h716a5.icuAhead of the 2025 MLB season, Baseball Savant, MLB's Statcast data platform and website, released a new set of stats for the public to use related to batting stances. It tracks foot placement of each batter at stance set, at pitch release and at bat-ball intercept, giving rise to an entirely new way to quantify a previously part of the game.
Now, it's easier than ever to correlate a player making stance adjustments with improved performance, and with a significant portion of the season in the rearview mirror here in mid-May, it's worth seeing the early returns of players who have come in with adjusted stances compared to last season.
To do that, we looked at stance data from the last two years where players took at least 100 swings. Then, we looked at OPS, using 100 at-bats as a qualifier. There are seven such players entering Wednesday that changed their stance by at least five degrees and have seen a season-long OPS improvement of 0.200 or greater compared to their season average from last year.
Here are those players, with all stats updated entering Wednesday.
Kyle Stowers made history with the first-ever Marlins Opening Day walk-off hit and hasn't looked back, already hitting five more home runs than last year (increasing from three to eight) in about 50 fewer plate appearances.
Stowers's batted ball map is much more evenly distributed this year than last, largely because he's doubled the rate at which he barrels the ball. Stowers seems to be seeing the ball better in his new stance as well, with a much-improved walk rate in '25.
It’ll be worth watching how well he can maintain these results as he approaches his career high in plate appearances. So far, it looks like more regular opportunities and a new stance are doing him well.