Never satisfied, Swanson feeling great about batting adjustments

MESA, Ariz. -- Dustin Kelly was in the middle of making dinner for his three boys one evening over the winter when Dansby Swanson began texting the Cubs hitting coach. The shortstop had just wrapped up a productive hitting session and wanted to chat things over.

“I said, ‘I’ll call in 15 or 20 minutes,’” Kelly said.

Swanson replied: “Calling you now.”

“I love cold-calling people at any time of day,” Swanson quipped.

Kelly’s phone buzzed with a FaceTime call from the veteran shortstop, who asked the boys what was on the dinner menu that night when the coach answered. Steak and green beans, with a side of conversation about hitting. Swanson propped up his phone and showed off some cues he was focused on in his latest session. He chatted with Kelly for another 40 minutes or so.

The excitement and energy that Swanson displayed that night came amid an overhauled offseason routine for the veteran. Unsatisfied with his consistency at the plate last year, Swanson felt it was time to make some changes in the batting cage and weight room. What fans see on the field might be subtle, but it was an important winter of open-mindedness for Swanson.

“When you've had a lot of success in the league, changing up your training is scary a little bit,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “It just is. It seems like you have to, but it’s harder to do. I think it’s an acknowledgement that growth never stops and learning never stops.”

Kelly said he began having conversations about switching things up with Swanson over the phone a couple of weeks before Cubs Convention in mid-January. Once at the fan fest, they continued those talks in person. Swanson took it from there, doing the bulk of his offseason training on his own, while also adjusting to being a new dad.

Swanson said he felt like an internal “nudging” to make changes behind the scenes.

“I feel like I’m in a really good place,” Swanson said. “I feel like that’s the cliche of everyone after every offseason, but there’s just something that felt different about this one -- and I'm not talking daughter-related. Just personally and career wise, just some things started clicking a little differently than they have in years past.”

Swanson joked that he is trying to remove the word “mechanics” from his vocabulary, but Kelly shed some light on a couple of tweaks on that front. One change is an adjustment to the shortstop’s setup, having the bat a little flatter on his shoulder. From there, they have worked on trying to keep Swanson’s bat in the strike zone longer.

During a recent live batting-practice session at Sloan Park, Swanson stayed on a pitch from righty Colin Rea, sending it sharply on a line into right field. It was an example of another aspect of Swanson’s work. While the shortstop has continued to hit pitches hard, his opposite-field rate has dropped with the Cubs (under 19%) compared to earlier in his career with Atlanta (typically in the 23-26% range).

“I feel like I just haven’t been what I’ve wanted to be over the last few years,” Swanson said. “And I felt like the best thing I could do is just kind of intentionally change things, whether it was how I was training or things I was doing in the cage. Things like that. Just really ultimately doing things to push myself to get better.”

None of this is to say Swanson had a bad season in 2025.

The 32-year-old shortstop ended with 24 home runs, 24 doubles, 77 RBIs, 20 stolen bases, a .717 OPS and 105 OPS+ for the Cubs. Combined with his elite defense, Swanson posted a 4.5 bWAR, which was the third-highest showing of his career.

Within that performance, though, Swanson’s pull rate (46.5%) was the highest of his career and his swinging-strike rate ticked up for the second year in a row. Swanson also had an uncharacteristically high infield flyball rate (11.6%) -- his highest percentage since 2018. The shortstop also saw his production drop from the first half (.730 OPS) to after the break (.694 OPS).

“He hits the ball hard. It’s, ‘How are we maximizing that?’” Kelly said. “He’s going to hit homers. … There’s more meat on the bone when it comes to overall contact quality, so it’s, ‘How do we get you to a spot where you’re putting the ball in play in certain situations and allowing your natural ability and how hard you hit the ball [to take over]?’”

So far, Swanson has been excited about the early returns of his altered offseason.

“I think we’re all excited about where I’m at and what’s ahead,” he said.