The secret to doing damage as a hitter? It lies in the point of contact
“You make your money when you hit the ball out front,” Twins outfielder Walker Jenkins, the No. 3 overall prospect in baseball, told FanGraphs recently. “That’s where you’re going to produce more damage, more power.”
If that seems like accepted hitting strategy today – since so many batters are trying...
Justin Turner
Isaac Paredes
Juan Soto
MLB's most interesting and extreme batting stances
For generations, baseball fans have loved talking about batting stances, the stranger the better – even if, as the 2024 Brewers reminded us, most of the stances aren’t quite so strange anymore.
We’ve never really had a way to compare and contrast the various stances across the game, though, to...
Rafael Devers
Giancarlo Stanton
Steven Kwan
Ryan McMahon
Matt Vierling
Ozzie Albies
Elly De La Cruz
Jazz Chisholm Jr.
Victor Robles
Addison Barger
Jarren Duran
Jose Altuve
15 Spring Training stat lines that matter
It's always tough -- maybe even impossible -- to predict which Spring Training performances will carry over to the regular season. But we try to do it anyway.
With domestic Opening Day less than a week away, let's try to pick out some of the players whose stellar springs will...
Juan Soto
Mike Trout
Corbin Carroll
Adley Rutschman
Bo Bichette
Cody Bellinger
Wyatt Langford
Jackson Chourio
James Wood
Garrett Crochet
Sandy Alcantara
Spencer Schwellenbach
Robbie Ray
Clay Holmes
Jack Leiter
Why Sasaki's splitter looks like MLB's next great pitch
A version of this story originally ran on March 5 after Sasaki's Spring Training debut....
Roki Sasaki
Is this the secret to Ohtani's all-fields power?
What makes Shohei Ohtani different from other star sluggers? It's not just the amount of home runs, or even the explosiveness of the home runs. It's also how he hits them.
The mantra of the modern-day MLB power hitter is to "hit the ball out in front" \-\- in other...
Shohei Ohtani
Can moving back in batter's box elevate this young OF to star status?
If the Cubs are going to make some moves towards their first full-season division title since 2017, it’s not just going to be about new additions like Kyle Tucker, Ryan Pressly, Justin Turner and Matthew Boyd.
It’s going to be about improvements from returning players, too. It’s going to be...
Pete Crow-Armstrong
What does deGrom's next chapter hold?
Before the 2023 season, the Rangers signed Jacob deGrom to a five-year, $185 million deal. You might not have thought about him since.
OK, that’s more than a little unfair. Then again, deGrom made just six starts for Texas in early 2023, then injured his elbow at the end of...
Jacob deGrom
15 nasty new pitches we've seen this spring
Spring Training is the season of new pitches. Tons of pitchers all around big league camps are experimenting with their repertoires and adding to their arsenals.
Some new pitches stick, some don't. But let's try to find the ones that are worth paying attention to as the 2025 regular season...
Paul Skenes
Jackson Jobe
Max Scherzer
Clay Holmes
Bryce Miller
Dylan Cease
Yusei Kikuchi
Andrés Muñoz
Jared Jones
Joe Boyle
Kodai Senga
Jack Leiter
Jesús Luzardo
Max Meyer
Robbie Ray
'Walltimore' no more: The effect of Camden Yards' latest change
Three years later, we’re back at it again.
After three seasons of batters grimacing at the expanded left-field wall in Camden Yards – “Walltimore,” as it maybe-sort-of-affectionately came to be known – the Orioles announced in November that they’d be making the dimensions a little friendlier to hitters. That meant...
Ryan Mountcastle
12 standouts from first week of Spring Training games
Spring Training might not count, but it is when we get the year's first wave of Statcast data, and that deserves a closer look.
Let's try to find some numbers worth paying attention to early on this spring, from the hitters who are ripping the ball to the pitchers who...
Kris Bryant
Jac Caglianone
Corbin Carroll
Anthony Volpe
Bryce Eldridge
Chandler Simpson
Tarik Skubal
Sandy Alcantara
Dustin May
Bryce Miller
Jack Leiter
Cory Lewis
