Shea Langeliers profiles as your classic slugging catcher, paired with an acceptable amount of swing and miss. That story has shifted a bit on the 27-year-old catcher as he has significantly improved his contact ability here in 2025. I touched on him a bit in the first couple of weeks of the season, and now want to check back in now that we are more than a month in.
Stepping back and looking at the rest of Langelier’s profile, there are a lot of things to like before considering the massive strides in contact. He has among the best quality of contact metrics at the catcher position with a 114.5 MPH MaxEV (96th percentile), 46.6% HardHit%, and 11.7% Barrel%. Making sound swing decisions has consistently been a strength as well, ranking in the 79th percentile in Robert Orr’s SEAGER metric this season. That, in part, has led to a career high in walk rate as well (9%). The results haven’t quite matched up with these under-the-hood improvements yet, with his current BABIP (.208) lagging behind his career average of .249. But this is the longest period in his career that he has held a K% this low.
Across the Board Improvement
Looking at Fangraphs’ Season Stat Grid, Langeliers is near the top of the list in nearly all of the major contact metrics worth paying attention to. Oftentimes, hitters with contact deficiencies will make trade-offs and sacrifice some bat speed to aim for more contact. Langeliers falls in this bucket, but we typically do not see this sort of grand improvement. Langeliers’ bat speed in 2024 was in the 82nd percentile at 74.1 MPH. He’s cut that down a tad this season to a still plus 72.2 MPH and as a result has seen his K% cut basically in half (27.2% → 14.2%). In addition, he’s shortened up his swing length (7.3 ft. → 7.1 ft.). Here are his season-to-season improvements in various contact metrics and their rank among improvers in the league:
And for the most part, he has maintained his strong contact quality. There has, however, been a change in his batted ball distribution. For most of his career, Langeliers has been among the more extreme fly ball hitters, which is a primary contributor to his career BABIP being low. From 2023-2024, he was 17th among hitters in FB% at 46.3% (min. 750 PA).
Naturally, if a hitter is hitting a lot of fly balls, that comes with a more upper-cut swing that is prone to more swing-and-miss. This season, his FB% has dropped to 36.9% and upped his GB% to 43.7%. Essentially, he’s flipped his career GB% (37.9%) and FB% (44.4%). Ideally, he can bring these marks closer together to ensure he is optimizing his power. It is a positive that even with this change that his Barrel% and HardHit% aren’t drastically different from last season when he hit 29 home runs.
Swing Versatility
One of the more interesting developments for Langeliers in 2025 and a contributor to his contact improvement has been his ability to vary his swing speed more. Having a versatile swing is a great trait to have as a hitter. It allows you to cover more areas of the zone and is reflective of having adaptability at the plate. Below is Langelier’s bat speed distribution over his three big league seasons with bat tracking data:
In 2023, the Athletics‘ backstop had a much tighter distribution of bat speeds. He was pretty much always swinging hard with his speeds tightly clustered around 75-76 MPH. The story was similar in 2024, but he began to broaden his approach just a bit as he reached higher highs and lower lows, but still centered around that same range. Now, in 2025, we can see a conscious shift in swing speed variability, as indicated by the wider range of the green curve. He is no longer maxing out his bat speed at previous rates. Instead, he’s opted to trade some of that for more bat control and prioritize more contact.
Generally, reducing bat speed is not encouraged. However, it can be a positive trade-off for many hitters who already possess plus bat speed and are being held back by a poor hit tool. It’s not a universal fix, but in the case of Langeliers, it looks to be a beneficial plan since he has maintained his hard-hit ability. It’s not a direct comparison, but I often think about how Ronald Acuña Jr. cut his K% to 11.4% in his historic 40-70 MVP season after having a career K% of 22%. These things are tough to predict, as Acuña’s K% regressed to normal last season. But this shift has suited Langeliers well and is predictably reflected in his two-strike approach as well. He’s cut his Whiff% with two-strikes from 26.8% last season to 17.7% this season on competitive swings. All while increasing his HardHit% (48.7% → 53.3%) and Barrel% (13.4% → 16.7%) in these situations. Langeliers totaled eight home runs on two strikes from 2023 to 2024, and he has three already in 2025.
As mentioned previously, these improvements have not yet culminated in strong results yet for Langeilers, with just a .225/.291/.433 (101 wRC+) slash line. But things look quite favorable under the hood, and I’d be looking to buy low if possible. When simply looking at hitters this season who have posted at least a 45% HardHit%, 10% Barrel%, with a sub-15% K%, the list includes (min. 100 PA):
- Juan Soto
- Kyle Tucker
- Jorge Polanco
- Ryan O’Hearn
- Shea Langeliers
Those are some promising names to be alongside. Historically, looking just at catchers who posted at least a .200 Isolated Slugging (ISO) with a sub-20% K%, the list includes some recent studs like Will Smith and J.T. Realmuto, and then some more iconic names like Buster Posey, Victor Martinez, and Jorge Posada, among others. All Fangraphs’ projections look rosy for him and believe in the contact strides, with all projecting a 25% K% or better for the rest of the season. If Langeliers can maintain it, he could approach top 5 fantasy catcher status by season’s end.
