Coming into the season, one might have guessed that Gunnar Henderson would be the Orioles' best player. Perhaps, that could have also been Pete Alonso or Adley Rutschman among position players. Maybe it was Trevor Rogers or Kyle Bradish among the pitchers.
Leody Taveras likely wouldn't have been anyone's top guess, yet he's arguably been the O's top player through the first month. Entering Thursday, Taveras leads all Orioles (minimum 50 plate appearances) with a .327 average, .426 on-base percentage and a .926 OPS, while his 0.7 Wins Above Replacement (per FanGraphs) only trail Taylor Ward's 0.9 WAR.
Taveras has more than stepped up for an O's lineup and has made some interesting changes under the hood to support his hot start at the plate. Here's how the 27-year-old has taken his game up a notch in 2026.
The following numbers are entering Thursday's games.
The quality of contact is better than ever
Through his first 62 plate appearances, Taveras has a .395 expected wOBA, which is based on the quality and quantity of contact a hitter makes. That's a career-best mark by a wide margin (his career average is .292) and places him in the 89th percentile of all MLB hitters. Even if it's a tick below his actual .413 wOBA, Taveras has earned a lot of his production so far.
Taveras' average exit velocity and hard-hit rate (batted balls with an 95-plus mph exit velocity) are mostly in line with his career norms, but he's running a career-best 7.5 percent barrel rate (barrels are batted balls hit with an optimal exit velocity and launch angle and usually turn into extra-base hits).
Additionally, a whopping 47.5 percent of his batted balls have been hit in the ideal launch-angle sweet spot, which is between an 8-32-degree launch angle. That places him in the 98th percentile of hitters and is well above his career 32.6 percent career clip.
The biggest and most important change, however, is where Taveras is hitting his batted balls. Thus far, 27.5 percent of his batted balls have been pulled in the air, a well-above-average clip and considerably higher than his career 13.9 percent rate. Why is this important? Because pulled balls in the air (airballs are flyouts, line drives and popups) are the best type of batted ball. Since 2025, MLB hitters have slugged 1.214 on pulled balls in the air.
This could be a good sign of a maturing hitter, understanding that pulling balls in the air can help compensate for non-elite contact quality.
He's also making better swing decisions
Taveras isn't simply producing better contact quality -- he's also making better decisions on what he's swinging at.
Taveras has only seen 43.4 percent of pitches in the zone, the lowest figure of his career, and he's adapted to it. He's making just as much contact as usual and isn't chasing anymore, which has led to a huge uptick in walks.
His walk rate has skyrocketed to 14.5 percent, far and away the highest mark of his career. In fact, he's never even had a walk rate above 10 percent outside of a 10.4 percent clip in 33 games as a rookie in 2020. But more notably, Taveras has seen his walk rate go from 2.8 percent last year to 14.5 percent this year. After walking five times in 58 games last year, he's nearly doubled that mark with nine walks in his first 21 games this year.
Taveras has also trimmed his strikeout rate to 21.0 percent, his lowest figure in a single season. In 2025, Taveras struck out nearly 10 times more often than he walked (27.8 percent K rate, 2.8 percent BB rate). This year, that ratio is much closer to 1:1, with a 21.0 percent strikeout rate and 14.5 percent walk rate.
Put all of these elements together, and it's easy to see how Taveras has put together such a strong campaign to date. We didn't even touch on the fact that he's a strong defender in center field, which only boosts his overall profile. It's possible that Taveras is putting it all together at 27 years old, and could be a key bright spot for the Orioles this season.