Image: (Nathan Ray Seebeck/Imagn Images)
We hold these truths to be self-evident that America’s pastime is undoubtedly baseball.
One could argue that a close runner up, though, is the act of bemoaning that things in the past were better than they are today. When you combine the two, you get a forceful convergence; you unleash what dwells in the very depths of our subconscious, a conviction too entrenched to exorcise.
The old-timers will say that real baseball was a game filled with bunts, and hit-and-runs, a game where .300 hitters were commonplace. Back in the golden days of baseball, nobody had any of this slurve-sweeper-cutter-slambio hogwash in their arsenals, pitchers threw complete games, and hitters would choke up with two strikes, preventing them from striking out ~200 times per season.
If this hypothetical person is reciting these talking points in a conversation, you, as the modern, somewhat analytically adept fan, can interrupt them right there – in fact, many players have two-strike approaches, where they shorten their swing to prioritize contact and minimize whiffs.
To find a prominent example, look no further than Cody Bellinger, the former MVP and current Yankee outfielder. I previously wrote a player profile on Bellinger that can be accessed here, and to extract the pertinent information from that article, I can say that Bellinger is no stranger to modifying his swing. Since his steep post-MVP season regression, he has had to adjust his swing to prioritize making more contact. He did this to a successful degree in 2023, maintaining higher levels of contact and line drives, leading to a resurgent season with a respectable power output.
In 2024, though, his numbers declined again, leading to another adjustment this year, where he has increased his bat speed and pull rate to take advantage of the Yankee Stadium short porch. After a rough start, he has rebounded and his adjustments have paid off; he has combined his highest exit velocities since his Dodger years without majorly sacrificing contact, which was part of the reason for his struggles at the end of his Dodgers tenure.
But another important feature of his profile is his two-strike approach, something that is blatantly evident when watching his swing and often showered with praise by the broadcasters. Often, he will spoil any pitch that comes close to the strike zone, extending his at-bats and wearing down the pitcher. When he does make contact with one of his abbreviated two-strike swings, the ball is rarely a hard-hit fly ball, but instead a shot to the opposite side of the field.
While this may seem like the right thing to do in theory, there may also be drawbacks. Going into protect mode results in chasing pitches outside the strike zone, possibly negating some of the positive effects his shortened swing has on his whiff rates. Furthermore, if he does end up making contact with his two-strike approach, then the probability of that contact resulting in a positive result is relatively lower than that of his normal approach: this could be from chasing a bad pitch and making weak contact because of the pitch location, but also in-zone contact will be softer than his typical approach, thereby reducing the probability of that contact resulting in a positive outcome.
The question is, which of these effects outweigh each other? These are only the hypothesized effects of a two-strike approach, so it is necessary to dive into the numbers to see its tangible results. How do his approaches compare to each other, and to the rest of the league?
Firstly, to dispel the idea that this type of approach is an extinct practice in modern baseball, the data shows that this trend is not unique to Bellinger. Across the board, the MLB average swing speed changes based on the count.
To demonstrate this, I generated a plot in R showing swing speed based on the count league-wide:
In 2025, when the batter is ahead in the count, the league average bat speed is ~73.55 mph, whereas in an even count it is ~72 mph, and when behind it is ~70.2 mph. For Bellinger himself, his bat speed while ahead is ~72.5, and when behind it is ~68.0 – this difference is 4.45 mph, compared to the league average difference of 3.275 mph.
But his two strike approach is more than just a change in bat speed. His approach results in a decrease in pull and fly ball rate, often showcasing him shooting the ball to left-center field. At random, I clicked on one of his singles that Baseball Savant shows on his spray chart and the video that popped up was this one, a perfect encapsulation of his approach:
Eduardo Perez in the broadcast even called out this approach promptly before he hit the single. While the pull/oppo effect is not very pronounced, the launch angle is. Ahead in the count, Bellinger has a .70 ground ball to fly ball ratio and an average launch angle of 25 degrees, but when behind, the ground ball to fly ball ratio and average launch angle is 1.03 and 15 degrees, respectively.
To measure the true impact of Bellinger’s shortened approach, it can be worthwhile to measure it against his numbers when ahead and overall, yet that still does not tell us much. When he reaches a favorable hitter’s count, he has a 157 wRC+ the rest of the at-bat, while when reaching a pitcher’s count, he has a 77 wRC+ the rest of the at-bat.
This does not convey much relevant information either, though. The respective count states are named hitter’s and pitcher’s counts because they favor each respective party (obviously). With more balls in a count, the pitcher is forced to throw more strikes, and the hitter knows this, increasing the likelihood of swinging hard and making strong contact. This is the entire reason for shortening up and protecting the zone with two strikes in the first place. League-wide, here are the whiff and chase rates by count:
The count with highest chase rate is 1-2, while the count with the highest whiff rate is 0-2. At first glance, this seems a little off, but it makes sense: At 0-2, the pitcher has plenty of balls to spare, meaning their pitch is more likely to be a “waste” pitch, or just a ball farther from the strike zone. This makes it more easily identifiable as a ball to the hitter, but in the event that they do swing, it makes it more likely to result in a whiff.
