Old dog, new swings | Baseball prospectus

Translated by Fernando Battaglini

Kyle Schwarber signed a five-year, $150 million contract to return to the Phillies on Tuesday, the biggest highlight of the Winter Meetings yet. It was a predictable deal. Everyone agrees that Schwarber is an exceptional player. He’s one of the best home run hitters of the past decade, and surprisingly, he seems to be in his prime in his mid-30s. Inevitably, his ability to hit 50 home runs will diminish over time due to the loss of speed in his swing, but he does have slower speed, plus he has a brilliant counting skills and is a leader in the locker room. These are the less visible aspects that made it easier to land a multi-million dollar contract despite his age. However, the real reason he made so much money is his performance on the field. They are the visible results, which are visible to everyone, and not the results that happen behind the scenes. Schwarber hit .240/.365/.563 and hit 56 home runs in 2025.

Schwarber will turn 33 next March. Jos Bell He turned 33 in August. That’s pretty much the only thing they have in common, at least at first glance. Bell has a good reputation (although somewhat patchy, precisely because he’s changed teams so often) as a locker room teammate, but otherwise his career doesn’t compare to Schwarber’s. Although he has had some promising years, his career has been more erratic than miraculous. He is a 33-year-old player with a predictable and unexciting playing style, unlike Schwarber, who is an exciting player. He has hit 30 home runs in a season only once; Since 2021, he hasn’t had an OPS higher than .784 in any season. Since the beginning of 2023, he has been a boring player: consistent, but bland.

• 2023: .247/.325/.419
• 2024: .249/.319/.405
• 2025: .237/.325/.417

However, if we look in detail, Bell became much more interesting this season. Surprisingly, just at the age when most batters’ bat speed dramatically declines, Bell increased his swing speed significantly. In the case of a switch hitter, there are always additional factors that influence the analysis of performance metrics, but with process-oriented data (such as bat speed, swing plane, angle of attack, and point of contact), sample size is not an issue. Therefore, it is safe to say: Bell improved noticeably and tangibly in 2025.

Bell, who throughout his career lacked the lifting and pulling power necessary to generate the power his physique promised, achieved both to a greater extent in 2025. He regained the bat speed he had lost when hitting from the left side and appears to have discovered something entirely new (or at least something he had lost long ago; we only have bat speed data from the past two and a half years) when hitting from the right side. He uses a steep swing and hits the ball deep in the strike zone, but the last two years he has hit the ball too far back. You can’t get the most out of a good swing by letting the ball come to you, like in 2023 and 2024. However, in 2025 he moved the contact point forward a few inches, which turned many more batted balls into well-struck hits from both sides of the plate. He set a new career high for the percentage of balls hit through the air to the pull side, and given these adjustments to his swing characteristics, it’s not hard to see why.

However, I characterized Bell somewhat inaccurately when comparing him to Schwarber, as they are not as similar as they seem. While Schwarber fits the profile of a player with three possible outcomes (home run, walk or strikeout), Bell is almost as patient, but (even after these adjustments) less powerful and, above all, much less prone to strikeouts. His 16.5% strikeout rate in 2025 was the second-lowest of his career, which should set him apart from many other veteran free agents hitting first this winter who are in the third or fourth tier. This is why.

There are a dozen major differences between the swings of these two hitters. Schwarber swings faster than Bell. His swing is flatter, but he hits the ball further forward, with his arms straight. He tends to pull the ball more and his movement upon contact with the ball is more upward. Check out the animations circled at the bottom left of each batter.

This is the advantage of the way Bell travels the ball. Yes, you’ll hit it with less force, but see how your bat speed stabilizes as you approach the point of contact? That shows precise running control. Bell can adapt and make contact more easily even if his timing isn’t perfect; doesn’t accelerate as much at the point of contact as Schwarber. A bat speed metric based on a single number is obviously misleading, because a single number always is, but this is a good example of how it can be relevant to something as simple as swing speed. Yes, Schwarber has more power than Bell, but that’s because Bell makes a conscious choice. The fact that he was able to increase his bat speed so much in 2025 without losing the subtle bat drag to maximize contact rate speaks volumes about his hitting ability, and the same is seen from the right side of the plate.

Bell won’t experience a late-career resurgence that takes him back to the glory days of 2019. However, it’s no coincidence that this was his best season, even if we adjust the stats to match those of the league, and this leads us to look at another factor: the ball was pretty dead in 2025. That’s one of the main reasons why improvements in Bell’s physical and mental state didn’t translate into major changes in results. We should probably assume a more typical, livelier ball in 2026, and if we do that, Bell will become much more dangerous. He still has his bat speed (or maybe he’s regained his bat speed). He still makes a lot of contact for a player with such an admirable ability to hit hard. He also accepts walks. The DRC model attaches great importance to this; he had a DRC+ of 121 in his resurgent season in 2025. If he ends up in a hitter-friendly ballpark or has a more hitter-friendly ball in 2026, Bell could be one of the best signings of the winter regardless of where he ends up playing this time around.