With Increased Bat Speed, is an Andruw Monasterio Bounceback in Order?

Andruw Monasterio was a pleasant surprise for the Brewers two years ago. The versatile infielder carved out a nearly three-month run as the regular third baseman, carrying a .780 OPS and 116 wRC+ into mid-August. While some of his favorable batted-ball luck faded down the stretch and saw him cede playing time at the hot corner to Josh Donaldson, Monasterio’s final line of .259/.330/.348 (88 wRC+) and solid chase and contact rates left him looking like a viable utility player moving forward.

His follow-up campaign was not nearly as productive. Monasterio again spent most of the season on the roster but received just 142 plate appearances, limping to a .575 OPS and 68 wRC+.

It’s often best to focus on processes, rather than results. That's even more true in such a small sample. While the results weren’t there last year, Monasterio made an adjustment that could help him in the long run: he started swinging harder, without compromising his compact swing length.

Monasterio’s average bat speed increased from 67.1 mph in his debut season to 69.1 mph in 2024. That still leaves him within the bottom quartile of hitters, but would have ranked as one of the highest year-to-year increases had he accrued enough playing time to qualify. Harder swings are usually longer, but Monasterio’s 6.7-foot swing length remained unchanged.

Because he was generating more velocity with his bat, Monasterio made significantly more hard contact. His hard-hit and Barrel rates jumped from poor to just above the league averages. Despite this, he was actually less productive when he put the ball in play.

Shoddy luck is partially to blame. Monasterio’s expected production on contact remained roughly the same from his rookie season. Still, that’s not the improvement one would expect to follow from hitting the ball harder.

Velocity off the bat isn’t the only thing that matters, though. The launch angle and direction of the ball can be even more important, particularly for a hitter like Monasterio. Two years ago, he was a line-drive machine who was among baseball’s best at catching the ball out in front of the plate with the sweet spot of the bat. That wasn’t the case after he adopted a faster swing.

Statcast considers batted balls with a launch angle between eight and 32 degrees to have hit the sweet spot, and it defines squared-up balls as those with at least 80% of the exit velocity made possible by the speed of the pitch and the swing. Noticeable dropoffs in both metrics mean Monasterio was not catching nearly as many pitches at the right time in his swing path.

This was especially true against hard pitches. Despite making more hard contact per batted ball, Monasterio’s batting average against fastballs fell from .299 to .214, and his whiff rate on in-zone heaters jumped from 12.5% to 17.9%.

It’s hard to dig deeper due to the small sample size and lack of side-angle video, but the evidence implies that while Monasterio’s swing remained short, his timing was off, and his path to the ball was less consistent. If he can better harness his newfound bat speed, he could once again become a useful bench piece for a club still sorting through some of its infield options.