With a.400/.449/.667 line this spring, Kyren Paris transformed from a forgotten prospect to an unexpected addition to the 26-man roster, taking the Angels’ organization by storm. Many thought the 23-year-old was a flop after his two brief major league trips in 2023 and 2024, during which he hit.100 and.118, respectively.
However, when that hot hitting carried over to the regular season, Paris slashed a mind-numbing . 400/.488/.914 from the first day of play until April 12th, and the whole baseball community started to pay attention. However, Paris has been stuck in a 1-for-26 slump with no walks and 15 strikeouts from April 13 to April 24, raising doubts about the validity of his breakout performance.
Because of the effort he performed in the winter, Paris’ early-season hot run appeared more significant. Instead of relying solely on chance, Paris sought assistance during the winter, working with Aaron Judge’s personal hitting instructor Richard Schenck and radically changing his mechanics and posture. The spring training and early-season outcomes were Judge-like, and Paris’s setup at the dish looks a lot like Judge’s.
But baseball is a game of adaptation, and many young players have quickly lost their spark because they couldn’t adjust to the way pitchers attack them after the book comes out. Paris is going through this right now, and in order to keep from becoming a pumpkin and demonstrating that his early-season success was a hoax, he will need to make some precise improvements.
Angels’ star Kyren Paris needs to make these key adjustments to prove his breakout is for real
Paris wasn’t going to bat.400 all season long, but he can make some precise tweaks to show that he can get back on track and that his early-season success wasn’t an exception.
Pitchers have noticed that the young Angel has a tendency to chase pitches, especially ones that are above or below the zone. His season-long pursuit rate of 29.5% puts him in the 34th percentile among baseball players. His whiff rate of 44.6% places him at the very bottom of the first percentile, indicating that he typically misses when he chases.
Fastballs over the strike zone have been often observed in Paris, and they have been offered at rates far higher than usual. Paris has swung and missed at pitches in four six-inch sectors above the strike zone far more often than the typical hitter in most situations, according to Baseball Savant. In the three sectors directly above the strike zone, his whiff percentage varies from 40% to 67%, while the league average runs from 24% to 25%, depending on the sector. He has a whiff rate of 0% above the strike zone and on the inside corner, compared to a league average of 26%.
Paris has also had trouble getting out of the zone when sinkers are down there because pitchers have discovered that the best way to get him out is to work north to south against him with velocity. Paris recorded run values of 6.9 against fastballs and 0.0 against sinkers from the first day until April 12; however, between April 13 and April 24, those values dropped to -1.2 against fastballs and -1.9 against sinkers.
Paris only swung at offers beyond the strike zone 25% of the time while he was on a roll in the early going, seeing 56.2% of pitches in the zone. Since April 13th, pitchers have recognized that the young player is prone to pursuing, which has caused the zone percentage to plummet to 50.8% and his swing rate at balls beyond the strike zone to soar to 33.9%.
Paris will need to make the required changes to lay off pitches above the zone and respond faster to pitches with velocity at the bottom of the strike zone, regardless of whether the problem is overconfidence following such a run of success in the early going or a problem with pitch detection.
The good news is that young players often have these problems because they get swing happy, especially when they had some early success. Unfortunately, not everyone is able to break free from those negative patterns and adopt a more responsible approach at the plate. It remains to be seen what course Paris will take.
