Alec Burleson has been the bright spot of the St. Louis Cardinals lineup this season. His 117 wRC+ is the best on the team, keeping their offense afloat as they fight to stay alive for a playoff spot. After waiting the better part of two seasons to get a full-time opportunity, Burleson has made the most of his time in 2024.
Through his first two seasons, Burleson had an 84 wRC+. He was a free-swinging corner outfielder, something most teams seemingly have ten of. The underlying batted ball data looked promising, but after 2023, it was unclear whether Burleson would maximize that.
Burleson has tapped into his power this year, hitting 21 home runs in 114 games, but the bigger story and cause of his overall success is his contact ability. Burleson’s .278 average is a respectable mark and could even be considered an underperformance to his .299 xAVG (97th percentile). Though the six-foot-two, 212-pound slugger doesn’t look the part, Burleson fits in the upper echelon of the contact hitter archetype.
All Swings No Breaks
Burleson is a hyper-aggressive hitter with elite contact ability, leading to exceptionally low strikeout and walk rates. His 12% strikeout rate and 4% walk rate combine for a 16% total, which is 5th percentile among all hitters since 2010. Of those above him, most are either pure contact hitters (Ichiro, Luis Arraez, Ben Revere), catchers (Yadier Molina, A.J. Pierzynski, Salvador Perez), or historically great hitters (Vladimir Guerrero, Jose Altuve, Adrian Beltre).
He swings at everything; a 56.7% swing rate is in the 95th percentile. Naturally, his swing aggression throughout the year has been near the top in baseball too.
Generally, this aggression has turned into all sorts of contact. Burleson makes above-average in-zone and out-of-zone contact, leaving room for a high 20% whiff rate for a player like this. However, where Burleson lacks in true contact, he makes up for his ability to make enough contact. Burleson has fouled off 22% of pitches this season. Overall, Burleson has made contact with 45.4% of all pitches he’s seen this year, a figure that ranks 7th out of 414 hitters to see at least 400 pitches this year.
This isn’t exactly a great list to be on since too much contact often means the hitter is sacrificing contact quality. And that’s where Burleson stands out. His .363 wOBA on these pitches is the best of the group because he’s figured out how to do damage on all of these swings.
Loud Contact
Burleson’s season, to date, is one of the best seasons for a hitter with a sub-5% walk rate and sub-15% strikeout rate. Only Jose Altuve’s 2015 and Yuli Gurriel’s 2017 had better wRC+.
While it’s only a modest 7.4% barrel rate, Burleson excels in hitting the ball hard and on a line.
He’s a line-drive hitter and can hit to all fields, which is like most contact hitters. Add 90th-percentile hard contact on his batted balls, and it allows for line drives that aren’t hit hard to have just enough to fall in for a hit. This hit against Sean Manaea, a broken-bat single, is the perfect example of “bad” ideal contact from Burleson. He’s able to hit it at an optimal launch angle for a line drive despite getting it off the end of the bat.
Burleson is second among qualified hitters with a 35% Ideal Plate Appearance (IPA) rate. IPA% takes barrels, solid contact, and flares/burners out of total plate appearances, though it does notably leave out walks from the equation. In other words, Burleson has some of the most consistent batted-ball quality in baseball, boosted by his low walk rate.
Though he did have an above-average IPA% in 2022 and 2023, this year has seen a four percent increase. He’s attacked offspeed pitches differently, which has been the key to his breakout.
Last year, Burleson hit just .200 with a .250 SLG on changeups, making it his worst pitch to face (outside of sweepers, which he faced just 57). This year, Burleson is hitting .422 with a .778 SLG on changeups, now his best pitch. He’s also improved on splitters, but not as dramatically.
Like many lefties, Burleson has a nitro zone down-and-in. However, most righties look to locate their changeups down-and-away from lefties. Burleson was neutralized last year but has turned that location into a strength.
Burleson hit nine batted balls on changeups down-and-away last year, and all but one were groundballs to the pull side. Here are the three above 90 mph:
This year, Burleson has ten batted balls on those changeups. Only half of them have been groundballs to the pull side. Here are the four above 90 mph:
The most impressive of the bunch is the 105 mph line drive to left-center, exactly what you’re looking for when swinging at that pitch. Only one is a groundball to the right side. While this is a small sample, it indicates a change in process. Burleson isn’t looking to pull that pitch like he was last year; he’s just trying to get the barrel on it.
Burleson’s Process+, a new PLV stat we introduced a few weeks ago, looks relatively similar from last year to this year. A good sign that his skills are working at the big league level, results-agnostic. Regardless, there was a slight change that deceptively led to his success.
Burleson is making worse decisions overall this year but tapping into power. I believe he’s just letting swings fly and letting the bat do the work; there’s no need to hold anything back. He’s hitting anything for a line drive and taking advantage of mistakes in his nitro zone.
He’s hitting like a post-prime Vladimir Guerrero Sr. with the loud contact, but extremely outlier swing aggression to match. That leaves him as a volatile hitter going forward, but he’s carved out a path to success for now.