What to Expect from Michael Busch at the Plate

Michael Busch has long been rumored to be on the move from Los Angeles, going back a few years. With players ahead of him at any position he could conceivably play (Mookie Betts at second, Max Muncy at third, Freddie Freeman at first and new arrival Shohei Ohtani at designated hitter), finding a home for Busch was near impossible out in Chavez Ravine. Enter the Chicago Cubs--a team who could use a left-handed hitter at first, third, or designated hitter. It would be easy to look at his first 80 or so plate appearances as a major-league hitter and conclude that there are holes in Busch's game, but with a deeper dive, there seems to be quite a good hitter bubbling just under the surface.

The best place to start, in my opinion, is to look at Michael Busch's progression from 2022 to 2023 in Triple A. In 2022, Busch put up an uninspiring 102 wRC+ in his first 504 plate appearances in Triple A. In 2023, he put up a whopping 150 wRC+, and almost every possible secondary and supplementary metric got better. He struck out less, walked more, hit for much more power, made more hard contact, hit the ball harder... you get the picture. Trying to figure out how and why is very important. The easy answer would be to suggest the Dodgers introduced some new mechanics into his game, but after looking into the video, I just don't think there was one. You can see for yourself: compare a home run Busch hit in June of 2022 to one he hit in August of 2023. Both are on hanging curveballs, and both seem very similar swing-wise. Ultimately, I think it's safe to rule out a swing path or mechanical change as to why he made the huge jump year-to-year.

Digging deeper, I think the answer is that Busch improved his pitch recognition from 2022 to 2023. In 2022, during his time in Triple A, the left-handed hitter made contact on roughly 79% of his swings against fastbals, good for an OPS of .897. He struggled against, fir instance, cutters, with a mere 62% contact rate on a pitch type not usually engineered to generate whiffs. The power was there, but the whiff percentages were high. More concerning was his issue against higher velocity (as pointed out by Mike Petriello). Busch saw his whiff% on 97+ mph fastballs, jump to 38%.

In 2023, he showed major pitch-recognition improvements. Busch's contact rate on fastballs jumped 9%; his contact rate on cutters jumped almost 13%. While Petriello did a good job highlighting his issues against velocity, those numbers were combined from 2022 to 2023, likely to make a sample size large enough to avoid error (and included MLB action). With that said, his numbers (in small sample sizes) in 2023 against velocity at Triple-A were much improved. His contact rate against pitches over 94 mph topped 82%, and his in-zone whiff% against 97-100 mph in Triple-A was 14.3%, a marked improvement. 

With the improvement in his ability to recognize pitch types came an improvement on pitches inside. Below you will see his batting average heat map at the Triple-A level in 2023 (left) compared to his 2022 (right) season. Notice how much better he was in getting to pitches inside. With no apparent mechanical change, an improvement in pitch recognition would explain why he would improve on getting around on pitches on the inside, as well.

Compare these heat maps, then, to his time with the Dodgers over the last few weeks of the MLB season. Notice that Busch struggled heavily on pitches inside and middle, but found success on the outer portions of the plate? Busch had a lot of issues with contact with pitches over 94 mph, making contact on these pitches under 67 percent of the time. Overall, on fastballs, he sat at 70%. His ability to hit pitches between 91-94 mph was much better (at least in making contact), as his contact rate was almost 85% on these pitches. So, what would cause him to be able to hit pitches outside but struggle in? Well... pitch recognition. If you're struggling on seeing the ball and recognizing it, you'll obviously be just a hair late. Shocker: many (arguably, even, most) of the well hit balls Busch had went the opposite way while in MLB (see; hit chart). This was not the case for Busch in Triple-A.

If there are some other places to look into his Triple-A data to find some cause for concern, it's that he struggles to make consistent contact even in Triple A (despite the previous two home runs highlighted) on sliders and curveballs, and with pitches on the upper third (especially out). While he still displays power, these are not his "happy zones". The first can likely be attributed to him just not being particularly good at hitting breaking balls. That's not the worst thing ever, especially if he can work his way through MLB fastballs. The second issue likely has to do with his swing. His swing is geared toward lift (a launch angle over 16 on fastballs), and that swing path just simply struggles with pitches up.

Where does this leave us with Busch? I think there's a lot of really positive things under the hood. He didn't display major platoon splits at Triple-A. He has shown that, given time, his pitch recognition improves, and improves greatly. I don't think he's necessarily going to be able to fix things like getting to the ball up, and he's probably never going to be an elite breaking ball hitter, even if he's got the power to pound mistakes. But he's someone who, when that pitch recognition does come (and I think it'll come) projects to hit MLB pitching quite well. His average Triple-A exit velocity was 91.5mph, which is on par with what Randy Arozarena (27th in MLB) put up last year. He hits the ball hard, and when he hits it, it's going to be in the air.

That's a good combination, and if he can combine those skills at the MLB level, this is the kind of hitter you can reasonably project as a 120 wRC+ guy. He's not without risk, but unlike Matt Mervis, who I have fears of being a Quadruple-A player, I don't have those same concerns with Busch. Instead, I think Busch is a player who, given time, is going to pay off as a savvy pickup, and one I'm pretty excited to see hit a few home runs off of the scoreboard that Kyle Schwarber made famous in right field.

What do you think about Busch? Do you see a 120 wRC+ hitter? Or do you see someone you think belongs back in Triple A?