Who Are You, Jake Bauers?

By Andy Singer

June 6th, 2023

Everyone who follows the Yankees in some capacity has heard the following gripe from detractors of the Yankees' roster construction in 2023: they don't have a left fielder. To begin the year, that was absolutely true. The Yankees had penciled in Oswaldo Cabrera and Aaron Hicks in LF, and both of those options proved to be disastrous in the early going. Sure, both were switch hitters who could theoretically help balance the Yankees' righty-heavy lineup, but that only works if either could provide some thump from the left side against right-handed pitching. Regardless of how you feel about Oswaldo Cabrera long-term, neither did anything to stake their claim to the job.

Enter Jake Bauers. Bauers should have been at least a vaguely familiar name to Yankee fans in Spring Training. Bauers was a consensus Top-50 prospect for the Tampa Bay Rays prior to his call-up in 2018 as a 1B/OF who everyone was sure would hit. Well...he didn't hit. Following a trade from the Rays to Cleveland, Bauers became an up-and-down extra who couldn't hold onto a job. He was a nomad in 2021 and 2022, bouncing from Cleveland, to Seattle, then on to Spring Training and AAA with the Reds, before finding his way to the Yankee minor league system later in 2022. That final move proved to be an important one for Jake Bauers.

The Jake Bauers that came to Spring Training this year was clearly different from the Jake Bauers I had seen previously. Spring Training statistics are unreliable at best when viewed in a vacuum, but there are rare cases where those Spring Training numbers are due to real mechanical changes that produce results. From the few swings I watched, Bauers seemed to be in the latter category. The question remained, though: would the changes I saw last into the regular season when the lights got brighter and the competition got better? Who is Jake Bauers?

Mechanical Changes

As I alluded to above, any conversation about Jake Bauers has to begin with the mechanical changes he has made to his swing in coordination with Yankee minor and Major League hitting coaches. Let's start with a swing Bauers took in 2022:

Sure, the result was great (a homerun), but a good result from a bad process isn't repeatable. Here are a few key elements I see from the swing above:

• Bauers begins with a lot of movement pre-pitch that continues as he gets set in his stance.

• Bauers bats with an open stance, with his back bent with the intention to improve his body coil to begin his swing.

• Bauers has a long bat path, with his hands beginning at his chest as the pitch is being released, prior to pulling his hands back to set the bat to swing. In other words, his hands are not set as the pitcher's windup begins, creating excess movement as the pitch is being delivered.

• All of the above factors means that Bauers has less time to see the windup and ball through the air. It makes his swing very timing-dependent. Sometimes, he can use his natural power to make contact like what you see above. More often though, his timing is off and he can't quite make solid contact.

The swing above is very similar to the one Bauers had when he first started playing games for Scranton in 2022. Change occurred late last year, and we can see the immediate difference in the two videos below:

The first is from earlier this year in Scranton:

The second is from a homer Bauers hit for the Yanks on May 3rd:

Even the untrained eye can see a huge difference here:

• Bauers has a batting stance that is much more evenly aligned, though it still drifts into being slightly open to the pitcher. Bauers' stance is also significantly more upright, with more relaxed arms and legs.

• While Bauers has some pre-pitch movement still, the movement halts almost completely as the pitcher begins his windup.

• Most critically, Bauers' hands are set and coiled as the windup begins. This achieves two aims: 1.) Bauers has more time to watch the windup and the ball out of the pitcher's hand, and 2.) Bauers' hand/bat path is significantly more direct to the ball, allowing him to both begin his swing later and keep the bat through the strike zone longer.

• This is my personal belief, but I also believe that Bauers gets a better coil on the swings from this year, which also allows him to see the ball better.

These are huge changes, mechanically. It would be easy to say that Bauers is just running hot right now, but the swing changes are very real, and are the likely reason for his hot start this season.

What Do The Stats Say?

The statistics say that Bauers is a really good offensive player...who might even be a bit unlucky so far. Bauers has an above-average average exit velocity, plus-plus max exit velocity, and a good looking spray chart. Add it all up, and as good as Bauers has been, he's actually underperforming what Statcast would expect, as his wOBA and batting average are all short of expected numbers based on his batted ball profile.

Among the best changes that Bauers has made is that for the first time in his career, he is hitting breaking balls and off-speed pitches with authority, with a .405 wOBA against breaking balls and a .393 wOBA against off-speed stuff, while maintaining his typically strong numbers against fastballs. I would expect all of this with the mechanical changes Bauers has made - he can see the ball longer, so he has more time to react to breaking and off-speed stuff!

Bauers strikes out and whiffs too often, but he balances that by making gobs of hard contact and walking a ton. In short, there's nothing fluky in the numbers.

Conclusion

The Yankees' left-handed outfielder with pop has already arrived, at least for now. Jake Bauers is ready to be part of the solution in left field in 2023. The Yankees deserve credit for helping a former top prospect make mechanical changes that have allowed him to tap into his obvious talent.