Atlanta Braves’ Dansby Swanson still struggling at the plate

For a while there, it looked like the Braves’ shortstop was back to his hitting happy zone.  But lately…

The Atlanta Braves have been doing some head-scratching this season with their shortstop of today – and of the future.  Dansby Swanson has been on a roller coaster ride throughout this season, and it hasn’t ended yet.

Here are the month-to-month raw numbers, along with his walk rate per month:

• .156 / 5.3% (April)
• .216 / 15.9% (May)
• .306 / 7.5% (June)
• .125 / 9.4% (July)
• .309 / 16.9% (August)
• .253 / 11.8% (Sept)

There’s a fair lefty-righty split (.261 vs. southpaws; .227 otherwise), but that’s neither terribly big nor terribly unusual.

For the record, the Braves – as a team – hit .273 in August; .263 so far in September.

Here’s Swanson’s entire season in chart form, showing the progression of his batting averages and on-base percentages by date.

There’s also no obvious correlation between his hitting and his walk rate:  while hitting over .300 in June and August, he had both his highest and (almost) lowest BB rates of the year.  Yet in consecutive bad-hitting months (April/May), he walked both ‘not at all’ and also ‘all the time’.

Brooksbaseball.net characterizes Swanson as being:

• aggressive with fastballs
• patient with breaking balls, though with a lot of swing-and-miss
• steady with offspeed offerings, though with a lot of swing-and-miss

Fact is, Swanson is still having a lot of trouble with the slider.  Pitchers throwing that pitch down and away in the zone are getting a high whiff rate:  upwards of 25%.

Even if/when Swanson makes contact with such pitches, they will most likely be grounded out somewhere – at roughly a 75% rate.

There is a fine line:  if sliders are thrown for strikes, then Swanson is getting hits (a .380 clip, though some of those are ‘nubbers’ like the one he beat out last night).  Some of that is still true this month, but overall the improvement has been marginal.

More from Tomahawk Take

• Atlanta Braves 2023 Preseason Top 30 Prospects List: 16-20
• Braves News: Reacting to Dansby’s departure, Michael Brantley, more
• Atlanta Braves: Best Option at Shortstop Now That Dansby Swanson is Gone
• Atlanta Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos’ views on the offseason so far
• Braves News: Dansby goes to the Cubs, prospect rankings, more

It is hard to tell from afar whether this issue is about pitch recognition or something else.  Swanson has a naturally quick bat, so he can even pull the trigger a touch later than many batters and still get wood on the ball.  But it almost seems that he’s seeing ‘fastball’ early and then failing to adjust when ‘slider’ becomes the real answer from his eyes.

The would still be consistent with the idea that he’s getting hits with balls still in the strike zone, for that’s where his bat plane would be anyway had such pitches turned out to be fastballs.

Unfortunately, it appears that Swanson’s long-term success is still tied to how he adjusts to sliders… and that may require continued exposure to them before anything can change.

Next: Dickey does his Derring-Do, but Braves Bumble

Hence, the roller coast ride will continue.