'Less Maintenance': Rhys Hoskins Rejuvenated By Fresh Legs and an Old Timing Mechanism

[Jack Stern]

Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images

A resurgent Rhys Hoskins has been among the few bright spots in a scuffling Brewers lineup. After struggling to a .214/.303/.419 line and career-worst 100 wRC+ last year, the veteran first baseman enters Wednesday hitting .297/.402/.483 (145 wRC+), his best output since his rookie campaign in 2017. That offense is mostly backed up, too. Beneath Hoskins's .375 wOBA is a .365 xwOBA.

Through the season's first couple of weeks, the results were similar to last year. Hoskins entered April 20 slashing .232/.333/.357 with a 97 wRC+. During that time, he started toying in practice settings with ways to improve his timing.

"Not great the first couple weeks," he said. "Felt like I was having good at-bats still, but just tried to simplify things."

Hoskins brought those adjustments into game action against the Athletics that night. In his second at-bat against Jeffrey Springs, he traded his leg kick for a toe-to-heel move. He barely lifts his foot, brings the front of it down early, and drives the rest into the ground as he swings.

While different than the load Hoskins has typically utilized in the big leagues, it's not entirely new to him.

"It's how I used to hit," he said. "This is how I used to hit in college."

The early returns were as promising as they could be. In his first at-bat with the reincorporated timing mechanism, Hoskins homered.

"It was like, 'Alright, I should probably explore this a little bit more,'" he said. "And then later in that game, facing [Noah Murdock]—big sinker, arms flying everywhere, maybe a guy that I would previously have struggled with, with the leg kick and trying to time it up—I ended up getting a base hit to right field. It was like, I pulled a ball in the air with some authority, but also took the base hit when I needed it. It's kind of all you need to see, and just kind of stuck with it from there."

Hoskins hasn't looked back since, hitting .337/.463/.562 in 108 plate appearances with the toe-to-heel move.

"I just feel like that's given me a better chance to see the ball longer," he said. "I think my head is moving a lot less. There's still maintenance, because there's maintenance with everything, but there's just less maintenance. There's less going into the cage every day and figuring out when I've got to pick my foot up. And then there's going to be the guy that has a slide step or has a double pump. So, yeah, it was just trying to simplify things as much as I could."

The modified load works because he has his legs back under him. Hoskins maintains that a healthier lower half is the primary catalyst for his bounceback.

"It's huge, man," he said. "I'm not sure I would have been able to do this sort of simple load last year, not having the confidence that I can hit against my front leg. Last year, I feel like I almost had to collide with balls, which is not a great feeling. It's kind of like roulette."

Hoskins returned from ACL reconstruction surgery last year and also missed time with a hamstring injury. While on the field, he struggled to transfer weight into his front leg, which impacted his timing and ability to generate power. It robbed him of the rotational explosiveness that helped him spoil or turn around high-velocity pitches, which put him in a worse spot to react to anything soft.

"You feel like you've got to almost cheat to the fastball, right?" he said. "You're so much more susceptible to anything offspeed, especially away, because then you end up running out of bat. Front shoulder goes, the front hip maybe goes a little early, just because you feel like, 'Oh, I gotta go in order to get to this heater.'"

Fast forward a year, and a healthier Hoskins is back to driving into his front leg.

"Instead of just falling, there's something that I can push up against, which I think gives me a little bit more torque. I don't know exactly what bat speed stuff or anything like that says, but I feel stronger."

With his mobility restored and the toe-to-heel load improving his timing, Hoskins is back to producing at a high level. That doesn't mean he's back to his pre-surgery form, though. This is a different version of Hoskins that's achieving results in new ways. Some of his signature strengths have returned. For starters, Hoskins is back to crushing four-seamers and two-seamers.

He's also hitting the ball hard more often. His 47.2% hard-hit rate and 46.2% sweet-spot percentage (batted balls with a launch angle between 8° and 32°) are both career bests.

