ARLINGTON, Texas — After the Angels sent Kyren Paris back to the minors with a .118 batting average last summer, he decided something had to change.
“I knew I didn’t want that to happen again,” Paris recalled. “I knew the talent I had. I just had to make simple adjustments to become the best player that I could be.”
At first glance, there would seem to be nothing “simple” about what Paris done, rebuilding his swing to become the early-season American League WAR leader.
However, he said the transition was surprisingly seamless.
“I instantly knew, this was the best I’ve ever felt,” Paris said. “Just from my past experiencing and understanding the game, I knew I would have success with it.”
No one else could have seen this coming.
Paris hit .110 with a .378 OPS in 105 big league plate appearances in 2023 and 2024, and he only hit .167 with a .532 OPS in the minors last year.
But Paris tore through spring training to win a spot on the roster, and he’s hit .368 with five homers and an OPS of 1.309 through his first 46 plate appearances this season. He’s also stolen five bases.
His WAR of 1.5, according to Baseball Reference, is tied for the major league lead.
“So far, it’s been fantastic,” teammate Jo Adell said. “Through spring training, I knew it wasn’t a fluke. He came in and he had a plan.”
The plan began with the help of Richard Schenck, a controversial hitting coach with a large social media footprint. Schenck is best known for coaching Aaron Judge. Paris said he’d watched plenty of Schenck’s online content, and had a good idea of what he needed to do before he traveled to St. Louis to work him for a few days this winter. Paris said he also worked out with Aj Arroyo at Optimal Power Performance in Arizona.
The changes began from the ground.
Paris moved back in the batter’s box. He’s now further back in the box than any hitter in the majors, according to MLB tracking data. He is about five inches deeper than he was last year.
Paris opened his stance. The line between his toes essentially pointed straight to the mound last year, but now it’s 53 degrees open. Boston Red Sox slugger Rafael Devers is the only hitter in the majors with a more open stance.
Paris also squats more as he waits for the pitch. And instead of doing a small leg kick, he has what he calls a “hover.” The point isn’t so much to generate power in his stride, but to delay it. Paris, who is 5-11, 180 pounds, wants to keep his front foot in the air to ensure that his weight stays on his back foot as long as possible, so he can release maximum energy into his swing.
“For me, it’s just getting into an athletic position,” Paris said. “I want to be on my back side, so I dropped my stance back, my front foot back, just to have all my weight on my back side, and really got more into my legs, to be more athletic and have more power.”
By standing deeper in the box and opening his stance, he also a better angle to see the ball and a split-second more time to react to it.
“It just puts him in a position to swing when he wants to swing the bat, rather than when he has to swing the bat,” said Angels hitting coach Johnny Washington. “It gives him a chance to see the ball a little bit deeper and then get on plane with pitches and catch balls deeper, catch balls out front. It gives him a bunch of different options. He’s created a ton of adjustability with his swing.”
The improvement is showing up beyond the numbers in the box score. The underlying metrics are dramatically different as well. Paris’ has improved his hard hit percentage from 35.3% to 60.7%, which is in the 98th percentile in the majors. He has barreled 17.9% of his balls in play, which is in the 91st percentile.
All of this suggests the 23-year-old is finally reaching his potential. Although his previous numbers were poor in the big leagues and unspectacular in the minors, it would be inaccurate to say he came from nowhere.
In 2019, Paris was the Angels’ second-round pick out of Freedom High in Oakley, which is in the eastern part of the San Francisco Bay Area. He was drafted when he was still five months shy of his 18th birthday. Paris has been competing with players older than him for most of his life.
He lost an early season of his minor league development because of the COVID shutdown of the minors in 2020 and more time with a fractured fibula in 2021.
Baseball-America consistently ranked him toward the bottom of the Angels’ top 10 prospect lists, until he rose to No. 3 in 2022. He dropped to No. 16 in 2023, but then he had an encouraging .810 OPS as a 21-year-old at Double-A. Even though he missed the end of that season with thumb surgery from an injury suffered in the majors, Paris still rocketed up to No. 4 on the Angels prospect ranking prior to the 2024 season.
That’s when things began to go off the rails. He struggled in the majors, got sent down, and then missed two months with an unspecified injury.
By last winter, Paris played enough in the big leagues to no longer qualify for prospect lists, and infielder Christian Moore further took attention from him when he joined the system as a first-round pick. Over the winter the Angels also added middle infield depth with players like Kevin Newman, Scott Kingery and Tim Anderson. Because of all that, there was no mention of Paris as a serious candidate to make the Opening Day roster when camp began two months ago.
His new swing changed the narrative. Now, the question is how long can he keep it up?
No one expects him to hit 50 homers or lead the majors in WAR. Manager Ron Washington’s reluctance to move him higher than seventh in the order also suggests the Angels want to be cautious with their expectations.
“You know, you see a lot of guys flying high in April, but you can’t find them later on,” Washington said. “He’s showing you what he can do. He’s showing you the talent that he has. He’s working at it, and it’s our job to try to help him keep it. And that’s all we’re trying to do. Help him keep it. So stay tuned.”
Washington has also been wary of heaping too much onto Paris because of the defensive demands. He’s always been raw in the field, and the Angels are now trying to help him improve at two positions, center field and second base.
A scout who has watched Paris throughout his career is impressed, but shares Washington’s wait-and-see attitude.
“I just can’t, as an evaluator and as a person who’s seen a lot of players and been on the field myself, I can’t put much weight on April,” the scout said. “There are a lot of hitters who get hot in April and come up here and do well, and then all of a sudden the season starts to weigh on you. You can either come back to who you are or you’re just another guy. It is too early for me to say this guy is going to be a stud or star. I need a bigger sample than one month, for me.”
The scout said he still sees problems with his swing.
“He’s swinging uphill as hard as he can to make contact, and he is right now,” the scout said. “He’s hitting the ball hard. I’m not sure he can sustain it. … I think pitchers will probably, at some point, start making adjustments, looking at swing path and then he’ll have to adjust accordingly. But right now, he’s a tough out.”
The scout stopped short of saying that it’s all a mirage. He conceded that even when Paris does cool down, there’s still plenty of room below what he’s doing now to still make him a productive big league player. José Altuve won the AL Silver Slugger at second last year with a .790 OPS. The major league average at the position was .684.
Also, the confidence he’s gaining now could end up meaning even more than the swing mechanics.
“His energy just looks different the way he’s walking around the field, the way he’s walking up to the plate, his practice swing,” the scout said. “Confidence can go a long way, and he’s oozing with it now.”
Paris said he’s excited with the results so far, but he’s aware that there’s more work to do.
UP NEXT
Angels (LHP Yusei Kikuchi, 0-2, 5.00) at Rangers (TBD), Tuesday, 5:05 p.m. PT, FanDuel Sports Network West, 830 AM