Has Eric Brown Jr Finally Found His Professional Swing?

I took notice of a change in the positioning of Eric Brown Jr's hands on Jun. 7, when he hit his first home run of the season. That led me to look back at prior game footage to try to figure out when, exactly, the change had happened.

I came to the conclusion that Jun. 5 was the day he first debuted the new hand position, at least to its full extent. At the time of the change, Brown Jr was slashing .155/.231/.202, for a wRC+ of 33. He was only walking at a 7% clip, though he did limit his strikeout rate to 16.8%. To put it bluntly, he was off to a horrific start at the plate.

While Brown was doing a pretty good job of keeping his defense up to par, and he was 9-for-12 on stolen base attempts, defense and baserunning can only take you so far. The bat has to be providing much better than 70% below league average for any player to be making a positive impact on the game. Having that batting line for any meaningful length of time in the minors means you're near the cliff; your professional future in the game is in jeopardy.

These early season struggles are likely what convinced Brown to make the change in June, but what led him to this point? His hands were always in a somewhat weird spot (starting in front of his face), but he hadn’t struggled to anywhere near this extent at any point in his career. 

Below is a comparison of his load and swing from 2022 in the Complex League to 2023 with the Timber Rattlers (on top) and then earlier this year vs his new setup in 2024 (on bottom).

Obviously, his first swing had a ton of moving parts in it. It looks somewhat Keston Hiura-esque on the lower half, and the upper half has a lot of hand movement to get into the launch position. However, this was his swing. It was athletic, and it was something he was comfortable with. While it could have caused timing issues, it had yet to do so. In the second clip, you see that he had really toned down the lower half heading into 2023, and while his hands were still out in front of him, they had less movement as well.

In the third clip (which is from earlier this season), he seems to have lost athleticism in the swing, likely through the process of trying to simplify things even further. However, with his hands out in front still, and less power generated in the lower half, his bat speed was much slower than earlier in his career. In the fourth clip, we see some things clicking into place. The hands are starting behind his head, and there’s a bit more rhythm to the operation, helping him get back to a more natural-looking load and swing and get some of his bat speed back.

If Brown was going to change his swing, there were likely to be some bumps in the road. He hit a big bump early in the season, but this new swing looks a lot cleaner and he looks a lot more comfortable with it. Which is great, of course, but what about the results?

Giving him a few days to adjust to the change, let’s take a look at his stats from Jun. 11 through Jul. 22. In that time, Brown is slashing .275/.364/.418, which is good for a 129 wRC+ in the very pitcher-friendly Southern League. He has hit three home runs in that time, and is walking at an 11.2% clip, while keeping his strikeout rate down at 15%.

Without access to batted-ball metrics at the Double-A level, we can’t say for certain that Brown Jr has been hitting the ball with more authority since Jun. 11, though he certainly appears to be. What we can do, though, is compare some of the more important offensive stats that we have access to through FanGraphs and TruMedia.

The overall stats have improved, but you may be surprised by some of the batted-ball data. There hasn’t been a drastic change in his ground ball, fly ball, or line drive rates. In fact, he’s actually hitting a slightly lower percentage of line drives since the swing change. One important change is that he has lowered his popup rate from an awful 16% to a below-average 11.7%. Pop-ups are essentially a free out, just as much as a strikeout is, and he has cut that down, while increasing his actual fly-ball rate. Fly balls can turn into home runs and extra-base hits, as long as there is a little juice behind them. The surface-level numbers suggest to us that there is.

Another stat that may surprise people is the difference in his rate of hitting the ball up the middle (Center%). His 41.5% rate before the change was in the 97th percentile in Double-A. For most of baseball’s existence, hitters have been told to “hit the ball up the middle,” and the implication is that they will find a lot of success doing so.

The issue is that, unless you’re getting a lot of pitches over the heart of the plate, a propensity for hitting the ball up the middle at such a high rate actually often implies some timing issues. It says that you’re out in front of outside pitches a lot, and that you’re late and getting jammed on inside pitches. That’s not even touching on the fact that defensive positioning often takes away the middle of the field, in this day and age.

Seeing Brown pulling the ball and going the opposite way more often since the change is a good sign. It implies that he’s both seeing the ball better, as well as being able to start his swing a bit later in the process. That gives him time to read the pitch and react accordingly.

On the surface, this was seemingly a simple adjustment for Brown to make, but when you take into account where he started in 2022, this was the culmination of a lot of adjustments and a lot of tinkering. Hopefully, he’s found a comfortable setup and swing now, and it will only be smaller adjustments moving forward.

Perhaps this sort of progression to go from the 2022 swing to the current one was always part of the plan. Perhaps it wasn’t. Regardless, it seems like he may have found the best combination of athleticism and simplicity for himself. If the results over the last six weeks are any indication, Brown could be making his way back up the prospect lists that he had fallen to the bottom of--or off of, completely.

Had you given up on Brown? if so, does this give you some hope? Let us know what you think about the former first rounder!

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