Jake Bauers is Opening Up and Letting the Ball In. It's a Trap.

As we documented earlier this spring, Jake Bauers seized an opportunity last summer. A stint on the injured list gave him a chance to reset the way he thinks about preparation and functional strength, and he took it. He went into the winter with a more specialized training plan than in the past, and while his broad shoulders look slightly less bemuscled than they have in previous years, he's no less dangerous at the plate. In fact, every iota of available evidence says he's more dangerous than ever.

With Andrew Vaughn out for at least a month due to a broken hamate, Bauers is the Brewers' new starting first baseman. Gary Sánchez will still spell him and shield him from left-handed starting pitchers, as he did on Sunday, but Bauers is slated for plenty of playing time until (at least) the returns of Jackson Chourio and Vaughn from the injured list. That's just fine, because since returning from the IL late last season, he's been a formidable slugger. It was easy to spot his numbers down the stretch and his postseason power last fall, and to clock his seven homers this spring, but don't neglect to notice that he also doubled six times in Cactus League play or that he walked eight times and struck out just seven times in the spring.

For a guy who has always battled a high strikeout rate, punching out just seven times in 49 plate appearances was as eye-opening as the power he produced along the way. Nor was it new, even then. Bauers's whiff rate fell as 2025 went on; he's making steady progress in shoring up what has been his biggest offensive weakness.

It's nice to be able to point to Bauers's excellent bat speed and his much-improved plate discipline, and with each passing day, he seems to have gotten better at not whiffing when he does swing. Even those are results, though, in a sense. Let's take a look at some things that drill all the way down to the level of process, to identify why Bauers might be blossoming into a genuinely excellent slugger with staying power.

Here are visualizations of Bauers's stance and stride, via Statcast, for both September of last season and the early days of this year.

First, the obvious thing: Bauers's stance is significantly more open this spring. He's standing a bit more upright in the box, with his feet closer together, but he's more open to the pitcher with his hips and shoulders. That's usually good for pitch recognition and power production, as long as one doesn't cut oneself off with the resulting stride. As you can see, though, Bauers's stride leaves him in no more closed a position at his contact point than he was in last year; those red footprints are farther from the plate and (if anything) a bit closer to neutral, in terms of alignment. 

Ah, but let's also talk about that contact point, because it's the other key thing of which to take note. Bauers is contacting the ball much, much deeper in the zone this year than at any point last season, as indicated by the purple circles in the images above. He's hitting it, on average, not even 24 inches in front of his center of mass, as compared to roughly 30 inches late last year (and farther out than that, at earlier junctures).

A deeper contact point makes generating pull power harder. The reasons for that should be obvious. However, a hitter with plus bat speed (✅), above-average tilt in their bat path (✅), and good raw strength (✅, especially after his shift in focus this winter) can find lots of pop even while letting the ball travel. Naturally, too, letting it travel more means better swing decisions and a better contact rate, in almost all cases.

It's probably too much to hope that Bauers will burgeon into some poor man's version of Nick Kurtz or Shohei Ohtani at this late stage of his career, but it's not an exaggeration to say that he's becoming comparable to those guys in the way he addresses the baseball. His stance adjustment breeds good choices. His newfound willingness to meet the ball deeper in the hitting zone makes him more well-rounded. And all that bat speed is still there, leading to sudden jolts like the long homer he hit on Opening Day. Bauers is legit, and though they'll miss Vaughn and Chourio for the balance of their stints on the injured list, the Brewers are very fortunate—not lucky, because they helped Bauers achieve all this, but certainly fortunate—to have Bauers on hand to soak up the extra at-bats.