The how and why of Pence's new swing

Hunter Pence's retooled swing was all the rave in Rangers camp this spring, and as the season has blown past the one-third mark, there is now quantifiable evidence that the 36-year-old is seeing tangible results from his adjustments -- and beyond the significant uptick in his conventional numbers.

Pence is in territory that no one envisioned he’d be in. Signed to a Minor League contract on Feb. 7, the three-time All-Star played his way onto the big league roster in Spring Training, then into an everyday role as the regular season progressed. He’s been the biggest surprise on a team that has itself been the biggest surprise in the American League.

Pence is slashing .287/.339/.593 for a .932 OPS that is on pace for a career high. He’s already homered 13 times, equaling his total for his last full season in 2017.

The overhaul to Pence’s mechanics are drastic, he says -- yet to the untrained eye, they may seem subtle, given that he still embodies many flamboyant mannerisms that made him one of the game's most recognizable players.

“I almost feel like I'm playing a whole new game,” Pence said. “I feel like a veteran rookie right now.”

Here’s a breakdown of Pence’s changes, installed through guidance from private hitting coach Doug Latta last offseason, and how they’ve impacted his swing.

He’s increased his bat speed

Pence is striking balls at an average of 92.7 mph, well above his previous career-high of 90.8 mph in 2016 (exit velocity only goes back to ’15, when Statcast came online). Pence is also hitting the ball hard with more consistency. Statcast classifies anything 95 mph as hard-hit, and Pence’s hard-hit rate this season has climbed to 46.9 percent, which ranks 30th among 228 qualified hitters, in the 88th percentile. Pence has never finished higher than the 77th percentile.

Of course, Pence was on the injured list every year from 2015-’18 with the Giants, which could have a direct correlation on bat speed. Pence also said that he’s not pulling as much with his bottom hand and front shoulder, which limited how much power he was able to coil through his back. Essentially, he’s accessing muscles he wasn’t before, and doing so from a more consistent hitting position before taking the actual swing.

“I'm swinging with a completely different hand, a completely different everything,” Pence said. “It's way less effort and you're using your back side. It's just physics. All of your leverage is closer to yourself, so there's more power near your core.”

He’s getting the ball in the air more

When he enlisted Latta, who’s worked with Justin Turner and other big leaguers, Pence didn’t set out to create a higher launch angle. But he’s inherently done so by exploiting his right (top) hand for more power on his follow-through, which has created more lift.

“He’s not trying to hit balls in the air like these uppercut guys,” Latta said. “But by being able to hit longer in the zone, he’s able to get in position to get the ball off the bat in a better place, and that helps him get an upper trajectory.”

Pence has always specialized in pitch identification. He’s hitting .333 against offspeed offerings this year, including .313 against breaking balls. By supplementing that skill with his more elevated swing, Pence says he’s able to better dictate his bat path to each pitch’s specific plane.

“I've always had pitch identification. That's something that, [after] 12 years or so in the big leagues, you're always identifying pitches,” Pence said. “The longer your barrel is in the zone, the more opportunity you have to hit the ball, and also you're attacking different planes that the pitchers are throwing from. So your barrel has to match that, and you want to give yourself probabilities to hit that ball.”

By keeping his barrel in the zone longer, Pence is striking the ball at a more optimum point. His launch angle this year is nearly double any of his previous career high.

Pence’s average launch angle, 2015-19
2015: 2.9 degrees
2016: 5.3 degrees
2017: 4.4 degrees
2018: 5.7 degrees
2019: 10.5 degrees

He’s getting to pitches that he wasn’t before

Take his triple against the Mariners on May 29, for instance, on a low changeup from Wade LeBlanc. Pence said that was a pitch that he’d “roll over” on before, but instead he pulled it for a liner to the left-field wall.

It’s one of many samples as to how Pence’s fly-ball/line-drive rate has ballooned to 48.1 percent, up from 39.4 percent over Statcast’s first four years of tracking. In congruence, his ground-ball rate is down to 45.9 percent.

“Swing down on the ball and stay inside of it has always been what I was taught coming up,” Pence said. “But it's a whole new upside-down world of swinging under and swinging up. I was more of a see-it, hit-it and swing down on the ball kind of guy. It wasn't a definite technique to it, so it was a constantly an everyday feel thing, versus today, [when] I know what I want my swing to do.”

“With a little bit of swing modification," Latta added, "he’s able to get to a contact point that he can stay through a multitude of contact points on every pitch. We’re not going to get to every pitch at the same spot every time. We have to stay on plane and hit a ball within a margin. ... You can’t teach a hitter that you’re going to hit everything at 22 degrees."

The wholesale changes are an everyday practice

Pence connected with Latta last spring, but they agreed not to dive into major changes until the offseason, which came at a career crossroads. Many thought Pence was headed to retirement -- even Rangers manager Chris Woodward, who, as Dodgers third-base coach in 2018, congratulated Pence on an accoladed career during the Giants’ final series against L.A. last season.

“I told him congratulations when he was coming off the field the last day,” Woodward said. “I said, ‘Hey, man, if this happens to be it, you’ve had a hell of a career. I really enjoyed watching you play.' He says, ‘I’m not done.’”

Those types of tokens are a reminder to Pence of the importance of maintaining his new mechanics with rigorous repetition and detail. He ditched a swing that made him a second-round Draft pick and two-time World Series champion, and he's cognizant that such muscle memory will be difficult to permanently eliminate.

“I'm still fine-tuning it every day,” Pence said. “Some days, it clicks super easy, and then I come in the next day and try to do what I think is the same thing and it's not clicking. So I have to fine-tune it like wrist angles and launch position and all that. ... But it's great. It's great to be a part of such a good team and to represent my hometown team and just have the opportunity to play baseball. It's been pretty miraculous."