Dansby Swanson spring training surge shows Cubs exactly what they needed

During the early days of spring training, Chicago Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson was candid about his struggles last year. Swanson was relegated to the bottom of the Cubs' starting lineup for most of the 2025 season, and he spent the offseason working on adjustments to his approach. It's been a small sample size, but Swanson is flashing signs of a bounce-back season during Cactus League play.

Entering play on Sunday, Swanson was slashing .467/.500/1.067 with a 283 wRC+ and 2 home runs. The caveat is that it's only been 16 plate appearances.

The hope is that some of Swanson's underlying numbers hint that the improvements he worked on during the offseason are paying off. Through his first 16 plate appearances of spring training, Swanson has only struck out once.

At the center of Swanson's inconsistency last year was an uptick in strikeouts. In 645 plate appearances last season, the 32-year-old struck out 26% of the time.

Dansby Swanson's swing decisions are at the center of his spring training success.

Diving even further, the increase in strikeouts may have been tied to the frequency with which he made contact on pitches outside of the strike zone. For his career, he's made contact with just over 51% of the pitches that were thrown to him outside of the strike zone. That number fell to 38.4% last season. For reference, last year, Swanson swung at pitches outside of the strike zone over 24% of the time.

There have been improvements in each of those marks for Swanson during the early days of spring training. He's swinging at only 21.4% of the pitches thrown to him outside the strike zone, but he's making contact 50% of the time.

Better swing decisions are leading to better results for Swanson. Of course, we're not at the point where that can be the version of Swanson Cubs fans should expect during the regular season, but it's a step in the right direction.

If the Cubs' offense is going to be better in 2026, especially without Kyle Tucker, Swanson will need to be a part of that success. Given his defense, Swanson is always going to have value, and there will be a cap to his offensive success, but the Cubs need more from him at the plate. Along those lines, he was aware of that, and it seems he is on the right path toward stabilizing his offensive production.