Bo's breakout? Why a toe tap could power Naylor in '26

GOODYEAR, Ariz. -- By putting his front foot down, Bo Naylor began to put his best foot forward offensively this past season.

Amid an up-and-down 2025 season, Naylor worked thoroughly on his hitting mechanics, with an effort of simplifying his lower half to help get his best swing off more consistently. And though his final numbers weren’t what he would have hoped, he enjoyed a strong finish that inspired confidence in what his ‘26 could bring.

“I think Bo's just scratching the surface of the hitter he can be,” manager Stephen Vogt said earlier this spring. “Everybody develops at a different clip. … I think he's putting himself into a position to have a big breakout year."

Literally and figuratively. Naylor pivoted from a leg kick to a toe tap in August. In September, he was one of the Guardians’ top hitters as they surged to the AL Central title.

“We don't get to the playoffs without Bo Naylor at the plate last year,” Vogt said.

Naylor endured a tough first few months of 2025; he had a .623 OPS before the All-Star break. Along the way, he and the Guardians’ hitting team were methodically working on adjustments. Hitting is extremely hard as it is; a lot of it is mental and having a good plan when you get into the batter’s box.

Naylor felt good about that side of things last season. The work he needed to do was physical, as far as getting his body in the right spots to execute his plan.

“That was kind of the missing piece,” Naylor said. “September, I think that was a good indication of strides in the right direction of being in the right positions and actually being able to go out there and execute the plan that we had gone into the at-bat with.”

Naylor was a few weeks into using a toe tap when September rolled around; he first implemented it on Aug. 15. In 91 games before that point, he slashed .174/.278/.360 with a 12.4 percent walk rate, a 24.8 percent strikeout rate, an 80 wRC+ and a 35.9 percent hard-hit rate.

In 19 games in September, Naylor slashed .290/.324/.548 with a 5.8 percent walk rate, an 18.8 strikeout rate, a 136 wRC+ and a 48.1 percent hard-hit rate. More recently, he hit .353 (6-for-17) with one homer in four games representing Canada at the World Baseball Classic.

“The mechanical change he made last year was huge for him,” Guardians hitting coach Grant Fink said. “He had struggled in the past at finding consistency of being on one leg. When he got that front foot down, it just gave him comfort in being able to move more aggressively without feeling like he was out of control.”

Fink noted Naylor doubled down on that work this offseason and worked hard on his path in the batter’s box. The toe tap was new to Naylor last season, but not to him as a player. He said he used one as a two-strike approach while he was in high school, but went away from it in pro ball.

Given his experience with it, it was a relatively seamless adjustment.

“I was able to kind of get back to those feels,” Naylor said, “and get comfortable with it a lot earlier than I think I would have if I didn't have a little bit of background with it before.”

Naylor is entering his third full big league season. Since his MLB debut on Oct. 1, 2022, he’s logged a .670 OPS in 1,041 plate appearances. But development is never linear in baseball, and we’ve seen flashes of what Naylor can do, including in September.

Naylor building on his September and taking a big step this season would be huge for the Guardians. They brought back largely the same position player core as 2025, when they had a poor season collectively at the plate.

That means the Guardians need Naylor and others to take a step this year.

“With him as well as a lot of people, it's just about consistency,” Fink said. “You saw these flashes through periods of time where you're like, ‘Man, this kid can really hit.’ I think this is the first time in his life -- and he'd even tell you this -- that he left the offseason knowing that his lower half was in a place that he wanted it to be.

“He wasn't searching anymore. He had something he's confident in, and now he could just go double down on that and come back confident in that. That's a superpower right there, just being confident in what you're doing and not having to double think things."