He’s not (yet) technically the best version of himself. We’ve gotten excited about Dansby Swanson before. It never lasts. I wrote about his start to the 2023 season on April 4th of that year. At this point in last year’s calendar, he had a 139 wRC+ while reaching base at a .367 clip. By September of ’24, I was writing about an August & September turnaround courtesy of apparently-increased health.
At this point, we kind of have to accept who & what the Chicago Cubs’ shortstop actually is: an above-average-to-excellent defensive infielder prone to hot stretches and even colder ones. To read anything further into it would be foolhardy in his age-31 season.
But! Is it possible that the player whose slash line currently includes a .211 average and .281 on-base percentage might be… better than we could have expected?
Despite a rather brutal line, Swanson has done a number of things well. For one, he has a .263 ISO. His highest mark was .201 back in 2021. His HardHit% is at 51.1, which is nearly five points higher than his previous career-best. He’s also cut his K% by nearly six percent (18.5). There’s been some brutal batted ball luck, as reflected in his .190 BABIP.
Things are going to even out. The average on balls in play certainly will. His slugging may come down. But, regardless of how the natural pattern of baseball plays out, it’s fairly clear that the torpedo bat is serving as the ideal tool for someone such as Swanson.
Swanson’s percentile rankings thus far are as follows:
I’m looking specifically at the contact trends (Average Exist Velocity, Barrel%, Hard-Hit%, and Squared-Up%). In 2024, Swanson sat 56th, 62nd, 64th, and 47th in each category, respectively. The year before that, only the Barrel% (70th) carried any level of respectability, as the other three landed in the 50th, 42nd, and 37th percentiles.
What’s interesting is that Swanson’s bad speed has actually decreased. His average bat speed (70.7 MPH) is a full tick off last year’s average while his overall rate of reaching average speed has fallen by more than half (5.9 percent). At the same time, he’s also managed to jump the squared-up contact from 33.4 percent of contact to 47.7 percent in 2025. His rate of blasts has ballooned from 15.4 percent (per contact made) to 26.2. His overall rate of contact hasn’t changed much, while his in-zone contact rate has remained fairly similar.
Given that the torpedo bat moves the point of quality contact closer to the hitter, the utilization of the new hitters’ tool has allowed Swanson to swing a little more freely within the zone.
These are Swanson’s barrels across the zone in 2024:
And here’s thus far in 2025:
The second graphic is obviously thinned out due to a smaller sample. But, there’s some increased zone coverage apparent here in the barrel game. Even better is that he’s generating barrels slightly inward and slightly up. As Swanson doesn’t have a particularly long swing, this appears to be a slight change that is helping him a pretty notable way. Not only that, the upward movement of the hotspot is giving way to more fly balls. This is, after all, a guy that abused worms to the point of a 49.9 GB% in 2024.
In a broad sense, we can definitely point to the torpedo bat as a reason for the uptick in Swanson’s quality of contact. But it would also be an oversimplification. Swanson has moved two inches closer to the plate, providing the ideal contact point for where those barrels are manifesting. He’s also raised his swing rate against fastballs by four percent and cut his rate versus off-speed pitches by nearly 15. The hard stuff has largely been his highest source of barrels throughout his career while off-speed offerings have, more often than not, done the opposite.
It’s a really nuanced picture to attempt to draw this early in the season. The torpedo bat is the star. But Swanson has refined some other things in conjunction with the lumber change that clearly have him off to a good start, even in the face of a sub-.200 BABIP. It’s obviously still quite early. And we’ve gotten excited about changes from Dansby Swanson before. I’m probably a sucker at this point.
But what if I’m not?
