Nearly 36 Years Old, George Springer Might Be Better Than Ever

George Springer's career has been defined by big moments and loud contact. He has a reputation as one of the game's brightest stars. In other words, he’s not new to the spotlight. Just take a look at his resume. He’s a four-time All-Star and a two-time Silver Slugger Award winner. He was also a key part of the Houston Astros' championship run in 2017, hitting five home runs and winning World Series MVP.

That's exactly the type of player the Blue Jays were signing up for when they signed him to a six-year, $150 million contract in January of 2021, which, at the time, was the largest contract in the history of the organization.

The first few years of the deal worked out well. Springer battled injuries in his first season but was productive when he played, running a wRC+ of 140. In 2022, he was healthier and still productive, hitting 25 home runs and sporting a wRC+ of 133. Then things started to drop. In 2023, the power numbers dropped, the OPS fell to .732 with a wRC+ of just 103. Things looked even worse in 2024; with a .674 OPS and a 94 wRC+, Springer was a below-average hitter.

Many people (myself included) were starting to think that Springer’s days as a high-impact major leaguer might be over, and who could blame them? He turned 35 years old last September and was coming off two straight years of sharp decline; history suggests that a rebound at his age isn't likely. Especially after he went just 4-for-37 in the spring with one lone extra base hit.

But George Springer is special, and special players don’t go down easy. After all, this is the player who was injured for a large part of the 2021 season but still hit 22 home runs, and who has more leadoff home runs than any other player in Blue Jays history.

Back in January, Davy Andrews wrote a piece making the case for an "uncooked" George Springer. In it, he highlighted that in 2024, Springer had a career low BABIP (.245 in 2024, vs .296 for his career), and while his average exit velocity was low, his 90th percentile exit velocity was right in line with his 2023 number (105.5 in 2023 vs. 105.4 in 2024). Lastly, he argued Springer hit too many balls on the ground and not enough to his pull side. If Springer could make improvements in that area, then maybe a good hitter could be found again.

So, let's start there. Firstly, the BABIP has taken a huge jump in 2025. It's risen to .325, the highest it's been in a decade:

But there is more to BABIP than just getting lucky with balls in play. The defence that a batter is playing against has something to do with it, as does the quality of contact he has been making. Here is the range of league-wide BABIP per batted ball type over the last five seasons:

• Groundballs:  .241 - .249
• Line Drives: .616 - .631
• Fly Balls: .116 - .127
• Pop Ups: .012-.018

And here are Springer's batted ball type rates over his career:

Hitting more line drives will lead to a higher BABIP, and Springer’s line drive rate is the highest it has been since 2015. Pair that with hitting fewer ground balls, and it's one of the reasons his season has been so much better.

Secondly, there was Davy's argument that Springer still had it in him to hit the ball hard, and he’s been doing that at an extreme level this year. His hard-hit rate (47.2%) is the highest of his career, as is his xSLG (.586). As well, his 90th-percentile exit velocity (107.0) is the highest it's been over the last three seasons.

Part of the reason Springer is hitting the ball harder is that he’s swinging the bat harder. In 2024, his average bat speed was 71.9 mph, which had him outside of the top 100 qualified hitters. Jump to 2025, and that number is up to 73.6 mph, which has him at 64th overall. However, the number that really pops off the page is how often he gets off his “A” swing. Baseball Savant has a stat called fast swing rate, which measures how often a player swings the bat at 75+ mph. Springer's posted a 24.4% fast swing rate in 2023 and a 22.4% rate in 2024, but that number has skyrocketed to 38.8% in 2025. That jump of 16% is the highest for any Blue Jays hitter between the past two seasons. So, when Springer swings, he’s swinging harder AND he’s making better contact. 

There’s more than just that, too. Swinging hard doesn’t mean that good results are guaranteed to follow. Making contact is still extremely important. After all, no one really cares how hard you swing at ball four. But Springer has made dramatic improvements in that department, too. When Springer gets a pitch at the belt level, he’s been crushing it:

Baseball Prospectus houses a metric called “SEAGER,” which is a stat that's used to evaluate swing decisions. It is designed to show who is the best at taking the pitches they should be taking and swinging at the ones they should be doing damage on. (The metric is appropriately named after Corey Seager, who has mastered this approach, known to scouts as a “selective aggression.”) Here is where Springer really shines. Springer is third in baseball in this metric, trailing only Seager himself and AL MVP co-favourite Aaron Judge.

This echoes some of the game plans that the new Blue Jays hitting coaches have wanted to see from their hitters this year. Back in April, Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet spoke to hitting coach David Popkins.

“It just seemed like he kind of lost that aggression that he's had his whole career, that I've always admired from him,” Popkins recalled. “You’d see him kind of sacrifice bat speed just to put balls in play and really reaching for balls and weak contact early. Almost like he’s scared to get to two strikes. Versus the best version of him, I feel like is not afraid to take a couple borderline pitches, and then if you make one mistake, he’s going to hit it really hard”.

The data clearly backs that up. Springer himself has even commented on this exact thing, telling Nicholson-Smith, “The last couple of years, there may not have been some A-swings in a lot of at-bats. [Now], I understand what they need from me, and I need to be in a position to get my A-swing off in an at-bat, and that’s kind of all that matters.”

Sometimes baseball can be just so simple, and it's worth keeping in mind that sometimes, for a player as talented as Springer is, it doesn’t take much to tap back into that talent – it just takes the right scout, coach, teammate, or friend to find a way to make things click again. Now, George Springer is back and arguably better than ever. Safe to say he’s definitely not “cooked.”

Stats updated prior to games on September 8.