Bounce-back plan for Burger? Pilates is at the core

SURPRISE, Ariz. -- Jake Burger doesn’t do anything halfway.

From his sponsorship with Sketchers to the Burger Family Foundation to everything on the field, Burger is all or nothing with everything he does.

This offseason, that meant Pilates.

Burger’s wife, Ashlyn, is a certified instructor, but he had never considered doing it himself, opting to stick with the bench presses and deadlifts. But after a trio of injured list stints last season, two of which were for soft tissue injuries, he decided something had to change.

“For me, the biggest thing is being healthy and just staying in that whole groove throughout the year,” Burger explained. “It's really hard to get going and then go back on the IL, get going, go back on the IL. For me, [this offseason] was about addressing the soft tissue standpoint. I really dove into the Pilates and did it three times a week.”

“Reverse cobra!?” utility infielder Josh Smith interrupted from across the Rangers' clubhouse.

Smith admits to also getting into Pilates this offseason.

“I found out about it through my wife,” Smith said. “And then I did it. The first time’s hard. It was really hard. I mean, it's so hard. I like that it's core related. It's kind of isolated movements, maybe lower intensity, but still with a purpose. Honestly, I think a lot more baseball players should do Pilates. I don't know if I'll do it during the season, because I get pretty sore after, but we'll see.”

Pilates aside, health will be as important as anything for Burger this season.

His injured list stints in 2025 were all for different ailments: June 21-July 2 with a left oblique strain, July 16-Aug. 7 with a left quadriceps injury and Aug. 18-Sept. 1 with the left wrist sprain that he ultimately played through for the rest of the year before offseason surgery.

As he said, he was never fully able to get into a groove and was even optioned to Triple-A on May 2 after a dreadful first month. He finished the year having slashed .236/.269/.419 with 16 home runs. Every part of that slash line was a career low. He hit .250/.301/.460 with 29 homers in 2024 with the Marlins, which was more in line with his career numbers.

To put it simply, he was not driving the ball with pull-side power like he was in Miami.

To remedy that, Burger worked with hitting coach Justin Viele to make the necessary adjustments to improve his swing. That included specific adjustments to his pre-pitch stance to free him up.

“My hands, they were probably creeping up too high pre-pitch, so my hands always would drop and push backwards,” Burger said. “Then a lot of it was my energy going to the ball. I want the energy to constantly be moving in my hips. It almost felt like I would load stride forward and everything would crash, and then I'd cut myself off.

“The biggest thing is lifting the ball in the air to left field. When you're crashing forward, you're not going to be able to give yourself the space to pull the ball. It promotes pop-ups to the right side and ground balls to the left side. So I feel like the two mechanical adjustments I made have freed me up a lot.”

But truth be told, none of that really matters if Burger can’t keep himself healthy. Pilates will have to continue being part of the weekly routine.

“We're not trying to change [the players] and make them into something that they're not,” manager Skip Schumaker said. “We're trying to get the best version of who they are as a player. Jake Burger hits the ball really, really hard. How can we make that much more consistent in hitting it really, really hard?”

Maybe the answer is Pilates.