Andy Pages’ improvement couldn’t have come at a better time for both him & the Dodgers – Dodgers Digest

(Photo: Cody Bashore)

There was a time earlier this season when folks were calling for Andy Pages to be demoted to Triple-A Oklahoma City. At the time, it made some sense. Through April 19, he was hitting just .179/.286/.328 and was striking out in nearly 30% of his plate appearances. Since then, he has hit .323/.341/.534 and has whiffed in just 15.2% of his plate appearances.

While it’s still a small sample size, it’s clear he has made some adjustments. Diving into the data, his improvement looks to be fueled by improved plate discipline, strike zone judgment, being better against the slider and something else that’s not quantifiable — his mental state.

——

Overall, his numbers aren’t that much better than last season — and some are slightly worse:

YearAVGOBPSLGBB%K%wRC+2024.248.305.4076.524.41002025.270.318.4495.220.4115

Yet, he has a different feel this season.

He began the 2025 season hitting mostly in the No. 9 spot in the stacked Dodgers’ lineup. He hit there 15 times in his first 24 games. Since then, he hasn’t hit ninth. Some of that is due to injuries to the likes of Tommy Edman and Teoscar Hernandez, as well as the ineffectiveness of Michael Conforto, but he also earned the right to hit higher in the lineup. He, admittedly, felt lost hitting at end of the lineup.

“‘I’ve never hit in that spot in the order,’ Pages said through an interpreter after going 4 for 5 with a career-high four RBIs (while batting sixth). ‘At first I was more passive, trying to see as many pitches as possible. That’s never helped me. In my career, that’s never helped me because I get too passive. The pitches in the zone, I need to hit.’
Pages said he spoke with Dodgers manager Dave Roberts and president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and they told him to ‘relax, to be myself.’ So he stopped thinking about where he was hitting – and started hitting.

“‘I think it’s more because I haven’t thought as much about where the team has me hitting,’ he said of the surge. ‘I’ve simply done what I’ve instinctively always done and things are turning out well that way.’”

Hitting is as much — if not more — mental than physical. Once Pages stopped trying to be the hitter he isn’t, he turned his season around. Let’s dive deeper into that turnaround.

——

While he’s not hitting the ball any harder, is hitting fewer fly balls and is swinging more outside the strike zone, the areas of improvement outweigh those bits of regression.

For starters, Pages is making more contact overall this season. Last year, he ran a 77.8% contact rate. This year, he has improved it to 80.4%. His in-zone swing percentage is nearly identical to last season (71% to 70.5%), but he’s making contact at almost a 5 percentage point increase over last season — 89.4%. While he’ll never be confused for Luis Arraez or Nico Hoerner, he’s Top 50 in baseball and is fourth on the Dodgers with his Z-Contact%, behind Edman, Will Smith and Mookie Betts.

Because he’s making more contact in the zone — despite swinging at pitches outside the zone slightly more — he has been able to reduce his strikeout rate to a very palatable 20.4%. He has made a marked improvement against sliders in particular, which has been a big reason for his success so far this season compared to his struggles last year.

YearAVGSLGISOWhiff%PutAway%EV (MPH)2024.174.246.07236.619.684.32025.341.545.20518.79.887.2

As such, his run value has done a 180. He was -7 run value against the slider last year. This year, it’s +4. As a cumulative statistic, he has done this in fewer than half the plate appearances he had in 2024. He’s also doing it by seeing more sliders so far this season (19.9% to 17.3%). The league, assuredly, has this intel, so perhaps teams will stop throwing him as many sliders (though, it hasn’t happened yet) and attack him with a different breaking pitch. The only other pitch with horizontal movement that gives Pages trouble (i.e., negative run value) is the cutter, with a -3 this season. That’s something to monitor going forward with the prevalence of cutters these days.

——

Essentially, Pages is becoming a more complete hitter and less of a platoon guy thanks to his improvement against spin and, most importantly, him getting over any mental hurdles he had about a month ago. Once a Top 100 prospect, he looked more like a role player last year (despite his 2-home run game in the NLCS). Now, he’s looking like a solid, everyday starter. He may not be the next Teoscar at the plate, but if he’s a lesser version of him with the bat while playing superior defense, well, that’s a guy. And that’s a guy the Dodgers need in a group littered with superstars.