Article: The Rise and Fall of Davis "Babe" Schneider: Can He Figure Out the Fastball?

[Jesse Burrill]

Davis Schneider could not hit the four-seam. Is it possible to fix that?

Every baseball fan knows about Babe Ruth, but the nickname Babe is more widespread the game than you might think. A quick Baseball Reference search reveals 20 different major league Babes. The name went out of fashion roughly half a century ago, but at the the very bottom of the list, you'll find that the Blue Jays are bringing it back thanks to the help of Davis “Babe” Schneider.

Davis Schneider didn't hit like Babe Ruth, nor was he ever going to, but the numbers he put up in the 2024 season left us with a sour taste in our mouths. He struggled to a slash line of .191/.282/.343 with 13 home runs. That resulted in a wRC+ of 80, which meant that his batting line was 20% worse than the league average. That was the seventh-worst batting line in baseball among players with at least 450 plate appearances. Schneider was never going to repeat the 176 wRC+ he put up in the 35-game sample of his rookie season. Expectations were that he’d be a league-average player, and Steamer projections saw him putting up a .756 OPS and a 112 wRC+, but his performance fell far short of that.

So what happened? First, Schneider's luck balanced out. His unsustainably high line drive rate fell back to earth, his rate of home runs per fly ball got cut in half, and his BABIP went from one of the highest in baseball to one of the lowest. That's the part we expected. What we didn't expect that all of those excess line drives would turn into groundballs instead of fly balls. We didn't necessarily expect that his chase rate would rise by a whopping seven percentage points, cutting his walk rate by nearly a third, or that his defense would go from grading out as above average to below average. None of those things is what you want to see.

The main culprit, though, was Schneider's inability to hit the four-seam fastball. He ran a .496 wOBA against four-seamers in 2023, but there was some good fortune pumping up those numbers. He only put 16 four-seamers in play, with three home runs skewing the sample in a big way despite the fact that he whiffed more than 50% of the time. The good fortune disappeared in 2024, when he put up a .242 mark against four-seamers. Exactly 192 different players saw at least 500 four-seamers in 2024, and Schneider's .242 wOBA ranked 192nd. Literally no one in baseball was worse. According to Baseball Savant's run values, he was worth -15 runs against for-seamers. Not only was that tied for the worst mark in baseball against four-seamers; it was tied for the worst mark in baseball against any pitch at all. Yikes.

This also shouldn't come as a surprise. Schneider had mentioned to the media a handful of times that he historically struggled against four-seamers, which, in retrospect, was not a promising indication. Pitchers listened to that and attacked him with it until he could prove he could hit it. There is still hope that the 26-year-old can be a key contributor in 2025. First, after getting very lucky in 2023, Schneider seemed to be a bit unlucky in 2024. His .292 expected wOBA was a bit below average, but it was also better than his actual .277 wOBA. He started out hot and was largely dragged down by a dreadful month of August, where he went 3-for-47 with five walks and 23 strikeouts.



That month aside, Schneider was roughly a league-average hitter, running a .308 wOBA. So what does this mean for 2025? You can be sure that Schneider and the Blue Jays will be working on ways to improve his performance against the fastball, but even if he improves against it, there is still the question of playing time. Last season, he saw 56 games at second base, but with newly acquired Andrés Giménez in the fold, that window is closed. The other option is left field, where he played 93 games, but the outfield picture is crowded. The newly-acquired Anthony Santander will see some time in left, and even with Daulton Varsho out to start the season, the Jays still have Nathan Lukes, Joey Loperfido, Addison Barger, Jonatan Clase, and Steward Berroa on the 40-man roster, and let's not forget about Alan Roden, who should be on this team at some point this season and the new trade addition Myles Straw. If everyone is healthy, Davis may be best suited as the small side of a platoon,  facing mostly left-handed pitchers. It may be hard for the Blue Jays to keep a guy like that on the roster, especially when he has minor league options.

One thing is for sure. We know that Davis “Babe” Schneider can still do great things. You don't hit a Josh Hader Slider 423 feet by accident.

By all accounts, Schneider is well-liked by fans and his teammates, but at the end of the day, it will always come down to how well he performs with the bat. Most projection systems see him returning to being an above average hitter. However, there might not be a single player on the roster with more to prove than Schneider, as he runs the risk of spending a large part of the summer either in Buffalo or with another organization. But if things can click for him, he could turn back into the Toronto version of the Sultan of Swat, and that would be most welcome.

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[Orgfiller]

This is a tough one to break out of. Schneider still showed most of the positives in 2024 as he did in his short stint in 2023 and presumably his minor league breakout that same year. Even though he chased more, he still didn't chase very much - 87th percentile chase rate with a 77th percentile walk rate is plenty good on its own. The swing path is still absolutely elite, with his barrel rate and LA sweet spot rates both being in the 80th+ percentiles. These are the makings of a good hitter!

Of course then there's the bad. He's got such a small frame that even though he gets the most out of his power, the bat speed is only in the 20th percentile. That's not necessarily a death sentence on its own. Other guys within 1 mph of his bat speed include Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Taylor Ward. The common denominator between those guys is elite LA sweet spot, good barrel rate and good squared up %. Schneider has 2/3 of those working! Unlike those guys, the Babe swings and misses far more frequently, generally just indicating that there's several levels of hit tool in between himself and these lower bat speed guys who succeed.

For him to find success, he needs to figure out a way to just swing and miss a bit less. That's a tall ask when the hit tool might just not be good enough to allow it. But shave a few percentage points off the whiff and K rates and we're back in business. It's also not as simple as just cheating on the fastballs. I remember in 2023 he went through a slump where pitchers started attacking him with high fastballs and he started struggling. He adjusted by being more aggressive on fastballs, and then the league countered with offspeed which he suffered with as a result. Spam fastball/changeup on a guy who can't catch up to the heat and will start cheating on it, and you got him exploited.

That's what he needs to overcome to get back into being an MLB guy. Maybe just keep it simple by platooning him against lefties as mentioned in this article, and hope he can work on the other stuff as the season moves along, hiding him from RHP unless he's showing adjustments.

[Laika]

He can only be a peaks and valleys player with his skillset. I don't have much more to say other than, hopefully he can just be more like his career line or his projections in 2025. 

A .211/.311/.402 hitter with average LF/2B defense can carve out an okay little career... although LF/2B types who hit like that tend to be left handed hitters or be able to cover CF, if they stick around. 

tbh Toronto might already have better options on the depth chart for his bench spot. 

 

[Brownie19]

27 minutes ago, Laika said:

He can only be a peaks and valleys player with his skillset. I don't have much more to say other than, hopefully he can just be more like his career line or his projections in 2025. 

A .211/.311/.402 hitter with average LF/2B defense can carve out an okay little career... although LF/2B types who hit like that tend to be left handed hitters or be able to cover CF, if they stick around. 

tbh Toronto might already have better options on the depth chart for his bench spot. 

 

He needs to do something "really" well - like murder LHP.  Unfortunately - he doesn't.