Caleb Durbin is Making Plenty of Contact—Just All the Wrong Kinds

When Caleb Durbin lined an RBI single in his first at-bat on Monday night, it snapped an 0-for-24 slump for the rookie infielder. It's been a challenging first month since the Brewers gave Durbin the keys to third base in late April; the 25-year-old has hit just .174/.273/.244 (52 wRC+) in his first 100 plate appearances.

When Milwaukee acquired him in December as the long-term half of the return for Devin Williams, Durbin's bat-to-ball skills, plate discipline, and speed were his calling cards. Two of those tools have been on display since his debut. He enters Tuesday with a 7% strikeout rate and 87.5% contact rate, while chasing just 21.1% of pitches outside the strike zone.

There's a significant catch: most of that contact has been unproductive. Durbin's .177 BABIP is over 100 points below the league average, and while bad luck has played a role in his struggles, his lack of production is mostly deserved. According to Statcast, his .239 expected wOBA on contact is the lowest among hitters with at least 80 batted balls this year, by a wide margin; Adam Frazier's .263 is the next-lowest. That means Durbin is hitting balls at exit velocities and launch angles that rarely go for hits.

Durbin's dearth of hard contact was always the most glaring red flag in his profile, raising questions about whether he would hit for enough power to be a viable big-league bat. Among hitters with at least 250 batted balls in Triple A last year, his 25.4% hard-hit rate was in the 10th percentile. So far in the big leagues, it's 22.2%.

He found some power in the minor leagues by pulling the ball. Durbin did not make much loud contact last season, but he lined doubles down the left-field line and tucked handfuls of fly balls around the foul pole for home runs.

2024 MiLB Spray Chart

Durbin has tried to take that same approach to the big leagues, but it hasn't worked against higher-caliber pitching. According to FanGraphs, his pull rate has cratered, and he's instead lofting medium-hit flyouts to left-center and center field.

Elevating the baseball is a good thing, if you hit it hard with backspin. For Durbin, who often hits it under 90 mph, those balls hang up in the air for routine outs.

"You hit a ball in the air, and if it's not 400 feet, it's getting caught in the big leagues," Pat Murphy said. "And if it's only at 82 miles an hour, it's getting caught."

Durbin has trained with Aaron Judge's personal hitting coach and uses a similar swing mechanism. He coils around his back leg during his load, then snaps his barrel toward the ball while tilting his torso. According to Murphy, the timing of that mechanism has been off. Durbin is tilting too early before the snap, directing his swing path under the ball and turning what should be line drives into harmless flyouts.

"He's kind of a little bit out of sync, so his bat path and his ball flight are affected," Murphy said. "So he's on time for those pitches, he's just hitting them straight up in the air. You've got to hit those on a line."

Murphy met with Durbin to discuss his hitting on Monday afternoon. Hours later, he opened the scoring with a line-drive single to left in his first at-bat. He and the Brewers need much more of that. Durbin's early struggles raise questions about whether the success of his swing and approach is transferable to the big leagues. Hitting batted balls that are near-automatic outs won't get him anywhere.

Pitchers have no qualms over going right at him, either, throwing 56.7% of their pitches to Durbin in the strike zone. That's partially due to his placement near the bottom of the batting order, but it also conveys that opponents do not expect him to do damage on hittable pitches. Seeing so many strikes and failing to force pitchers outside the zone has limited Durbin to a 5% walk rate, despite his strong chase rate.

Murphy still believes Durbin's game can work, with the right tweaks.

"You know, what's funny is he's not—this sounds crazy—he's not far away," he said.

That's a more encouraging outlook than the alternative, which is that opposing hurlers already know how to exploit the same technique that brought Durbin success at lower levels. With no alternative behind him on the depth chart at third base, he has plenty of time to reward his manager's faith.