Cubs' Dansby Swanson is crushing the ball after overhauling his offseason plan

MESA, Ariz. – Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson had been feeling like he needed a shift in perspective on offense.

“I didn't fully know exactly what way that was,” he said in a recent conversation with the Sun-Times. “Just because, there's so much information out there, and there's so many different things that you can see about drills that are going to fix this, that and the other.”

In the end, Swanson took a “leap of faith,” as he put it, and went in the opposite direction. His offseason work centered around movement and athleticism, straying away from a more drill-based mechanical approach.

It’s too early in spring to say how that shift will translate to the regular season. But the results so far have been promising. On Thursday, he lined a single into left field and mashed an opposite-field home run into the Diamondbacks’ bullpen to bring his OPS to an impressive 1.600 in four Cactus League games.

“I feel pretty good,” Swanson said earlier this week. “One of the best things about it all, too, was I feel like I have a little bit more understanding and belief in what I'm doing. I feel a little bit more clarity just with the kind of things I'm doing, and I can go and trust and do that and not worry about, did I do good or did I do bad?”

Swanson was about an average hitter last season, as measured by wRC+ (99). It was an improvement on his offensive production the previous season (97), when he was playing through a sports hernia all year, but a drop compared to his first year with the Cubs (105) and especially his last with the Braves (117).

He wasn’t satisfied going into the offseason.

“One of the things that baseball players and the industry always struggle with is, how do we practice?” manager Craig Counsell said. “What's the best way for me to practice when it's really hard to simulate game conditions. … And we get into ruts in how we practice. And I think what Dansby’s saying is, he got into a little rut of how he was practicing his hitting, and took some ownership of it, and wanted to change from it. And I think it's a positive change.”

Swanson describes that conundrum as a pendulum. There’s times in a player’s career when he needs drills to get his swing on track. But that same drill or mechanical focus, when “overcooked” can take away from a player’s natural ability.

"That's kind of the point that I'd gotten to, was, ‘You know what, I don't really need a drill anymore,’” he said. “I need to get back to moving naturally, being a good athlete. The seesaw had gone too far in one direction, and it needed to reverse course a little bit.”

In previous winters, Swanson would dissect his weaknesses from that season and prescribe drills to address them. This offseason, his only concern was efficient movement.

“I just hit,” Swanson said. “As silly as that sounds, I just hit.”

He also dove into his own movement patterns, and not just while swinging — also in the way he steps into the box, leans back, and gets set.

“It was a lot about kind of relearning myself again,” Swanson said. “Just with things like all the different little fidgets that I do. There's a reason as to why you do them. And uncovering that. So it was actually really cool understanding myself again.”

Hitting coach Dustin Kelly connected Swanson’s new approach to the defensive side. Swanson, a two-time Gold Glover shortstop, is constantly making sliding grabs, setting up backhand picks, making his own rules.

“He doesn't think about any mechanics on defense,” Kelly said. “It's just a natural rhythm and flow. So we're trying to bring some of that into his cage work.”

So far, Swanson's offseason leap of faith seems to be paying off.