Article: Dansby Swanson is Feasting on Heat and Spitting on Spin

[RandallPnkFloyd]

The whole Chicago Cubs lineup seems to have a clear idea of what they want to do in each plate appearance. Their shortstop, highest-paid player, and steady leader might be the player thriving most on that intentional mentality.

Image courtesy of © Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports

Earlier this week, I raved about the Chicago Cubs’ offensive approach to start 2024. From top to bottom, the lineup looks like a group of professional hitters, ready to wear down opposing starters and chew through their bullpens. After doing it against the Los Angeles Dodgers throughout the weekend, they did it again to old friend Yu Darvish in San Diego on Monday night. The outcome of that game notwithstanding, Darvish threw 65 pitches across three innings as the Cubs notched as many hard-hit balls as whiffs (seven apiece).

Fixed in the middle of that offensive battery is Dansby Swanson. The Cubs’ shortstop is off to a .270/.378/.514 start through 45 plate appearances, walking more than 15 percent of the time and hitting for considerable power. His walk rate and ISO put him in the top 30 among current qualifiers entering Tuesday's games; his Hard Hit% – at an even 50.0 – ranked sixth overall. It’s likely an unsustainable start, but it mirrors his strong April from last year fairly closely. 

After the season’s first month in ‘23, Swanson was hitting .286 and reaching base at a .412 clip, largely thanks to a walk rate near 18 percent. There was no power to speak of (.061 ISO), but he was making solid contact. At 9.9%, his soft contact rate in the first month was his second-lowest in any month-long stretch last season.

That start ended up being unsustainable, not because he was doing anything outlandish from the jump, but because he got away from what makes Swanson such a threat at the plate: he was inconsistent in his aggressiveness against the fastball.

Last September, I wrote at Pitcher List about the enigmatic month-to-month performance that has been a hallmark of Swanson's career. Many Atlanta fans felt the need to point out to me – in as condescending a fashion as possible – that Swanson’s offensive game is prone to variance. That variance is borne out of his inability to maintain a consistent approach. This is most notable in his insistence on hacking at non-hard stuff from opposing pitchers. 

We shouldn't expect opposing pitchers to approach Swanson with a majority of fastballs in every plate appearance, especially given his prowess against that pitch type. But his down months aligned with his swing tendencies; when Swing% against other pitch types far exceeded Swing% against hard stuff, the overall output went down. 

This fairly obvious element of Swanson’s offensive game is also what has me juiced about this start. Unsustainable? Sure. Encouraging, still? You bet.

To date, Swanson is swinging at fastballs 43.4 percent of the time. The next-closest umbrella category is offspeed stuff, at 37.9 percent. That’s exactly what you want. His Hard Hit% against the former is an obscene 69.2 percent. Perhaps more importantly, though, he’s demonstrating a keener awareness of the strike zone.

His overall Swing% sits at just 39.9 percent to date, including only 19.4 percent on pitches outside the strike zone. Fastballs are more likely to be in the strike zone than are breaking or offspeed pitches. In what is surely an oversimplification, this trend indicates to me that Swanson has been successful in identifying fastballs and prioritizing those in swings, more so than in previous years. Even better? That trend comes with opposing pitchers throwing him fewer fastballs. At 46.6 percent, it’s the lowest rate of fastballs seen in his career to date.

With that in mind, nothing about Swanson’s start is surprising. He’s feasting on fastballs, as he’s set out to do for his entire career. The difference, at this point, is that he appears to be succeeding. We don’t know the source or whether that component is sustainable, especially given how much volatility has prevailed in his offensive output in his career. One imagines with the Cubs’ approach running this deep, though, the broader context of the lineup could offer him more opportunity at sustainability than he’s ever had.

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[Derek_Lee_Truther]

Its crazy to think Swanson was the right pick of all the shortstops in that free agent class. Good job jed