“Hope springs eternal” is a common phrase around baseball each April. Yet, with optimism often comes early-season panic, particularly when a star player stumbles out of the gate. One player whose struggles have led to widespread panic has been Rafael Devers of the Boston Red Sox, whose 2-23 start to the season ranks as one of the slowest starts in Major League Baseball history for someone expected to put up star numbers. Devers has experienced a decline in bat speed and a regression in his intercept point, leading to a ballooning strikeout rate early in the season and leading many to wonder if or when he will be able to reclaim his previous high levels of offensive production. This article will take a look at Devers’s slow start to the season, and attempt to identify the changes he needs to make to his offensive approach to reclaim his potential as a middle-of-the-order force in the Red Sox lineup.
Overview
Throughout his career, Devers has been an absolute force in the middle of the Red Sox lineup, producing a wRC+ of at least 124 or greater in each of the past three seasons. Devers produced a 134 wRC+ over 601 plate appearances last season alongside a 13.0% barrel rate, his highest since 2021. After manning the hot corner for the Red Sox throughout his Major League career, Devers was moved off of third base to designated hitter this offseason after the acquisition of Alex Bregman, resulting in a minor controversy that reportedly almost resulted in Devers requesting a trade.
Controversy aside, Devers has been off to an incredibly slow start to the 2025 season. Through 23 plate appearances, Devers has produced a -41 wRC+, while striking out in 65.2% of his plate appearances. During this stretch, Devers set the Major League record for most strikeouts throughout the first four games of a season with 12, and Devers has also experienced a notable decrease in bat speed during the early part of the season. In addition, Devers has been frequently late to pitches early in the season, indicating that his timing is likely off, resulting in more swing-and-miss. To turn his season around, Devers will likely need to focus on these two areas, improving his bat speed and regaining his contact point, to reclaim his offensive potential.
Bat Speed
One area in which Devers needs to improve to reclaim his potential as a middle-of-the-order lineup force is to stymie his bat speed regression. As more bat tracking data becomes publically available, it has become apparent to me that average bat speed is an important metric to utilize when it comes to evaluating hitters, particularly in small sample sizes. As explained in research conducted by Jordan Rosenblum last season, average bat speed becomes reliable to use in evaluating hitters after just 3 swings, similar to fastball velocity for pitchers. Rather than wait for a couple of weeks for batted ball metrics such as Barrel% and xwOBA to become reliable (barrel rate becomes reliable at 60 batted ball events, xwOBAcon at 80 batted ball events), analysts can now conduct reliable analysis regarding the underlying talent level of Major League hitters after just a couple games.
Since public bat tracking data began after the 2023 MLB All-Star Game, Devers has posted above-average bat speed metrics, averaging 73.4 MPH during the second half of 2023 and 72.5 MPH during the 2024 season. With 58 competitive swings so far this season, Devers is currently displaying an average bat speed of 70.6 MPH, a 1.9 MPH decrease from last season. This decline in bat speed is not ideal for two reasons. First, since bat speed is a major component of the factors that generate exit velocity (alongside collision efficiency and pitch velocity), this decline in bat speed indicates that a decrease in Devers’s quality of contact is likely once he starts making consistent contact. Given this potential decline in batted ball quality, there will be more pressure on Devers’s ability to put bat-to-ball and make good swing decisions, areas he’s struggled with in the past, as he will need to excel in these areas to make up for the lost offensive production caused by the decline in bat speed. Bat speed is difficult to gain in-season, as improving bat speed requires targeted training, however, there could be an underlying reason why Devers has seen such a decline in bat speed.
I recently came across this visualization by Red Sox Stats on X, displaying Devers’s rolling average bat speed since the beginning of Statcast bat tracking in July 2023. As shown by the graph above, Devers has experienced a gradual decline in average bat speed since July 2023, with a notable decrease occurring after awkwardly landing on his shoulder while playing defense against the Colorado Rockies in a game last summer. Similar to how declines in velocity can indicate potential injuries for pitchers, declines in bat speed can indicate whether hitters are dealing with injuries, and it appears likely that Devers’s shoulder injury from last season has carried over into 2025.
