Season in Review: Bo Naylor

It was quite the turbulent season for Bo Naylor. From two pitchers he caught getting suspended for gambling to… well… a disappointing season at the plate, he had an interesting year.

He slashed .195/.282/.379, good for a whopping 85 wRC+ and 1.5 fWAR.

Let’s start with the good/interesting/notable. He cut his strikeout rate by over 7%, going from 31.4% last year to 23.9% this year. His walk rate increased from 7.5% to 10.9%. He whiffed less while chasing around the same. All good things. A near 11% walk rate is fantastic. He’s hitting the ball in the air more than he ever has. He’s pulling the ball more in the air than he ever has.

His results on fastballs and offspeed pitches rose dramatically this year. He finished the 2nd half of the season with a 98 wRC+, and, through the last month of the season, recorded a 136 wRC+. He also changed his stance around the All-Star Break, so let’s take a look. Here are three home-run swings from the start of the season, the middle of the season, and the end of the season.

These three stills are right as the pitcher is about to release the ball, and you don’t need a baseball background to figure out what’s going on. I certainly didn’t. He took away his leg lift in favor of a toe tap. It looks like he made this change around mid-August.

From that point through the end of the season, his wRC+ was basically league-average. He put up 0.6 fWAR from mid-August on, good for about a 3 fWAR pace. He slashed .232/.295/.432. The most exciting part about this is that his line drive rate ballooned relative to his season averages. 18.6% -> 26.7%. Why is this exciting? His BABIP spiked to .292.

You might be thinking: why on Earth does his BABIP matter?

A fantastic question.

The biggest problem for him, at the plate, has been his ability to not just be a very bad three-true-outcome player. Can’t really succeed in that aspect when you’re hitting less than 15 homers per season. Changing his batted ball distribution in favor of a more line-drive heavy approach, in my opinion, should be a priority. Yes, homers are fun. Yes, we need power. No, I don’t want to sound like an anti-analytics snob. No, I don’t think xwOBA is a stat made up by George Soros. No, I don’t think that everyone should be eschewing a Kyle Schwarber approach in favor of a Luis Arraez one. I do think, however, that these approaches should be applied contextually. Not everyone is cut out to be a power hitter. Bo Naylor certainly has the plate discipline profile of one, but he doesn’t have the bat speed or the average exit velocity to succeed in that style of baseball. He does, though, have the profile to be a more balanced hitter.

Pulled flyballs are great. I love pulled flyballs. Bo has been amazing when pulling the ball in the air, as most hitters are. He’s batting .565 and slugging 1.783 on pulled flyballs. He pulls flyballs (excluding pop-ups) at a rate above league average (1.5% vs 1.2% in 2025). The problem is that it doesn’t seem to be doing much for him. He seemed to sell out — significantly more this year — for power. Didn’t really help. His big outburst of production came when he had a more balanced approach at the plate — at least in terms of batted ball distribution. For what it’s worth, his bat speed did rebound to his 2023 mark this year. 72.4 mph this year vs 70.6 last year.

Junior Betances, by the way, was promoted to the Guardians’ MLB hitting staff on July 18th. About a month before this change happened.

It should also be noted that Rocchio ran into some of the same successes around the same timeframe. Improved after being sent down to AAA-Columbus, and was good when he got back up here. Betances is a very, very important part of this team’s offensive future. He seems to be the only person in the organization who has at least a somewhat lengthy track record of improving players’ offensive production. I, for what it’s worth, wanted us to make him our lead hitting coach last offseason. Instead, we hired Grant Fink.

Granted, it’s yet to be seen whether or not that was the right move. But, I’m encouraged by at least the tangential connection between Bo’s offensive improvement and Betances’ promotion to the MLB hitting staff.

Enough about boring offense, let’s talk about defense.

Bo Naylor’s defensive production has varied — greatly — throughout his career in MLB. Bad his first year, amazing his second year, meh this past year. His framing was significantly worse this year than it was last year. 11 Statcast framing runs in 2024 (91st percentile), -3 this year (24th percentile). To his credit, though, he got much better at the other aspect(s) of catching: blocking and arm value. In 2025, he recorded 4 blocks above average and 3 caught stealing above average, per Statcast. Both landed him in the 70th percentile among catchers. Last year, for reference, he was in the 63rd in blocks above average and 40th in CS above average.

Frankly, his defense needs to be better. His defense has been spotty throughout his career: good in some areas, bad in others. This year, he was good at blocking (despite the eye test) and throwing out runners, but not great at framing. Last year, he was an elite framer but just meh at everything else. He’s in, arguably, as beneficial a situation as is possible for a young catcher. His manager caught for a decade and his understudy is one of the best defensive catchers ever. That’s not hyperbolic, either. Hedges ranks (at worst) in the top 10 among ALL catchers in the history of Major League Baseball in every advanced defensive statistic (DRS, FRV, Framing, Defensive Value). Bo has to be better, and specifically at framing and pitch-calling. There is no excuse for him to not be, at least, a great defensive catcher. Anything less than that is a massive disappointment.

Overall, I’m not sure what my realistic expectation is for Bo next year. I think that 2026 will probably be the end of his leash. If he doesn’t put up good offensive numbers/3+ fWAR I think he’s probably done for. Ingle is closing in behind Bo on the depth chart and will probably be ready to go at some point next season. It’s time for Bo to put up or lose his starting role (or, even, get traded/DFA’d). I still really do believe that he has all the tools to put it together, but I need to see it happen. One more season.