How the Cubs are scoring more runs by swinging less

The Chicago Cubs rank third in the majors in runs per game. They’re doing it without a dominant slugger. And they’re doing it in somewhat of an unusual manner, swinging at the fewest strikes of any club.

That’s right, the Cubs entered Thursday last in swing rate inside the zone, and third from the bottom in overall swing percentage. And no, it’s not simply the Alex Bregman Effect, even though “swing less” is pretty much the third baseman’s personal credo.

“We have not had a meeting and said swing less, by any stretch of the imagination,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “If there’s one guy that trumpets swing less, it’s Bregman. Are guys hearing it? I don’t know if I have a good answer. We have some pretty established people who probably aren’t changing too much.”

But some are.

With the season nearly 20% complete, second baseman Nico Hoerner and shortstop Dansby Swanson entered Thursday with their in-zone swing rates down more than 10 percent. Center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong was down nearly 10 percent, though he hadn’t solved his biggest problem. His 44.7 chase rate was a career high and the fifth highest in the league.

First baseman Michael Busch’s in-zone rate also was down, but not to the same extent as those three. Right fielder Seiya Suzuki and left fielder Ian Happ were at roughly last year’s levels. And then there was Bregman, whose in-zone rate was a career-low, whose chase rate was its lowest since 2022 and overall swing rate was its lowest for a full season since 2019.

Bregman, who joined the Cubs this season on a five-year, $175 million free-agent contract, makes a concentrated effort to swing only at pitches on which he can do damage. If he gets too aggressive, his knack for making contact on pitches outside the zone leads to too many easy outs.

Hoerner is also a high-contact type, but Counsell said emphatically, “I can tell you Nico’s change is not a result of Alex Bregman.” Cubs hitting coach Dustin Kelly said the team has spent four years trying to get Hoerner to be the hitter he was in the latter part of last season and the first month of this one — more selective, but taking chances when ahead in the count and pulling the ball in the air.

Including last year’s playoffs, Hoerner batted .341 with an .859 OPS after Aug. 20. This season, he is batting .291 with an .819 OPS. His swing rate is at a career low. His pull rates and flyball rates are at career highs. And his ground ball rate is down more than 10%.

“As a player who makes a lot of contact, it’s a skill set, it’s a bonus. But it’s also something that can limit me if it’s weak contact in good counts to hit,” Hoerner said. “It’s something I’ve known for a long time. I obviously know hitting the ball hard off the ground is better. It takes a while to understand how that shows up for you individually. I definitely don’t have that down yet. But I have a better idea of pitches I hit well.”

Said Counsell, “There are mechanical things you can go into. But the easiest way to describe is that Nico could get into the habit of just playing defense as a hitter. He’s great at it, which means the ball is going to be in play. But it kind of created a swing that didn’t let him drive the ball.

“He has always had the move to drive the baseball. He’s just gotten more confident in this move he has worked on trusting and understands both things can still happen. He can still make elite contact and drive the baseball because his move is cleaner. He’s behind the baseball. He can get underneath the baseball instead of kind of just diving forward and putting it in play.”

Swanson, batting .214 but has a .783 OPS that includes a nearly 10 percent increase in his walk rate, made his own changes before Bregman’s arrival. During the offseason, he determined that he wanted to be more athletic in the box, the way he was earlier in his career, and not so worried about mechanics and drills.

He, too, is swinging much less, but there’s a danger in showing too much discipline. Happ, when informed of the teamwide trend, warned it can lead “to a pretty passive approach,” and hitters getting behind in counts. Kelly actually noticed that happening with the Cubs early in the season.

“Teams catch onto that. Pitchers catch onto that. Our first-pitch swing numbers were a little low,” Kelly said. “We weren’t as aggressive with runners in scoring position. It’s not anything I had a meeting about. But in conversations with hitters, I’ll talk to them about it.”

Kelly likes that his group is selective, as evidenced by its walk rate, which, entering Thursday, was the third highest in the league. The Cubs aren’t exit-velocity monsters. Their average EV ranks near the bottom third in the league. Their 90th percentile exit velocity — a measure of how hard hitters hit their best-struck balls — is near the bottom.

Those numbers would be even lower if not for the emergence of rookie DH/catcher Moisés Ballesteros. Kelly said Ballesteros possesses an “incredible sense of timing in the batter’s box,” innate rhythm and flow, and a bat path that enables him to hit the ball hard all over the field.

The Cubs’ ground ball rate is below league-average. Their line-drive rate is slightly above. Kelly believes their bat paths in general are good, helping compensate for any deficiencies in exit velocity. But more than anything, the Cubs are a team with several hitters finding the best versions of themselves — a team, in Bregman’s words, churning out, “grinding, competitive at-bats, one through nine.”

“We’ve got a lot of good, really professional hitters who have always had pretty good strike-zone awareness,” Swanson said. “When you have a group that continues to grow in that regard and everyone gets on the same page, it’s not like you’re talking about it as much as it starts naturally happening.

“The commitment to having good at-bats every time you go up there has really been beneficial for our group, whether you’re losing by however much or winning by however much. Just keep going up there and having your at-bats, and by the end of the game we’ll see who wins.”

The only way Miggy might stay

Los Angeles Dodgers infielder Miguel Rojas will reconsider his decision to retire at the end of the season under only one scenario.

“If we three-peat,” he said.

If that happens and Rojas is healthy, he will discuss with his wife, Mariana, his son, Aaron, 10, and daughter Amber, 5, whether he wants to keep playing.

Rojas’ motivation would be to win a fourth straight World Series title with the Dodgers. No team has accomplished that feat since the New York Yankees won five straight Series, beginning in 1949.

Rojas’ family, though, might take priority.

“When I made this decision to retire and play for one more year, it’s not because I felt I couldn’t play,” he said. “I can still play. I can prepare to go and play shortstop for 100 games. But it’s bigger than that. I’m family-oriented.”

Rojas, a 13-year veteran, specifically mentioned his son, who he said plays in baseball tournaments every weekend. Aaron will send Rojas videos of his games, excited for his father to see him in action.

“He asks me, did you watch me play? I say yes, but I want to be there for him. That’s what my parents did for me,” Rojas said. “I think it’s time. I know your time in the game is too short. But at the end of the day, I want to make sure I’m there for him, too.”

For Muncy, seeing is believing

For the latest evidence of how important clear vision is for a hitter, consider the example of Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy.

Since he started wearing prescription eyeglasses on April 30, he has been one of the top hitters in the game.

Over that period, covering nearly a full calendar year, Muncy ranks fourth to Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani and Nick Kurtz in both OPS and wRC+ (minimum 350 plate appearances).

Max Muncy celebrates with teammates after a home run against the Cubs last week. Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images

Muncy, who turns 36 in August, has 20-15 vision without glasses, but is left-eye dominant. The glasses make his eyes work better in tandem, and clearly they’re working.

“In this sport, especially in this sport, anything that can help you mentally, believe in yourself a little bit more, you have to do it,” Muncy said.

“Half the battle is trying to trust who you are as a player. There are so many negative things that happen that kind of take you away from that. If there’s something that can bring you back just a little bit, you have to be excited about it and want to do it.”

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