Michael Busch will need to make these key adjustments in his sophomore season

In Michael Busch, the Cubs finally found a consistent first base option in 2024 for the first time since the mid-2021 Anthony Rizzo trade. Despite being consistently ranked on top prospect lists for several years, Busch's 118 OPS+ still served to be a pleasant surprise after struggling mightily in a cup of coffee the previous season. He also came into his own defensively at first after a few rough patches in the first half. Could he be primed to make a jump in 2025 in his age-27 season?

Let's start by taking a deeper look at his rookie season. Something that caught my eye early was Busch's splits, which are pretty crazy in some areas. He struggled in day games and, as a product of that, his line at Wrigley wasn't good. The rookie slashed .211/.299/.384 at the Friendly Confines but put up a .280/.366/.489 line on the road. Those are wild differences on a substantial sample size of at-bats. There was some real statistical hitting oddities at Clark and Addison this year, but, even so, Busch's splits stand out.

It's tough to discern what might be driving this. It doesn't seem like something that's been reported or Busch has been asked about previously. There's a host of potential explanations: the depressed offensive production, as a whole, at Wrigley, a discomfort hitting in daylight, trouble tracking balls with the Wrigley batting eye, a heavier distribution of slider-heavy pitchers facing the Cubs at Wrigley vs. on the road, etc. Overall, my guess (or hope) was that his performance at Wrigley was a statistical outlier due for a positive regression in 2025 - driven by a combination of the negative park effect and some of the weirdness that tends to happen in rookie's first full years in the bigs.

So, where can Busch improve to create a significant jump in offensive value for 2025? He's so close to being the kind of top-tier hitter the Cubs are desperately in need of. At a macro level, there are two options to stack more value: either slug more or make more contact. Generally, Busch has a great eye, which leads to a strong walk rate. Unfortunately, he ranked well above league average with a 28% strikeout rate and a similar whiff rate. The biggest problem areas were low in the zone and, bizarerly, he was horrific at making contact at pitches out of the zone. Busch is 20 percentage points below the league average in Fangraph's O-Contact %. Essentially Busch doesn't swing at pitches outside the zone often but, even when he does, he simply doesn't make contact.

Qualitatively, this holds true when you think of the dozens of times Busch whiffed on down and in sliders from right-handed pitchers in 2024. I'm not really sure what the takeaway is there. Is it that Busch has to be even more selective at the plate and learn to lay off breaking pitches? Is it potentially a need to cut down on his swing in certain situations to increase bat control, a la Anthony Rizzo? Is it simply to make more contact overall and cut down on strikeouts?

The contact is going to have to improve significantly to even maintain his output from last year. He benefited from a high .322 BABIP, which allowed him to significantly outperform his xBA of .217. However, Busch decreased his strikeout rate significantly from his 2023 season and it's not far-fetched to see him make another significant stride toward a league-average strikeout rate. If he could combine that with a slight increase in power, the Cubs' first baseman could make a jump closer to All-Star status. Busch will have to make these adjustments if there is a stat regression looming from the high BABIP rates, which Steamer has him pegged for in 2025.