How Jake Burger got his power back

St. Petersburg, FL—Jake Burger did not look like himself during a majority of the first half. Simply put, the power hitter was not hitting for power.

The 28-year-old was one of the bright spots in the Marlins lineup for the first two weeks of the season, but an oblique injury in mid-April sidelined him until May 6. Upon returning, Burger struggled. From May 6 until July 11, the third baseman hit .211 with a .330 slugging percentage. In those 55 games, had just six home runs, a 17 home run pace when extrapolated over a 162-game season.

Burger said he and Marlins hitting coach John Mabry worked tirelessly to right the ship throughout the season. Finally, when the team began their road series in Cincinnati in mid-July, Burger felt like he figured it out.

“We felt like my hand action was a little late,” Burger said last Sunday. “It wasn't on time and in rhythm. It caused me to kind of swipe across balls and not be able to stay behind balls. I think that off day in Cincinnati, we worked in the cage for a while, and really tried to hone that in.”

On Burger’s first at-bat of that series, he hit an Andrew Abbott sweeper to the right field warning track for a loud flyout. Burger got a better hold of the next ball he saw, hitting a home run to the second deck in left field of Great American Ball Park. Thus began the current stretch Burger is on.

After hitting seven home runs in all of April, May and June, Burger exceeded that number with eight in July. Since that first game in Cincinnati, Burger is hitting .346/.414/.769 with six homers.

When Fish On First took a deep dive into Burger’s power outage four weeks ago, he was barreling balls at 10.4 percent clip—while being in the top quarter of league hitters, that was a career-low for him. He has increased that a tick to 11.2 percent. Statcast defines “barrels” as balls that have an exit velocity of at least 98 miles per hour and an ideal launch angle. His sweet spot percentage was down to 26.8 percent after hovering around 33 percent in previous seasons, but has steadily climbed to 28.8 percent after these last four weeks. 

Burger was also chasing pitches more often while still making contact, leading to a career-high in groundball rate (50.3 percent) and a career-low in line drives (18.6 percent) as of July 5. That groundball rate has dipped to 46.4 percent, while the line drives have gone up to 20.2 percent.

Working with then-teammate Josh Bell, Burger said the duo agreed that last year was more about “dropping the hands and letting them go” as opposed to the “robotic” movements he had earlier this year. But now, Burger said his swing feels the way it’s supposed to feel.

“I'm trying to be a little too fine a little bit, rather than just being athletic in the box,” Burger said. “From at-bat one when I made that change I felt like myself again, and I feel like I’m staying behind balls.”

The Marlins roster was upended by transactions leading up to Tuesday's trade deadline, but Burger stayed put. Not being a free agent until after his 32-year-old season in 2028, this has looked like a positive development for a player who could be part of Miami’s core as their newly acquired waves of prospects gradually descend upon Miami's shores throughout the next few years.