In our unofficial series “What’s wrong with a variety of Guardians’ hitters”, let us examine the strange case of Steven Kwan.
From Opening Day 2022 to May 31st, 2025, Steven Kwan put up a 119 wRC+ with a 9.7/9.4 K/BB%, a .182 ISO,a .310 BABIP and a .328 xwOBA. From June 1st, 2025 to today, Kwan has managed a 79 wRC+ with a 9.2/8.9 K/BB%, a .084 ISO and a .254 BABIP, his xwOBA dropping to .282. A 34% decline in production is, obviously, the difference between a valuable major league hitter and a player
who isn’t capable of helping a big league offense.
To begin at some more surface level metrics, Kwan has gone from a 22.1 hard-hit rate to a 17.9% hard-hit rate The rest of his batted-ball metrics look virtually unchanged. Kwan hasn’t hit the ball hard at high rate in the first three years of his career, so he could ill afford a noticeable drop in that area, but 4% decline there doesn’t explain 33% loss of production.
Let’s continue investigating. I next looked at specific pitches and uncovered something of interest. Over the past 700 or so plate appearances, Kwan has a -10.1 run value against fastballs, -2.5 run value against cutters and -1.9 run value against sinkers, compared to his first three and half seasons where he ran a 14.1+ run value against fastballs, a 1.7 run value against cutters and a -2.3 run value against sinkers. So, Kwan is now a bad hitter because he went from hitting four-seam fastballs well and cutters decently to not being able to hit either pitch at all.
Why has this occurred? My next point of investigation went to examining if hitters are attacking Kwan differently and, here, we seem to have an answer. When looking at the percentages of pitches Kwan sees on the inner third of the plate and further inside, here’s what we are seeing:
Kwan is seeing more pitches in this portion of the hitting zone than he ever has and performing significantly worse against them than he ever has. Similar numbers emerge when we look at four-seamers and cutters in this hitting zone:
One thing that seems abundantly clear – 2024 Kwan was likely an outlier. He is probably something a lot more similar to a league average hitter that he’s mostly been outside of that season. Combined with excellent left field defense, this would still be likely a 3 win player. But, the question is whether or not Kwan can get back to league average, as an 80 wRC+ will not play even with gold-glove defense in left field (should the Guardians return Kwan to that spot, or average defense in center).
Why is the decline happening against pitches in the inside part of the plate? I do think part of the answer is luck. Kwan’s xwOBA’s indicate he should be performing better than he is, especially against fastballs and cutters. However, he has definitely lost some slugging ability, especially over the inside of the plate. Here’s where we enter the area of speculation. Kwan sustained a wrist injury somewhere in the middle of last season. Is it possible his wrist has not fully recovered its strength and he simply lacks the ability to get the limited oomph he managed to get on those pitches in the past? Is this, when it comes down to it, mostly bad batted ball luck that will eventually even out?
In the days to come, I would monitor whether or not teams continue to throw mostly inside to Kwan, specifically with four-seamers. If Kwan cannot turn around on those pitches with any sort of regularity, more and more pitchers will look to exploit that weakness. If this is mostly a luck issue, chances are that Kwan’s ability to make contact and still manage a 14-20% hard hit rate will eventually get him back to more of a .310-.320 wOBA. If this is a wrist strength issue, his wrist will either regain strength and get him back some of his lost power, or it will continue to plague him. In any case, I suspect we are at the beginning of teams pounding Kwan inside and daring him to make them pay.
For Kwan, the only way out is through. He needs to continue to execute a good eye at the plate, make elite contact, and try to pull inside pitches and slap outside pitches. Time will tell if there is a course correction coming or if his lack of elite bat speed and raw power makes him a below average hitter easily exploitable by four-seamers and cutters. Today, Kwan looked more like his old self, so let’s hope it is the beginning of a turn around.
Note: Thank you to Matt Seese for his help sorting through some data queries for this article.
GLOSSARY:
wOBA – OPS adjusted for the run-scoring weight of each batter-produced event. .320 is roughly equivalent to league average.
xwOBA – this is the wOBA number adjusted for the results we would expect given a hitter’s exit velocity and launch angle
