Michael Busch, Three-Ball Counts, and What His Best Approach Might Be

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Jonathan Hui-Imagn Images

In a perfect world, perhaps, Ian Happ or Nico Hoerner would be having a better season. Happ had a .360 on-base percentage in 2023. Hoerner has never had one higher than .346 over a full campaign, but (like Happ) he's had half-season stretches wherein he sits around .390. If either player was having that kind of 2025 campaign, Craig Counsell might have them slotted in atop the batting order on a regular basis. Their skill sets are well-suited to that job, when they're playing their best baseball.

Right now, though, that's not the case. Happ is fighting for his life, batting .202/.315/.395 since the start of June. Hoerner is a metronome, but that's not a full-throated compliment: he's a metronomic .280/.335/.370 hitter. Given his druthers, Counsell wants more of a threat at the top of the order, and if he's going to make an exception to that rule, it needs to be for someone with a truly difference-making ability to get on base and avoid outs. Neither Happ nor Hoerner is clearing that bar.

By default, then, the job has fallen to Michael Busch. Counsell moved his starting first baseman to the first spot on the lineup card just before the All-Star break, and for most of the weeks since, he's kept him there. The results have been disastrous—Busch is hitting just .195/.252/.367 in that span, and the Cubs offense continues to wobble between serviceable and maddening—but the bulk of the blame for that falls further down the batting order. With Kyle Tucker, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Seiya Suzuki all struggling similarly over longer periods (or even more intensely, over a similar period), who's had time to focus on Busch?

Counsell entrusted Busch with the job because he brings a balance of on-base skills and power that can often catalyze the offense. Even amid this painful stretch (which has included hitting into some bad luck), Busch has occasionally looked worthy of that trust, but moving up and leading the crew seems to have messed with his approach a bit.

That's a shame, because Busch has a somewhat delicate but extremely productive approach when he's on. He's been significantly better this year than last year, because he's locked in the best version of that approach for a bit longer than he did in his rookie campaign. That's included a few things:

• Being on time for the fastball
• Getting aggressive at the front end of counts, including hunting hittable first pitches
• Attacking the ball more with power in mind after gaining leverage in the count

Busch's whiff rate on heaters is down this year, as he's learned to cover the upper half of the zone better without compromising his ability to drive the ball in the air. He's swinging at 38.9% of 0-0 pitches he sees, up from 32.0% last season. He's also hitting an eye-popping .295/.583/.541 in plate appearances that reach ball 3, which is good even by the standards of those advantage counts.

Being more aggressive and creating more hard line drives has made Busch a better overall hitter. His hard-hit rate is up from 39.9% to 46.3% this year. He already has eight more Barrels, according to Statcast, than he had all last season. His average exit velocity is up. His expected slugging average is about .060 higher than his actual slugging average; he's find the good part of the barrel much more consistently. Swinging more often early also means that he's striking out less often, down from 28.6% last year to 24.6% this year.

On the other hand, and unsurprisingly, Busch is also walking much less this year. He drew a free pass in 11.1% of his plate appearances in 2024. This season, that figure is 8.8%. Part of that is because he's swinging at those first pitches more often, and that's fine. Trading a walk for a good pass at the ball and the high chance of an extra-base hit is a profitable exchange.

However, there's also a bit of a shortfall to notice in Busch's game when it comes to finishing his walks. Only 40.8% of the plate appearances in which he's gotten to three balls have eventually become bases on balls this season. Of the 600 player-seasons with the most plate appearances reaching those counts since 2021, Busch's 2025 ranks 480th in walk conversion rate. He's in the top quintile in hitting for power with three balls in the count, but the bottom quintile in turning those counts into walks.

Whether that represents a problem in need of fixing is a thornier question. A bit counterintuitively, an extra-base hit on 3-0 or 3-1 is less valuable than one that comes on 1-2, or even at 0-0. That sounds silly—you get the same number of bases, either way—but you have to think a bit about the array of other possible outcomes for that plate appearance when the pitch comes in. It's good to make more of a 3-1 count than just a walk, but it's even better to create a jolt without needing to get ahead first—to bail oneself out of a pitcher-friendly count, most of all. If you don't have the knack for driving the ball when you're ahead in the count, you can still work those walks.

Busch, instead, has hammered the ball in those counts—but lost some walks in the process. He's actually been quite good after falling behind early in counts, relative to the rest of the league. He still gets to power in two-strike counts, too. Those are all signs of a great hitter. and it's not as though Busch is expanding his zone or making bad swing decisions when he does get ahead. On balance, though—given, especially, that aforementioned ability to make high-value contact even when he gets to two strikes—maybe the right approach for Busch, specifically, is to swing a bit less often when he's ahead. That would tend to lead to more walks and a higher OBP, even if it comes at the cost of a little bit of power.

Even amid this slump since the All-Star break, Busch hasn't been the problem with the inconsistent Cubs lineup. He's having a profoundly impressive season, and only when Tucker is at his best does the team have any better hitters. The leadoff spot has been unkind to him, though, and whether he needs to make a mental adjustment to suit his altered role or be shifted back down in the order a bit, the Cubs need more and better performance from him the rest of the way. He might process at-bats better with some others ahead of him, to watch and learn, or with runners on base who help shape the pitcher's plan in a more predictable way. Then again, he really might just be in a rut of bad luck and bad sequencing. At his best and at his worst, Busch is one of the most trustworthy bats on this roster.

View full article