Dissecting Addison Barger’s recent offensive woes and how to overcome them

Fortunately for Barger and the Blue Jays’ offence, the left-handed hitter’s recent slump has overlapped with red-hot stretches from three of the club’s best hitters — Springer, Guerrero and Bichette, all of whom rank inside the top 15 of the majors in wRC+ (min. 50 plate appearances) since the All-Star break. As a result, these surges have helped offset the youngster’s production decline, preventing this team from feeling the full weight of his woes.

But they have started to impact Barger’s playing time, as he didn’t suit up for Sunday’s finale in Miami or Monday’s series opener versus Minnesota — both games started by a right-hander.

At this point in the season, with Toronto pursuing one of the top two AL playoff seeds to secure a first-round bye, the coaching staff has to deploy the nine batters who give this club the best chance at winning games — and right now, that doesn’t include Barger. At least, for the time being, that is.

The Blue Jays need to use this final month-plus of the 2025 campaign to help the third baseman/outfielder recapture the stellar production that he displayed from May to July. His bat might not be as important at the moment. But that’ll change once October arrives, with home runs valued at an all-time high in the post-season.

So, let’s try to diagnose the cause(s) behind Barger’s struggling August performance.

The first culprit we can rule out is plate discipline, as Barger owns a strikeout rate of nearly 21 per cent this month — roughly three per cent down from his season clip. On top of that, he’s actually reduced his chase rate by close to 10 per cent since July, improving to a 32.7-per-cent clip.

What has changed, though, is his output of hard contact, plummeting to a season-low 38.6 per cent hard-hit rate in August. That’s nearly half of its percentage from the previous month.

A similar trend has also impacted Barger’s barrel rate, which has fallen to seven per cent this month — the second-lowest clip for any month of his career, ahead of only his 5.6-per-cent rate in September 2024.

As someone who ranks in the 90th percentile or higher of the majors in average exit velocity (92.4 m.p.h.) and hard-hit rate (51.8 per cent) this season, this is an alarming development for Barger, and it’s the primary ailment behind his recent power outage. What’s changed, you ask?

A few things, really. However, they all gravitate toward one common theme — the sport has adjusted to Addison Barger and his pull-heavy approach.

Earlier this season, opposing pitchers were challenging Barger with fastballs, particularly early in counts. That’s not happening anymore, though. The book is out on him. He can perfectly handle a middle-middle heater. As such, he’s seen fewer fastballs this month, especially in 0-0 counts, resulting in a season-low 41.6-per-cent clip — matching the percentage of breaking balls he’s faced in those counts.

But let’s take this a step further.

As a reference guide, here are the zones where Barger did most of his damage from prior to the start of August. If you missed down the middle, balls typically landed over the fence. If you missed down and in, he crushed those pitches, too.

Anything located down and away, though, gave him problems. So, where do you think pitchers have been attacking him this month? You guessed it, down and away.

Pitchers are staying away from Barger’s strength, and rightly so, considering his 46-per-cent pull rate is sixth-highest among qualified AL hitters (min. 400 plate appearances) this season. The best way to neutralize that ability is by pounding the outer half of the strike zone, and that’s precisely what teams have done to him with fastballs of late.

And they’ve done the same with breaking balls and off-speed pitches, too.

Instead of driving balls to right field, this refined game plan has caused Barger to roll over pitches much more frequently, the source behind his increased ground-ball rate, which has risen to a season-high 49.1 per cent in August — up five per cent from July.

It’s far more difficult to square up pitches on the outer half than it is against ones on the inner half of the plate, especially with a pull-heavy approach like Barger’s. That’s why pitchers continue to expose this weakness in his game. It’s also why he’s gone from hitting .283/.325/.503 with a plus-three run value versus fastballs from May to July to featuring a .200/.294/.333 slash line and a minus-three run value this month.

As long as his approach remains unchanged, Toronto’s young thumper will likely continue to watch his ground-ball rate against heaters climb upwards, rising to a season-high 48 per cent in August.

To break this cycle, Barger needs to force pitchers back over the inner half of the plate. How does he do that? The most effective solution would probably involve driving balls to the opposite field. That’s an area where he’s lacked this season, considering fewer than 20 per cent of his 45 extra-base hits have been to the opposite field — including zero this month.

Barger doesn’t need to overhaul his entire approach. He’s excellent at what he does. But he needs to prove that he can create damage against outer-half pitches, so it starts to close up that hole in his offensive profile. Think of someone like Freddie Freeman. Pitchers have historically pitched outside to the future Hall-of-Fame first baseman, and he’s responded by morphing into one of the sport’s best hitters at spraying balls to all three fields.

Now, the Blue Jays don’t need Barger to start trading some of his raw power for contact and become a high-average hitter like Freeman. That wouldn’t be beneficial for anyone. What would be, however, is if he starts to manipulate his swing path and the direction of his barrel depending on the location of a certain pitch — a trademark attribute of the Dodgers’ All-Star slugger.

As much as the young lefty has struggled this month, there’s little doubt that he’ll eventually break through to the other side. There’s too much talent for it not to happen. At the end of the day, these things happen in baseball. It’s a sport of ebbs and flows, and now it’s Barger’s turn to fight his way out of this low point in his breakout year.