Beyond that, Hoskins's profile differs considerably from his last few pre-injury seasons. He is controlling the strike zone as effectively as ever, thanks partly to his simplified load. Since ditching the leg kick, he has drawn walks at a 15.7% clip and chased just 16.8% of pitches outside the strike zone, levels of selectivity he hasn't shown since his first couple of seasons.

"It's kind of just a trickle-down effect, right?" he said. "I'm down ready to hit, ready to fire earlier. In my mind, I can see the ball better earlier, which means I have more time to make a decision on swing or no swing, which I think leads to swinging at more strikes and taking more balls."

In addition to hitting the ball harder than ever, the trajectory of Hoskins's contact is much different. For most of his career, he was a prototypical low-average power hitter, who racked up home runs by launching fly balls. So far this year, he's been a line-drive machine.

"He hit [26] big home runs for us last year, and I remember every one of them," Pat Murphy said. "This year, he's been more of a complete hitter: on base, not chasing, big hit after big hit, like you might expect."

These changes have Hoskins hitting for a much higher average than he typically does, but the tradeoff is that his power output has dipped. His home run on Tuesday night was just his sixth of the season, and his .168 isolated power is a career low. That's partially because more of his loudest contact is now on a line, instead of higher in the air. Statcast is stricter with its fly ball classifications than FanGraphs, and it says those balls are not coming off Hoskins's bat with quite the same authority as usual, causing his HR/FB ratio to decrease.

Season	FB%	HR/FB%	FB Hard-Hit%	FB xwOBA
2017	36.5%	37.0%	54.3%	.590
2018	34.4%	21.1%	52.1%	.463
2019	33.7%	20.6%	48.5%	.427
2020	40.7%	22.7%	52.3%	.540
2021	36.7%	24.0%	57.7%	.614
2022	33.0%	20.0%	54.3%	.499
2024	36.6%	23.2%	58.9%	.462
2025	32.1%	17.1%	41.2%	.372

It's still early, though. May has historically been Hoskins's least powerful month on a rate basis, and he often heats up in that department as the weather warms. Even if the new iteration hits fewer long balls than in the past, he should still exceed 20 by year's end. Murphy expects to see more slugging as the season progresses.

"I do think the home runs will be there," he said. "When the time comes, I think they'll be there because his legs are there."

Hoskins knows the importance of keeping those legs healthy, particularly as he deals with changes to his body. Now 32 years old, he is working to keep his lower half in good shape for the long haul.

"You just have to stay on top of that," he said. "You have to be proactive about that, I think, especially as you age."

"He works very hard at it, and he still trains very hard," Murphy said. "And as you get older, your body doesn't work exactly the same. Even his physique is different than it was five or six years ago, like most of us."

Hoskins won't continue hitting at his current rate. Even if his production so far is deserved, few hitters remain this locked in for an entire season. Still, his improvements are legitimate, which is a great development for both the player and the team.

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[Michael Trzinski]

Just goes to show you how the little adjustments can make a world of difference. Hopefully he can keep it up!

[Team Canada]

Rhys currently has the 13th highest OPS in the NL, and would be near the top if you remove his cold start. Not too shabby.

[Samurai Bucky]

Thank you for writing the article.  I had noticed the small toe touch recently.

My question is -- is this something the hitting coaches should notice, or are they trying to figure it out themselves? 

I'm guessing that if there is something the coaches have been teaching it would be leaning back more to get lift on the ball.  If you look at many of the stances, they are starting out with a lot of weight on the back foot reducing the load, but generating more forward momentum when they attack the ball.  That would explain why the Brewers have been off in regards to their timing.

If you look at the two swings, by toe touching in the second video, it give Hoskins the opportunity to stop his head and fix his eyes.  This allows him to react better by not introduce two different moving things (ball and head / eyes).  If somebody is struggling, quieting things down, like Hoskins has, is a great start.