After Adding Strength This Winter, Michael Busch Might Become an All-Star in 2025

[Matthew Trueblood]

The Cubs' starting first baseman enters his second full season in the big leagues, not merely trying to avoid a sophomore slump, but poised to take his game to the next level.

Image courtesy of © Allan Henry-Imagn Images

It's just spring training. The competition is extremely uneven, and everyone is tinkering with things. Michael Busch has been more eager than most to rack up early reps, but even he only has 19 plate appearances in the Cactus League so far. However, in those 19 trips to the dish, he's not only collected nine hits (with four going for extra bases) but limited his strikeouts, to two.

Last year, of course, contact was the big drawback in an otherwise superb rookie campaign for Busch. He was really good, but he struck out 28.6% of the time, putting a bit of a ceiling on his overall production. He hits the ball hard consistently, but doesn't reach extremes in that regard. Last year, his maximum exit velocity was 109.3 miles per hour, even though 40% of his balls in play were at least 95 mph. Wrigley Field dampened his raw production, but so did the whiffs. 

Guys with a similar whiff rate to Busch's last year included Heliot Ramos, Salvador Perez, Jorge Soler, and teammate Ian Happ, but swinging and missing held them back less because they each had the ability to hit the ball much harder, at the high ends of their ranges. 

So far this spring, we haven't seen Busch hit any one ball harder than he did last season. at least in his tracked games. He has, however, continued to assail the ball consistently, with nine of his 11 batted balls topping 94 mph and four above 104. More importantly, perhaps, he's only swung and missed twice in 13 tracked swings. 

There are two ways Busch can be better in 2025 than he was in 2024: he can whiff less, or hit the ball harder when he makes contact. By showing up to camp with some good extra weight on his frame, he gave himself a chance to do the latter, and even if we don't have proof that it will work in the tiny sample so far this spring, it sure looks like he'll be able to do that. But the fact that he's not whiffing much at all so far is also encouraging.

During his time in the Dodgers system, Busch moved around the field quite a bit, playing some second and some third. He needed to stay lean and athletic, and he's done so even since being traded to the Cubs. There are very few first basemen in the league who run or move as well as Busch, and he shows no signs of having really lost that this spring. However, he's taken advantage of the position change to add some strength, knowing he doesn't have as wide a range to cover as he might have at other spots.

If that translates to more power, even if he does continue to swing and miss a lot, Busch has a chance to emerge as a star-caliber slugger at first base. He hit 21 home runs last year, but a bump all to 30 is well within reach. That would transform the Cubs' lineup, and it would also make Busch a more viable long-term piece of the team's puzzle. He's perfectly capable of slugging .500 this year, and not just because Wrigley Field figures to be more friendly to left-handed power than it was last season.

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[Bertz]

I actually think the likely avenue to Busch improving significantly is a reduced K rate rather than extra power.  Among hitters with 300 PAs last year, here are Busch's percentiles in a few categories

Contact Rate - 33rd

In Zone Contact - 36th

Chase Rate - 74th

In Zone Swing rate - 49th

Walk Rate - 85th

Strikeout Rate - 13th

That strikeout rate just does not fit with the rest of the picture.  He has below average but not notably so in the contact department.  He's patient but far from passive.  There's just nothing under the hood that warrants a 28-29% K rate.  This might have already started to course correct actually, as he ran a 25% in the second half that feels like a more natural place for him to settle.

SSS but he's also improved his contact numbers this spring.  The 80% contact rate he's currently got would be 66th percentile.  He won't keep all those gains, though K/BB changes are the closest to sticky of any spring training stats.  But if he can drop his K-rate from last year by 4-5 points that's a big deal.  Back of the napkin I think that gets him up past the 3 WAR mark.

[JBears79]

1 hour ago, Bertz said:

I actually think the likely avenue to Busch improving significantly is a reduced K rate rather than extra power.  Among hitters with 300 PAs last year, here are Busch's percentiles in a few categories

Contact Rate - 33rd

In Zone Contact - 36th

Chase Rate - 74th

In Zone Swing rate - 49th

Walk Rate - 85th

Strikeout Rate - 13th

That strikeout rate just does not fit with the rest of the picture.  He has below average but not notably so in the contact department.  He's patient but far from passive.  There's just nothing under the hood that warrants a 28-29% K rate.  This might have already started to course correct actually, as he ran a 25% in the second half that feels like a more natural place for him to settle.

SSS but he's also improved his contact numbers this spring.  The 80% contact rate he's currently got would be 66th percentile.  He won't keep all those gains, though K/BB changes are the closest to sticky of any spring training stats.  But if he can drop his K-rate from last year by 4-5 points that's a big deal.  Back of the napkin I think that gets him up past the 3 WAR mark.

I agree with you here. He consistently has quality ABs and he has natural power. If he can increases his contact rate after an offseason of strength training, I dont think he needs to sell out contact for power to potentially hit the 30 HRs mark this season. Fangraphs had him at 2.3 WAR last year and Baseball Reference had him at 2.8 WAR. We know he had a short adjustment period to 1B defensively but once he settled in he played GG defense or close too GG defense the rest of the way. 

If he can up that contact and keep that level of defensive play, I dont think 3.5-4 WAR is out of the realm of possibility, but settling in around 3 WAR would be terrific. Really excited about his potential this season. I have high expectations for him.