Given the clear downward trend in Devers’s bat speed, the Red Sox should closely monitor his physical condition and consider implementing a targeted bat speed training regimen to help Devers regain his bat speed to levels seen during the 2023 season. If Devers’s declining bat speed is indeed linked to his lingering shoulder injury, then perhaps Devers could receive additional rest days in the future in an attempt to regain “full strength”. Devers declining bat speed is an indicator that something “under the hood” is likely occurring which is contributing to Devers’s early season struggles, and identifying the cause of this issue will be the first step in reclaiming his past levels of offensive production.
Intercept Point
Another area in which Devers needs to improve to reclaim his potential as a middle-of-the-order lineup force is to improve his intercept point and regain his timing at the plate. Just before the start of the regular season, Statcast released its newest bat tracking metric, intercept point. As defined by Statcast, intercept point indicates the average point at which the hitter’s bat is nearest to the baseball on a swing, whether or not they make contact. This metric is essentially a contact point statistic that also identifies the hitter’s projected contact point if they would’ve made contact on a swing and miss.
The table above depicts Devers’s average intercept point over the past three seasons, with 2023 data on the left and 2025 data on the right. As indicated by the three green dots in the middle of the plot, Devers’s average intercept point has gradually crept away from the pitcher and closer to his center of mass over the past couple of seasons. As with any metric, some hitters may benefit from having a deeper intercept point for a variety of reasons, however, most power resides out in the front of the plate, and Devers’s regressing intercept point provides some concern that a decreased power output might be in store throughout this season.
The most important takeaway from this analysis, however, is that Devers has simply been “late” with his swings, indicating that his sense of timing the opposing pitcher has been disrupted so far this season. The fact of the matter is, that being a designated hitter is very difficult and can be considered a distinct skill, and perhaps this decline in timing can be attributed to Devers’s transition to a new position. Designated hitters spend a lot of time on the bench during a game (a study once showed that David Ortiz spent less than 10 minutes on the field per game), and perhaps Devers is still figuring out an optimal routine to stay fresh when waiting for his turn at-bat. Maybe taking a few swings in between at-bats can keep Devers fresh and help him re-calibrate his intercept point to more out in front of the plate. Regardless of the underlying issue causing this regression, adjusting his intercept point forward to consistently make contact out in front and be more “on time” will be critical for Devers to regain his power and effectiveness in the heart of the Red Sox lineup.
Concluding Thoughts
While the decline in bat speed and regression in intercept point are two concerning elements of Devers’s offensive approach to begin the 2025 season, some optimistic signs provide reason to believe that he will be able to correct these struggles and return to a level of offensive production that was expected of him by projection systems entering the season. The first reason for optimism is that Devers’s swing decision ability has slightly improved to start the season, with his chase rate declining from 30.1% to 20.0%. If Devers combined chasing at an extraordinarily high rate with these bat speed and intercept point issues then perhaps it would be time to hit the panic button, however, this reluctance to chase out of the zone should allow Devers to continue to draw walks and maintain a solid floor of offensive production. Second, while bat speed can be difficult to improve within a season, altering the intercept/contact point appears to be an “easier” adjustment to make during the season, providing optimism that Devers can regain his contact ability and halt his strikeout streak in the near future. Perhaps Devers simply needs to wait until the Red Sox return to Boston to hit off the Trajekt to regain his timing, as it is my understanding that teams can not access the hyper-realistic pitching machine on the road. The solution to regaining his intercept point may be as simple as taking as many reps against realistic pitchers on the Trajekt until he regains his timing.
Devers’s early struggles in 2025 undeniably warrant some concern as it pertains to projecting his offensive performance moving forward, however, given his plate discipline and actionable paths available to address his timing challenges, I believe that there is reason to believe that he can turn his season around in short order. While the slow start has certainly raised some concerns, there are a clear path of adjustments that Devers can make to his offensive approach to reclaim his prior levels of offensive production.
Photo by Gregory Fisher/Icon Sportswire | Featured Image by Justin Redler (@reldernitsuj on Bsky/Twitter). Statistics as of 4/1/24.
