When I saw how well Pirates’ Jack Suwinski has been doing (.873 OPS in 112 PA) the first thing I checked was his average launch angle, which is up significantly this season so far (six degrees). This doesn’t really mean anything yet in terms of trends because of how early in the season it is, but major changes in launch angle can sometimes be an early indicator that a player made an adjustment to his swing.

After a quick search I found this article by Pirates beat writer Justice delos Santos on MLB.com. The article was from Spring Training, and said that Suwinski’s swing looked different than it did in 2022.

Here is a side view swing comparison from Spring Training:

The article talks about how Suwinski is more upright and open, which he is in the side by side provided in the tweet. However, I’m not seeing “more upright” in recent video.

Here is an updated swing comparison from the Regular Season. Unfortunately there is only a front facing angle available:

• Pre-Pitch: Suwinski is slightly more open

• During Load: Suwinski looks slightly more crouched/bent over the plate

After watching more video from Spring Training and the first month of the Regular Season, it looks like Suwinski had been tinkering with a few different pre-pitch setups in Spring Training (such as the one shown in the tweet from delos Santos). However, the load from Spring Training looks consistent with 2022 from the front angle. The biggest change I could confirm through video is a more open stance. The swing seems to have remained constant during the regular season so far.

If any change was made, Suwinski is crouched more during load and his hands are lower. It doesn’t look like he is getting a ton of hand/head separation during load (which is something that typically helps with decision making and timing), but it’s hard to tell with just front view camera angle.

Why he would want to try out a more upright stance:

My guess for why he would try to be more upright was because he was struggling to reach fastballs at the top of the zone. Some hitters like changing their swing to better reach those balls because it is easier to adjust and swing down to reach breaking balls than it is to adjust up and try to reach a high fastball.

This guess was confirmed by looking at this heat map from Brooks Baseball, which shows Suwinski has a high career whiff rate at the top of the zone against fastballs.

However, he is still swinging and missing at these fastballs this season. The pitch chart below shows all the fastballs that he’s swung at and missed so far this season.

Note: Swinging strike on Baseball Savant does not include foul balls.

Now compared those to the fastballs he’s hit into play, as shown below.

The fastballs hit into play are lower and fall more in the middle third of the zone.

The lack of improvement against high fastballs makes sense because Suwinski has not been starting more upright since some at-bats in Spring Training, so it remains tougher for him to catch up to those higher pitches.

Any changes in approach?

Suwinski’s approach is consistent with last season, but so far he’s done really well at limiting chase (10% improvement from 2022). With it being so early in the season, it’s hard to tell if there is anything to this because it’s tough to know what pitches he is laying off. There is a big difference between chasing a pitch one inch off the plate and chasing one two feet off the plate.

Looking at his walks (Baseball Savant graphic below), it looks like he is seeing a lot of non-competitive pitches.

His other plate discipline stats back-up his below average control of the zone:

• His swing rate at pitches in-zone is the same as 2022, and remains 7% worse than average
• Looking at his swing-take profile below, Suwinski is taking 3% more strikes to the heart of the zone (small sample, but consistent with last season, when he took 7% more strikes to the heart of the plate)

These are his called strikes on fastballs:

Bat to Ball Skills Remains a Weakness

Suwinski still has a high strikeout rate (30%), high whiff rate (7% worse than MLB average), and low zone contact (9% worse than MLB average).

It will be interesting to see how long Suwinski can keep up this above average production pace given that he hasn’t really changed anything from last season. He did finish 2022 with a .709 OPS (about Major League average), which is pretty good for his first season in the Majors, but the trouble against high fastballs, combined with his below average bat to ball skills, will be tough to overcome once pitchers start honing in on this weakness.