At 1-2, the pitcher has fewer balls to spare, meaning they will take more of a chance of throwing it near the zone, yet won’t lay it in there as they would in a 3-0 or 3-1 count. The lower percentage of waste pitches/the pitches being closer to the zone results in more swings, explaining the higher chase rate and lower whiff rate.
Here are Bellinger’s whiff and chase rates by count:
(Once again, attempts to recreate these values with Baseball Savant may result in slightly different numbers.)
His two-strike approach pops off the page: his chase rate goes from 7.2% at 0-0 to 30.4% at 0-2 and 33.5% at 1-2, yet his whiff rate takes a nosedive, stemming from his shortened swing. But all this does is confirm the initial reasoning – that his two-strike increases chase rate and lowers whiff rate. Finding the true virtue of his two-strike approach means the outcome must be measured in comparison with the rest of the league.
As such, I generated a chart showing the count and then the bat speed and wOBA for league averages, Bellinger, and Yandy Diaz. I included Yandy Diaz because a batter with a similar wOBA can more vividly illuminate the effects of Bellinger’s two-strike approach, as Bellinger’s batting run value is 84th percentile, significantly above the league average, meaning that the two cannot be exactly compared to determine the impact of Bellinger’s 2 strike approach. Diaz has the same batting run value as Bellinger (15) and a similar overall wOBA (.350 wOBA compared to Bellinger’s .352), making him a fitting comparison, despite having a higher bat speed. I used wOBA because it is, in my opinion, the most effective and all-encompassing stat, including all methods of getting on base and giving more weight to extra-base hits. Here are the results:
The chart shows that Yandy Diaz slows down his swing to some extent, but not quite to the level as Bellinger, whose wOBA is higher in two-strike situations than that of Diaz and the league average. At an 0-2 count, when his two-strike approach is most pronounced – seen in the high chase rate and low whiff rate – his wOBA difference is also most pronounced, standing at .307 while Yandy Diaz and the league average both had wOBA’s under .200.
Another method of determining the utility of Bellinger’s approach versus the rest of the league is to look at the difference in overall and ahead-in-the-count wOBA from behind-in-the-count wOBA. The league average is .314, and Bellinger’s is .352, so the difference between those benchmarks and the wOBA at 0-2 is .137 for the league average and .045 for Bellinger. For a 1-2 count, the difference is more comparable – the league average difference is .127, while for Bellinger it is .122. Even still, the 0-2 numbers illustrate a higher drop-off in wOBA for the league average than for Bellinger, indicating that his approach adds at least some relative positive impact on his numbers, controlled for other factors.
Furthermore, I generated league rankings of wOBA to see where Bellinger falls among batters with at least 50 plate appearances at 0-2. In an 0-2 count, Bellinger’s .307 is the 25th highest wOBA in the league. While the top 10 featured some names one would expect – Jose Ramirez (10th with .354 wOBA) and Alex Bregman (3rd with .450), it also included some unexpected names like Tommy Pham (1st with a .500 wOBA in 58 PA??!!!) and Edgar Quero, who was 2nd with a .463 wOBA.
If 0-1, 0-2, and 1-2 are taken together, Bellinger is 45th of 348 players with a .296 wOBA in those counts. Given that his overall wOBA of .352 is 57th in the league, this indicates that his 2 strike approach is relatively effective, but not to an overwhelming degree. Looking at his overall profile, it plays a role in his low K% of 13.1%, 91st percentile in the league – Bellinger is able to maintain both low strikeouts and strong slugging numbers because he makes up for his weak 2-strike contact with home-run hitting power in favorable counts.
Aside from the tangible outcome of his plate appearances, seeing more pitches has cascading effects on the rest of the game, wearing down the pitcher and presenting more opportunities for him to make a mistake. If the player has the ability to modify their swing to the extent that Bellinger does, a similar approach may be worth considering, especially for one who wants to lower their strikeout percentage.
While this inquiry can give a general indication as to the wisdom of Bellinger’s two-strike approach, it will require more analysis to determine what the correct course should be for each player when they reach two strikes.
This element of the game can be evaluated from a multitude of different angles: what percentage of his relative success can be attributed to his shortened swing? Were he to use his approach while ahead in disadvantageous counts, would his results improve, or get worse? In this scenario, the opportunity cost of a certain behavior is an evasive object to identify. A tenet that one can fall back on is that MLB organizations and players, especially the Yankees and Bellinger, are clever, and the approaches displayed in-game are often ones optimized to the eccentricities of the player. Even still, it is still an intricate, interesting vestige of an old-fashioned, feel-driven mindset within a game obsessed with quantification.
As with any doctrine, ideology, or system in history, the modern game of baseball is not an entity existing devoid of context, or one established by completely spurning and disregarding its forefathers. Rather, it was built upon the foundation established by the trends and innovators of the past, more akin to the layered ruins of an ancient city than iron being melted down and reworked in a forge. Just as Newton was to Einstein and Aristotle to Newton, the data scientists and baseball strategists of today have had their philosophies shaped by the innovators and legends who came before them, whether Billy Beane, Pete Rose, Ted Williams, or Babe Ruth, no matter how disparate their beliefs may appear. To see their influence, all you need to do is peel back the curtain.
Categories: Analysis, Articles, MLB Player Profiles
M-SABR 
Leave a comment