Michael Busch's Midseason Adjustments Are Paying Off

[matto1233]

Michael Busch started 2024 red-hot before cooling off. Now we're seeing important adjustments from the Cubs rookie.

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports

Having missed the start of last Saturday’s win over the Brewers, I was overjoyed when I pulled out my phone to catch myself up on the action. The Cubs were up 2-0! Even better, it was thanks to a Michael Busch home run.

Something, in particular, caught my eye about that home run on the Gameday app.

Busch got a fastball from Milwaukee starter Tobias Myers, which wasn’t a particularly good one. It’s not covered in the chart below, but it came in at 90.7 mph, according to Baseball Savant. A lot of good hitters would do damage with that pitch up above the belt. What made this particular one so special?

Back in May, our own Matthew Trueblood covered the hole in Busch’s swing in relation to his walk-off home run against the Padres. To summarize his fantastic work, after the rookie’s torrid start to the season, pitchers started to adjust their approach. They started hammering the high and outside portion of the strike zone. This is one of the few things responsible for his .170/.259/.277 stretch from April 21 to May 26. 

Of course, by now, you’ll likely see where I am going with this. That pitch stood out because the Cubs’ rookie homered again on a high and outside pitch. As a matter of fact, this pitch was even higher and further outside than the one against the Padres. What’s even better about this particular home run is that it wasn’t pulled; it was hit to center field. His past three home runs have all been hit to center field. Prior to that, every single one of his home runs had been pulled to right field. 

Busch’s season can essentially be split into three parts: from the start of the season to April 20 (we’ll call it Part One), from April 20 to May 26 (Part Two), and from May 26 until now (Part Three). After coming out of the gate with a 179 wRC+ through April 20, pitchers adjusted and started throwing to the up and outside portion of the strike zone. Why there? Well, Busch had a 590 wRC+ on anything pulled vs. an 86 wRC+ on balls hit to the center or opposite fields, according to Fangraphs. A glance at Busch’s heat map from this period would support this theory. Stay away from the low and inside portion of the strike zone, where he can get in front of the ball and lift it in the air with an uppercut swing:

As Busch tried to adjust to the pitches up and away, he also stopped doing damage on those inside pitches. Instead of launching them into the seats, he started pounding them into the ground. His ground ball rate jumped from 23.9 percent during part one of his season to 44 percent during part two. 

He continued to do damage when he pulled the ball with a 221 wRC+, but 63.2 percent of those pulled baseballs were on the ground, which is the number of a contact hitter, not a high strikeout, power guy. Besides, he still wasn’t doing much damage on balls hit to the center or opposite field, with just an 82 wRC+ on the two of them combined.

During part three of this season, Busch appears to have struck the perfect balance. He seems to be sitting on those outside pitches and looking to do damage on them by driving them to center field, which is the next best thing to pulling them for most hitters. All stats courtesy of FanGraphs:

Season Segment	Overall wRC+	Pulled wRC+	Center wRC+	Oppo wRC+
Part One	179	590	118	41
Part Two	62	221	41	126
Part Three	159	211	381	91

To combat the increased ground ball rate in part two, Busch has simply stopped swinging as often at those inside pitches that were tying him up, dropping his ground ball rate to a much more manageable 37.7 percent during part three of his season. Compare his swing rates from parts one and two to part three. Charts courtesy of FanGraphs:

You see a clear shift in approach from the inside part of the plate to further over the plate. Lastly, if we look at Busch’s wOBA by zone from part three of this season, we see what appears to be a much more balanced approach and certainly much better coverage of the outside part of the plate when you compare it to the segment one chart above. The last chart, I promise:

So that’s why seeing the pitch location of Busch’s home run from last Saturday excited me so much. It was thrown to a location where pitchers have been trying to exploit him, and he hit it somewhere where he wasn’t previously doing much damage. Based on the evidence, this seems to be a concerted effort from the young infielder. 

Michael Busch won’t be Anthony Rizzo. However, all of this leaves me incredibly impressed. Admittedly, I was getting close to writing Busch off after his rough month of May. After all, if the Dodgers are getting rid of someone, that isn’t usually a good sign. But he’s now adjusted to the adjustment and shown that he can succeed in two completely different ways. In what is looking more and more like a lost season for the Cubs, Michael Busch is looking more and more like a keeper. 

View full article

[We Got The Whole 9]

I wish we could hire like Jim Edmonds to help him and Happ with their oppo game, get a lot of cheap HR at Wrigley just lifting pop flies to LCF.