AJC Braves beat writer David O'Brien notes that shortstop Dansby Swanson has produced better offensively since returning from the minors . It's only 66 plate appearances but it's obviously an encouraging trend for Swanson, especially because the progress appears to be related to a change in his batting stance.
Yet the overall offensive numbers early in Swanson’s career remain bleak. He’s just 23-years old, so there’s hope he can get better. How much better? There’s potentially some bad news there, too.
Writing at FanGraphs, Jeff Zimmerman examined "aging curves" for major leaguers and (using Weighted Runs Created plus) found that the modern trend is for big-league hitters "to arrive at their peak and simply decline with age." According to Zimmerma's analysis, players tend to show their true ability early and produce at that level until a decline begins from the age 25 to 26 seasons.
A couple possible reasons may be behind the lack of improvement. First, players are more prepared for majors, physically and mentally. In the past, a player may not have had the best conditioning, coaching and training while he was in the minors. Teams are putting more resources into their minor league affiliates, and there isn't room for improvement with the major league team. Second, teams may be better at knowing if or when a player will be MLB ready, meaning the player doesn't have to mature and grow at a lower level. They are ready to contribute immediately."
Zimmeran's study is based on the average results of all players and there will always be exceptions among individuals. And I think that part about teams knowing when a player is ready works in Swanson's favor: he was rushed to the majors after only 569 PAs in the minors. If Swanson can't keep up his current pace over the final month, maybe he could benefit from returning to the minors and get better prepared for the majors.
But it’s possible there may not be much room for improvement for Swanson. He’s had 573 plate appearances in the majors, enough that many key statistics begin to “stabilize” and give a true measure of a hitter’s performance. Among those numbers are on-base percentage, slugging percentage and on-base plus slugging percentage.
Swanson's OBP is .322, which is about the MLB average. His slugging percentage is .331, which is well below league average (thought OBP is much more important to run production than SLG.) Swanson's .681 OPS also is well below average. Swanson has produced a 0.9 Baseball Reference WAR, which is "reserve" level for a full season, and a 75 WRC +, which is bad.
Swanson didn’t produce much during his most recent stint at Triple-A Gwinnett but maybe he learned some things. Perhaps that was the catalyst for more maturity and growth, and we can expect better from him in the majors going forward. He’d have to buck the aging curve trend to do it, though.
Swanson is a former No. 1 overall pick and was a top-rated prospect so obviously he's got the talent to turn things around. But he wouldn't be the first touted prospect to fall flat in the majors. It's hard to make it in the majors, even for those who have the tools to do it .
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