Mike Yastrzemski’s Turnaround Could Be Real

A closer look at the swing changes and approach adjustments driving the Braves outfielder’s recent surge

This past offseason, the Atlanta Braves signed Mike Yastrzemski to a two-year, $23 million deal with a $7 million club option for 2028. Alongside Robert Suárez, he was one of the two headline additions to the roster.

So far, those moves have gone in very different directions.

Suárez has been phenomenal, posting a 0.77 ERA and 0.86 WHIP while becoming a huge part of one of the best bullpens in baseball. Yastrzemski, meanwhile, looked completely lost to begin the season.

Through the end of April, Yaz slashed just .209/.280/.275 with a .555 OPS and 60 wRC+. Across 100 plate appearances, he managed only 19 hits with four doubles, one triple, and zero home runs. The lack of production, paired with a 25.0% strikeout rate and only an 8.0% walk rate, created some very real frustration across Braves Country.

But as soon as the calendar flipped to May, things started to change.

Since the start of the month, Yastrzemski has slashed .280/.357/.520 with an .877 OPS and 147 wRC+. In just 56 plate appearances, he already has three doubles and three home runs. The strikeouts are still there at 23.2%, but the overall quality of his at-bats has looked significantly better.

So what exactly changed? And is this turnaround actually sustainable?

The biggest issue early on was actually pretty simple: Yastrzemski was hitting far too many balls on the ground.

For his career, Yaz has been a hitter who lifted the ball to success. He owns a career 35.1% ground ball rate and a 64.9% air rate. In 2026, however, his ground-ball rate climbed to a career-high 41.7%, while his air rate dropped to a career-low 58.3%.

Now, on paper, those numbers sit relatively close to league average. But not every hitter is built the same. Mike Yastrzemski is at his best when he is elevating baseballs.

In the three seasons before joining Atlanta, where he posted a 106 wRC+ or better, he hit ground balls just 34.0% of the time while producing a 66.0% air rate. That is who he is as a hitter. When he starts rolling balls over consistently, his offensive profile falls apart quickly.

The encouraging part is that this has started correcting itself.

In May, Yastrzemski cut his ground ball rate in half while nearly doubling his fly ball percentage. The results have followed. His batting average jumped from .209 in March/April to .280 in May. His OPS went from an ugly .555 to .877 in the span of a few weeks.

Of course, hitting the ball in the air only matters if you are actually driving it. That was another major issue early in the season.

Yastrzemski is topping the baseball at a career worst 30.1%, which is 6.7% above his career norm. At the same time, his barrel rate sits at a career low 4.9%, more than five percent below his usual mark. His average launch angle has also dipped to a career-low 16.1 degrees.

That combination is a perfect recipe for weak ground balls. Too many topped baseballs, not enough barrels, and not enough authority behind the contact. That is exactly what Braves fans were watching during the first month of the season.

I also think some of those struggles clearly started creeping into his approach mentally.

For his career, Yastrzemski owns a 63.7% zone swing rate. This season, that number has dropped to 57.5%. Even more concerning, he has been oddly passive on pitches right down the middle.

Throughout his career, pitchers have thrown him “meatballs” only 7.6% of the time, and he has swung at those pitches 72.7% of the time. As expected, hitters usually do not let middle-middle fastballs go by very often. This season, Yastrzemski is actually seeing more pitches down the heart of the plate at a 10.1% rate, but he is swinging at them just 51.6% of the time. That’s a massive drop-off, and it looked like a hitter searching for answers instead of trusting his swing.

Lately, though, it feels like that confidence is finally starting to return.

Over the last two weeks, Yaz has been hitting .304 with a 1.081 OPS, adding two doubles and two home runs. And frankly, the Braves need every bit of it right now.

Drake Baldwin and Sean Murphy are still on the IL. Mauricio Dubón and Ozzie Albies have cooled off a bit. Ha-Seong Kim, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Austin Riley are all still struggling at the plate.

Even with those struggles, Atlanta still owns one of the best records in baseball and ranks near the top of the league in several offensive and pitching categories. At the same time, though, anybody watching recently can tell the offense has not looked nearly the same as it did earlier in the season.

After “he who shall not be named” received a full-year suspension, Yastrzemski was suddenly forced into a much larger role than originally expected. Instead of being used mostly in favorable platoon situations, he became a lineup regular almost overnight.

Now with Kim back, Atlanta finally has a little more flexibility again. He and Dubón can help shoulder some of those responsibilities and hopefully allow Yastrzemski to settle back into the role where he is most effective: mashing right-handed pitching.

The Braves still may need to add another bat before the trade deadline. But for now, they desperately need Mike Yastrzemski to keep trending in this direction.

And for the first time all season, it finally looks like that’s possible.