93.5 mph average exit velo, 22.2% barrel rate, 58.9% hard-hit rate), producing a .304/.397/.625 line. Still, his overall slugging percentage lags 89 points behind his .561 xSLG, leaving open the possibility of more positive regression ahead.

Nolan Gorman, Cardinals

After enjoying a nice little breakout last year — 27 homers and a 118 wRC+ in his age-23 season — Gorman was among the many Cardinals position players who struggled early. Gorman hit just .196/.261/.363 through the end of April, chasing 34% of pitches outside the zone, striking out 34.2% of the time, and averaging just 85.5 mph when he made contact.

Following up on his father’s advice about honing his mental game, Gorman sought a mental skills coach in early May. He also worked with hitting coaches to recalibrate his swing. The work has paid off, in that he’s hitting .250/.350/.596 with 11 homers since May 1. Though he’s struck out a third of the time in that span, he’s cut his chase rate to 25.9%; now at least he’s swinging at strikes. His quality of contact has improved, with his average exit velocity up to 89.7 mph, and his barrel rate up from 12.5% to 21.9%.

José Ramírez, Guardians

Being a switch-hitter means having two swings to maintain, as if doing so for one isn’t difficult enough. Ramírez is beating a trail toward Cooperstown by hitting well against pitchers of either hand, producing a 122 wRC+ against lefties for his career and 132 against righties. But while he was productive against lefties this March and April, the same wasn’t true against righties. Lately, it’s been a different story, as Ramírez has been one of the majors’ most unstoppable hitters since the start of May, with a wRC+ that trails only those of Judge, Juan Soto, Bryce Harper, and Seager.

In that span, Ramírez has hit .354/.426/.625 over 54 PA against lefties, and .258/.346/.634 across 107 PA against righties. His hot streak helped the Guardians go 16-7 in the absence of Steven Kwan, who himself had been red-hot to start the season before straining a hamstring. This is one where I can’t exactly put my finger on the “why.”