The Multi-Layered Process of Reclaiming Dansby Swanson's Power

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The Cubs need more power production from their star shortstop in 2025. That's easier said than done, though, because there's no one adjustment he can make to tap back into the pop he's shown in the past.

Image courtesy of © Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images

There was a time in my life when I thought Dansby Swanson was a mystery—something to be solved. But I’ve grown up. Matured. Evolved. Now I realize that the Chicago Cubs’ shortstop is a sometimes-good, mostly underwhelming offensive performer who is propped up by the exceptionally steady defense he provides. It’s honestly nice to have that type of clarity. That does not, however, mean that there aren’t aspects of Swanson’s offensive game worth discussing. His power (and sometimes lack thereof) is a particularly interesting area of study as we prepare for the new season. 

The 2021 season represented the peak of Swanson’s power. He hit 27 home runs and logged a .201 isolated power (the only time he’s exceeded the .200 threshold). His Barrel rate, at 11.4%, was his highest over a full season, while his Hard Hit rate (42.7%) trailed only 2022 as his highest rate for a single season. He still finished as a slightly below-average performer (99 wRC+), because his walk rate was lower than you’d like (8.0%), his strikeout rate was higher than you’d like (25.6%), and he didn’t make as much contact as you’d like (72.6% of all swings). 

In 2022, Swanson experienced a sharp uptick in his average and on-base outputs. This was largely due to a .348 BABIP. The power dipped slightly, but from an overhead perspective, not much of what Swanson has done in those two years has changed since. His swing rates, chase rates, called strike rates, and so on have all remained within one or two percentage points of each other over the last four seasons. Aside from a 2022 outlier, the quality of contact rates haven’t changed much, either. 

What has changed, however, is the type of batted ball he's been hitting that hard. His launch angle fell sharply last year, in particular. With it, his ground-ball rate skyrocketed, so it makes sense that Swanson’s 16-homer, .148-ISO 2024 campaign was his worst power year in a full season since 2018. We’ve talked before about Swanson’s need to cling to a specific pitch type to generate sustained offensive success. My inclination in pondering the decline in power is that he is doing the opposite of that. But that may not be all.

Before we get to pitch types, let’s talk about Swanson's overall swing rates in relation to the zone itself. To generate power, you’re looking middle-up, unless you’re an elite hitter who can generate power to other parts of the zone. Swanson is not one. He needs to live up. These zone profiles represent Swanson’s 2021, when his power was at its highest, against 2024: 

It’s not that Swanson is swinging less often. He’s just swinging in a more concentrated fashion, and it isn’t playing to his benefit. Below is Swanson’s Barrel rate per ball in play, with 2021 being represented on the left and 2024 on the right: 

In large part, Swanson was finding the barrel middle-middle (obviously) and up and away. With the condensed zone in which he operated last year, he’s just not finding the barrel. It’s almost as if he’s gotten too patient, in a very specific way, and it’s limiting his overall output more than a general decline in swing rate would. It’s important to note that the 2022 profile doesn’t look like the one from 2021. He worked more on the inner half. But he was still working the upper parts of both sides of the zone. That aspect, on either side, has faded in the two seasons during which he’s been with the Cubs. The launch angle, as a result, has come down, bottoming out at just 10.4° last season.

Another factor impacting his ability to contribute is that he’s become pull-heavy. Since arriving in Chicago, Swanson has posted the two highest pull rate seasons in his career. He's hit fewer than 19% of his batted balls to the opposite field in each of his two seasons with the Cubs. It’s a dangerous proposition, when we know how bad Wrigley Field has been for right-handed hitters since he arrived. But given that he’s still swinging at outside pitches (albeit not elevated ones), you’d like to see him get the ball to the opposite field with more regularity to, perhaps, generate a bit more batted-ball luck.

From a zone perspective, we should hope for a little more lift from Swanson in 2025, but for him to do that, he’s going to need to fall back in love with the fastballs.

We’ve known for a while that Swanson’s best work comes against the hard stuff. It got him off to a strong start last year before things started to get jumbled in his approach. In his best quality-of-contact season (2022), fastballs were the pitch type at which he swung most (53.5%). Every year since 2018, save last season, his highest Barrel rate has come against heat. The same is true of his slugging average. The other two pitch categories have much more variation, but no sustained positive outcomes. He’s a player who needs to sit fastball.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t been a viable proposition for him. Last year, Swanson swung at offspeed stuff more than any other pitch type. The year before, his first in Chicago, it was the same story, with a larger margin: 

It’s obviously not a new trend. But you'd like to see one of two things. Either the gap is narrower, like in 2021, or offspeed takes a backseat to the hard stuff. We got the first one in 2024. but we also got the highest chase rate of his career against offspeed offerings (60.9%), the highest ground-ball rate (64.3%), and a whiff rate that was 13 percentage points higher than it was against the fastball (37.1%)—which is, for the pitcher’s part, the purpose of throwing that type of pitch. 

And while Swanson did whiff and experience other negative results against offspeed pitches in his two best offensive seasons, he was still able to compensate with quality contact: 

As illustrated above, that has not been the case in his time with the Cubs. Instead, the gap between his success against fastballs and his success against other pitch types has only widened. This makes it seem like it’s more imperative for Swanson to focus on pitch type than on location. A blend of the two would, of course, be ideal. But if you had to hone in on one to draw out improvement in Swanson’s game, it would behoove him more to renew the focus on the hard stuff. 

I think it’s also important to consider the logistics of the swing itself. Swanson doesn’t have a particularly short or fast swing. It’s sort of middle-tier in length, and 45th-percentile in speed. Those are logistics we can investigate further, the more bat-tracking data we gather. But if the swing itself is an inhibitor of Swanson managing against high velocity, then the zone needs to be the focus. 

Either way, there are important considerations in the approach for Swanson to generate more power. That power doesn’t have to be exclusively in the form of home runs, but it sure as heck can’t include declining hard-hit rates and increased ground-ball numbers. Whatever the fix, perhaps a fresh environment—some changes in the hitting coaching group, better health, and a few new veteran voices around Swanson in the lineup—will help Swanson achieve it. One thing is for sure: since he's 31, this is a pivotal season. The Cubs need to see their long-term, star-level investment begin to return star-level performance, if only for a year or two.

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