To start out issues off, right here’s a riddle for you. Which of those two batting strains would you favor?
Thriller Batters, Chosen Stats
| Batter | BB% | Okay% | Barrel% | HardHit% | SwStr% | GB/FB | LD% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Batter A | 12.9% | 30.9% | 18.3% | 50.9% | 14.2% | 0.88 | 19.1% |
| Batter B | 22.2% | 32.7% | 18.8% | 59.4% | 13.3% | 0.89 | 23.2% |
They’re comparable, little doubt. I’m fairly certain you’d decide Batter B, although. He walks much more and hits extra line drives. He additionally hits the ball exhausting extra regularly whereas swinging and lacking much less regularly. Batter A is Nick Kurtz’s spectacular 2025 season (.290/.383/.619, 170 wRC+). Batter B? Nick Kurtz’s sluggish begin to 2026 (.244/.412/.412, 130 wRC+). Huh?
Kurtz’s early-season energy outage is difficult to grasp. His course of statistics all look phenomenal. His xwOBA is up 12 months over 12 months. He’s already posted the next most exit velocity, and his common and Ninetieth-percentile exit velocities are each within the prime 5 in baseball. However they don’t play the sport in a Statcast spreadsheet, and Kurtz’s outcomes have dipped meaningfully. In 2025, he hit a homer each 13 plate appearances. This 12 months, that quantity is above 30. His ISO is down from .329 to .168.
Right here’s a consultant house run from his rookie 12 months:
That’s a swing designed to hit the ball with authority the opposite means. Reverse area god James Wooden produced a .594 wOBA on balls he went the opposite means with final 12 months. Aaron Choose managed a .569 mark. Kurtz checked in at .750 – and .789 when he stored the ball off the bottom. Each marks had been the most effective within the majors by greater than 100 factors of wOBA. Check out all of the purple close to the left area fence on his spray chart:
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Reverse area energy is unusual. We have a tendency to consider energy as coming to the pull aspect. That’s as a result of hitting the ball to the pull aspect typically requires getting your bat additional into its swing path, additional out entrance, if you make contact. That offers the bat extra time to speed up. Should you’re on the lookout for an instance, take Alex Bregman. His pulled elevated contact comes on swings which might be 1.5 mph sooner on common than his opposite-field elevated contact. He additionally will get the ball into the air extra successfully to the pull aspect – he hits it at harmful angles, mainly. That’s how he squeezes the utmost doable juice out of his batted balls.
Kurtz faces the identical tradeoff, not less than on the floor. He, too, data larger bat speeds when he pulls the ball. However when you hit the ball as exhausting as he does, that’s much less of an issue. Kurtz is “sacrificing” two ticks of bat pace, identical to Bregman, however Kurtz’s 77.3 mph mark to the other area is ludicrously good anyway. He hits balls to the other area more durable than Bregman hits balls to the pull aspect.
You’ll be able to consider Kurtz’s swing as dialed to this frequency. When commentators discuss staying again and hitting the ball to the other area energy alley, that is what they imply. Right here’s a chart from Baseball Savant exhibiting the launch angle and exit velocity of Kurtz’s opposite-field contact:
This 12 months, Kurtz hasn’t fairly stored up that wonderful oppo pop. In reality, he hasn’t hit a single house run the opposite means but:
This 12 months’s radial chart exhibits what’s gone mistaken. Too many excessive fly balls, mainly, and never sufficient pure contact:
Right here’s how I take into consideration this: It’s a small pattern and something can occur. However even with that caveat, contemplate this. Should you ignore grounders, Kurtz had a mean launch angle of 34 levels on his opposite-field contact final 12 months. That’s nice; it’s mainly the perfect house run angle. Contemplating how exhausting he swings, you are able to do the maths. However this 12 months, he’s hitting the ball at a 41 diploma launch angle to the other area, and that’s quite a bit worse. Amongst balls hit with a launch angle between 40 and 42 levels final 12 months, and hit between 100 and 105 mph off the bat, 15% changed into homers. Amongst balls hit with a launch angle between 33 and 35 levels final 12 months, and hit between 100 and 105 mph off the bat, 48% changed into homers.
In the meantime, an increasing number of of Kurtz’s finest contact is heading straight again up the center. He’s completely tattooing the ball when he makes use of heart area, with a mean exit velocity above 97 mph, however the huge a part of the stadium is holding a variety of these balls in. That additionally explains why his Statcast x-stats haven’t moved at the same time as his outcomes have waned; he’s hitting extra balls to heart, the place wOBA typically underperforms xwOBA, and fewer to the corners, the place balls that don’t carry as far can nonetheless depart the park.
This downside exhibits up most regularly on fastballs, the pitches that Kurtz’s swing is designed to take the opposite means with authority. He’s slugging solely .618 in opposition to four-seamers this 12 months, down from .776 final 12 months, and solely .304 (in opposition to a earlier .623) in opposition to sinkers. He’s getting the ball within the air much less regularly in opposition to them, and he nonetheless swings and misses regularly. In any case, his swing is ferocious. It’s simply not paying the identical dividends that it did in 2025.
In opposition to sinkers, cutters, and four-seamers mixed, Kurtz has added about half a run of offensive worth above common per 100 fastballs seen this 12 months. He checked in at 2.5 runs above common per 100 pitches final 12 months, which was third in baseball, behind solely Kyle Schwarber and Choose. This 12 months, he’s ranked subsequent to Kyle Karros and Justin Crawford, seventy fifth out of 217. That’s some downgrade.
This would possibly sound like a catastrophe situation for Kurtz, however I see it otherwise. Let’s put it this manner: Kurtz can’t smash fastballs proper now. He’s placing out 33% of the time. His best superpower from final 12 months, the flexibility to take the ball the opposite means for additional bases, has fully vanished. His contact charge is among the lowest in baseball. Oh yeah, and he’s been 30% above common offensively whereas all of that has been happening.
Do you suppose Kurtz goes to maintain flailing away helplessly in opposition to fastballs? That doesn’t really feel like a wise guess to me. He’s a 6-foot-5 energy monster with one of the vital violent, extra-base-hunting swings in baseball. Likewise, do you suppose he’s going to maintain swinging underneath balls and placing them too excessive within the air to the other area? Most likely not. That type of timing comes and goes – everybody has cold and warm streaks, in any case. I can’t fairly inform you what’s mechanically mistaken, or even when something is mechanically mistaken. Generally hitters simply don’t have their timing proper for some time, and regardless of a detailed examination of Kurtz’s swing, I haven’t seen a lot of a distinction.
That’s my takeaway. Kurtz is mired in a hunch proper now. When among the best fastball hitters in baseball is doing this poorly on contact, there’s no different option to put it. It’s simply that his hunch appears to be like like a 130 wRC+. His hunch additionally included a 20-game stroll streak, as a result of although he’s not locked in for the time being, pitchers are nonetheless completely scared of giving him one thing to hit. I’m unsure when he’ll escape of his latest run of poor outcomes on contact. However although his batting line is worse this 12 months, and although he strikes out sufficient to make me uncomfortable, I’m extraordinarily inspired by what Kurtz is doing this 12 months. If he’s hitting like this with out crushing fastballs, think about the upside from right here.
All statistics by means of video games on Might 4, 2026.