How Did Byron Buxton Get This Damn Good?

Way back in 2016, Byron Buxton was a 22-year-old and had 46 games of major league experience. Baseball America, MLB.com, and Baseball Prospectus all considered him the game’s number two prospect overall. Expectations were sky high.

Impressively, Buxton finished that year with 35 extra base hits, including 10 home runs, in 92 games. The 118 strikeouts, meanwhile, drew concern. While he slugged a respectable .430, he chased that with a paltry .225 batting average -- an improvement over his .205 mark in 2015, to be sure, but a concern nonetheless.

This sent the young center fielder into a dizzying array of mechanical changes which included big leg kicks, no leg kicks, toe-taps, and small strides. Coaches were in his head about what type of hitter he was. They wanted him to focus on hitting ground balls. Coaches were in his face about bunting for hits. Of all the five tools he possessed, he was asked to utilize his speed above all.

Over the next three seasons, he posted a .245/.300/.423 slash line in 255 games. His 723 OPS was 263rd among qualified MLB hitters, trailing players like Niko Goodrum and Danny Valencia in a similar amount of games played.

In 2019, Buxton started to simplify his mechanics. There was a return to his original swing -- one he grew comfortable with as an amateur in Georgia -- and he stopped listening to input from others, instead doing what he felt best with and seeking out trusted sources. While limited by injuries, there was a noticeable difference in the collision between the bat and ball. In 2020, his exit velocity and launch angle both jumped. His fly balls now traveled an average of 344 feet.

Which brings us to today and Byron Buxton’s unrelenting start to the 2021 season.

The contrast between the swing of the number two overall prospect in 2016 and the one from baseball’s current OPS leader is pretty stark. If you happened to tune out between those eras and just see these two products, you would hardly recognize the player. First because of his sheer volume of muscle but also because of the swing movements.

The two swings are very different in a lot of ways but here are two aspects that should be highlighted that help explain how he got here:

The hands at his forward move.

If you look at Buxton’s hands on the left, they still need to move back into the launch position (the point where a hitter moves his hands forward at the ball). Now his hands begin at the launch position. They don’t have to travel backward before going forward. It is closer to where Nelson Cruz and his minimal movement are at.

When Buxton’s hands had to travel back, it would cause him to rush through his swing. He is now in go-mode meaning he can react or shut the swing down much easier. It helps his overall timing.

The swing path.

If you watch enough clips of his swing between then and now, one thing that jumps out is his swing plane. Just by looking at where he finishes with the bat you can see how different the route he took to get there is.

In 2016 his swing plane followed a much more merry-go-round path. It was level, likely something that was designed to make contact and hit balls on the ground. Now the swing has become more of a Ferris wheel than a merry-go-round, a motion similar to a hockey slapshot.

This might be the point where someone mumbles something about a launch angle swing (which doesn’t exist). He may be trying to hit the ball in the air more now, but he actually has hit ground balls at a higher rate this year than he did in 2016. The difference is that when he hit the ball in the air in 2016, he was often clipping the bottom of the ball instead of driving through it.

With the Ferris wheel action, Buxton has increased the vertical angle of the bat, meaning he is going to hit it square instead of hitting part of the bottom. In all of 2016, he hit 10 fly balls/line drives at 105 miles per hour or higher. So far this year he’s already hit 13 of those. In addition to selecting the right pitch and being on time, the square, optimal contact comes from having the right bat approach.

What is interesting is that Buxton’s overall approach has not changed that much over the years:

• He still swings through a high amount of pitches.
  
• He still chases a lot of pitches out of the zone.
  

What has changed for Buxton is the contact:

• Over 66% of his balls in play are hit 95+. Only Giancarlo Stanton has done better.
  
• Buxton still pulls the ball but at a much lower rate, choosing to use the middle of the field more (this may be an indication of more optimal backspin and not side or topspin).
  
• He has fouled off just 29% of balls on swings this year (one of the lowest in the league and well below his 35% career rate).
  

Another data point that is emerging is how teams are choosing to tangle with this monster:

• He’s seeing far fewer fastballs this year (42% fastballs, Aaron Judge slugger territory).
  
• Just 77% of pitches thrown to him have been considered “competitive” (i.e. within 18 inches of the center of the zone which leads to a decent chance of a swing).
  

What it means is that teams are starting to be afraid of the damage he can do.

This version of Byron Buxton is quite different from the one that arrived in Minnesota. It has been a long road but this version has eliminated weaknesses and has become one of the game’s elite hitters.