For Manny Machado, adjustments pay off

Two days after the 2023 season ended, Manny Machado underwent significant elbow surgery to repair an extensor tendon. While the surgery didn’t cause Machado to miss any time — he hit cleanup as the DH in San Diego’s season-opener — the recovery process extended well into the 2024 season. 

“My swing is not there,” Machado told the San Diego Union-Tribune on June 18. “My elbow is not letting me do the things I’m normally capable of doing. So I gotta tweak things here and there. I’ve had to do a lot.” 

Credit Machado: He didn’t blame his sluggish start on his elbow, emphasizing that “there’s no excuse.” (Notably, he maintained the same attitude pre-surgery, when playing through tennis elbow in parts of 2022 and 2023). But it sure seemed like something was bothering Machado, who posted a .742 OPS and .422 SLG through his first 91 games. 

The day after talking to the Union-Tribune, Machado had two hits and helped snap a five-game losing streak. The next day, he had two more hits in another win. The day after that? Four hits in a victory. He’s really never looked back, slashing .301/.344/.576 with 23 HR in his last 79 games, posting the 12th-highest SLG in baseball. 

What’s changed? 

For one, Machado began to elevate and launch. 

	Hard Hit%	Barrel/PA%	GB%	FB%
Before June 18	49.4%	5.9%	46.7%	34.9%
After June 18	50.4%	11.9%	41.4%	40.2%

Machado isn’t really hitting the ball any harder, but he’s hitting the ball in the air significantly more often, producing contact more conducive to damage — hence the doubled barrel rate. 

But it’s not just hitting the ball in the air. Machado began to drive the ball with authority, too. Looking only at his fly balls, Machado hit less to the opposite field (-16%), in favor of the pull side (+9%); 32% of his pull-side batted balls are fly balls, the 41st-highest mark in baseball, alongside Alex Bregman and Christian Walker. That stands in contrast to the 68.4 GB% he ran before June 18, the 34th-highest rate in baseball, right next to Alex Verdugo. As such, Machado became a far more productive pull-side hitter, improving his pull-side wRC+ by nearly 100 points (106 wRC+ to 204 wRC+). 

So we’ve established that Machado began to drive the ball in the air, slashing his ground ball rate while reviving his power. But why did he suddenly turn things around? 

“My body is able to do things I couldn’t do months ago,” Machado told reporters in August.

I watched a lot of film on Machado, looking at his swings from earlier in the season — when he was hammering ground balls to the left side of the infield — and in the past couple of months, amid his midseason renaissance. For a player known for touting one of the sweetest swings in baseball, Machado did a good amount of tinkering. And these adjustments, in conjunction with his healing elbow, set the stage for his second-half tear. 

The first thing I noticed is that Machado looks significantly more relaxed in the box. His stance, notoriously open, is even more open than usual; both of his legs are bent, a stark contrast to his stiff frame from April and May. He just looks like more of a natural hitter.

Beyond simply looking more comfortable, Machado made a couple of pre-swing adjustments to become more efficient during his load — the initial coiling movements a batter makes before his swing. 

He starts his hands at an elevated position, holding them up near his chin. Meanwhile, his front shoulder is sloped at a 45 degree angle — previously, his shoulder was too vertical — while resting it a little further away from his body. And he starts his bat on a more horizontal plane, closer to a 30 degree angle than a 45 degree angle, which is where Machado had held his bat for the past several years. 

These series of small changes have combined to produce a ripple effect. When Machado loads, he first moves his bat vertically. Earlier in the year, this led to him cocking his bat all the way up to a near-90 degree angle. Now, by starting at a smaller angle, he reaches an angle somewhere between 45 and 60 degrees during his load. Everything is correlated: By holding his hands higher and sloping his shoulder, Machado can rest his bat at a smaller angle, because he doesn’t need as much vertical movement in his load. That creates less of a wind-up.  

I think this reduces unnecessary movement in Machado’s load, creating a more compact, fluid swing path. This is especially imperative for Machado, a great hitter in part because of his ability to cover all areas of the strike zone. 

It also lessens the likelihood that Machado is going to bring his bat into the zone at too flat an angle, which would cause him to chop the ball, rather than lift it. It’s easy to see how this positioning would allow for Machado to get on top of the ball, creating more conducive contact in the process. 

This all aligns with what Machado told the Union-Tribune in June. 

“I just can’t get into my slot to launch the ball,” Machado said. “You want to be able to be in your slot to drive the ball. … It’s by being consistent with getting that back elbow (in the right spot). My bat path is not where it needs to be right now.” 

Consistency is the key here, and I think that’s what Machado’s adjustments have unlocked. By holding his hands higher, raising his front shoulder, and resting his bat at a new angle, Machado has found a sweet-spot that allows him to more efficiently position his body while loading. And I don’t think he’d be able to pull this all off without a healthy elbow to hold everything at a higher position. 

What does this all actually look like? It makes Machado, well, Machado: A hitter able to cover all corners of the zone with an effortless, nonchalant swing. There’s no greater sign that his elbow is fully healthy than seeing a quintessential, free-flowing Machado-esque swing. 

Look at this home run against Houston’s tough right-handed reliever, Kaleb Ort. Machado, while unconventional, is in sync, and he is extremely flexible. He drops the back knee, bends the front leg, and extends his elbows well below the zone to reach the baseball. These are movements he couldn’t make consistently — if at all — earlier in the season. 

And these adjustments have produced a sustained turn-around, making Machado indomitable at just the right time.