Jake Bauers Made Big Changes in 2025, and His Roster Spot Should Be Safe for 2026

Jake Bauers's hitting profile has always been a fascinating one. Bat-tracking models love him for how he can do damage on pitches on which he connects. He generates steep, dangerous attack angles and above-average bat speed. He consistently elevated the ball with hard contact to the outfield, but he never made enough of that contact to take advantage of that swing, especially inside the strike zone.

In 2025, he came in with a different approach, sacrificing some of those pulled fly balls for a little more contact inside the strike zone. He succeeded, as you can see above, lowering his swing-and-miss substantially against all pitches inside the zone. Even better, these continued to improve as the season went on, finishing September with just a 14% whiff rate against fastball variations and a 16.7% whiff rate against offspeed pitches, either in or out of the strike zone. His zone contact in September against all pitches was 91.2%, and it was 85% in October, against some of the best pitching the game has to offer.

Bauers did see a reduction in his pulled balls, taking a more all-fields approach while also coming up with a few more ground balls. The exchange worked, but how did he do it? Well, first of all, he changed his stance in 2025, becoming more closed and slightly closing the gap between his feet. That being said, his actual stance at the point of contact was consistent year to year, as you can see below (2024 vs 2025):

The key change is the way in which he gets there. Bauers no longer requires as much effort in his setup. He's coiling his hips a little bit less into his backside, creating a simpler motion forward within which it's easier to maintain balance and seems to be easier for him to time up the pitch. On top of that, he's unlocked serious bat speed:

Above are Jake Bauers in 2024 compared to 2025. He found ideal attack angles on the baseball 50% of the time in 2025 (and 77% of the time in September), while seeing his average bat speed jump from 73.8 mph to 76.5 mph—a monumental difference. He's swinging harder, making more contact on both fastballs and off-speed pitches, and making the most of that contact by "squaring it up" more consistently.

Some might question how important that bat speed is. Justin Sartori put it through a model at Driveline and came to this conclusion in regard to Junior Caminero:

If you need further evidence, a crude Baseball Savant overview may help win you over. You can see how Bauers's exit velocities, expected slugging and expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA) are considerably higher. The strikeout and whiff rates still don't look pretty, but both are considerably improved, and would look even more promising if you isolated the form he showed in September/October (18.6% strikeout rate in September, 21.4% in October).

Bauers also swung less this season, which is part of how he achieved better results when he did swing. A more selective and intelligent approach boosted his walk rate to elite territory, and locking in on specific locations let him use a flatter swing and achieve that increased bat speed. An improved approach unlocked some of his improved physical indices, which only buttresses the argument that he can sustain the production he managed in 2025.

The upside with Bauers is why the Brewers traded for him in 2023, and why (after initially cutting him) they brought him back last winter. It might finally be here. He's produced in small samples before, and it's not clear whether he could carry over what he did in 2025 if burdened with a larger role and a tougher overall array of matchups, but the underlying signs suggest that Bauers is going to be a real handful next season. His quality of contact has usually been electric. If he's making more of that contact and drawing more walks, to boot, you have an incredibly potent bat in the Brewers lineup on a part-time basis. It would seem, at least, as though the Crew has an easier call to retain Bauers this fall than they had last year.