Dansby Swanson off to a slow start during Chicago Cubs Spring Training

Dansby Swanson is the new face of the Chicago Cubs at the Major League level and he has yet to find offensive success during his first Spring Training with the team.

Swanson has appeared in 8 games this Spring for the Cubs and has a slash line of .059/.273/.059/.332. Not an ideal start for Swanson in regard to his offensive approach but it is important to remember that the star shortstop has only had 17 at-bats. The encouraging sign is that Swanson has drawn 5 walks but the strikeouts have been prevalent as well as he has struck out in 6 of his 22 total plate appearances.

There shouldn't be a reason for concern just yet in regard to Swanson as he struggled during 2022 Spring Training with the Atlanta Braves as well. In 31 plate appearances during Spring Training with the Braves last season, Swanson slashed .207/.258/.310/.568 with only 1 extra-base hit. Swanson went on to have a career year offensively with the Braves and that led to him signing a seven-year deal with the Cubs this offseason.

For Swanson, when he signed with the Cubs, the concern was how repeatable the offensive approach that he had with the Braves over the course of the past two seasons. Swanson has hit over 25 home runs in each of the past two seasons but failed to eclipse the 20-home-run mark in the five seasons prior.

The common theme with Spring Training and the early parts of the regular season is that the pitchers are ahead of the hitters. Still, Swanson is averaging less than 3 pitches per plate appearance so the hope is that number can increase a little during the final stretch of Spring Training games and that leads to the shortstop finding his offensive rhythm.