Earlier this season, when Alec Burleson turned on letter-high fastballs for a double and a homer in back-to-back games and impressionable rookie JJ Wetherholt begged for him to teach him his craft, the Cardinals veteran first baseman resembled a blushing adult ashamed to be setting examples of bad habits to a younger generation.

While Burleson playfully frowned about the idea of teaching bad-ball hitting to Wetherholt, he said nothing about cutting out the practice for himself. After all, Burleson’s unique ability to get bat to ball – regardless of the location of the pitch – has been one of his secrets to the best year of his career.

Six pitches into a lengthy at bat against veteran sinker-ball specialist Brandon Webb on Monday night, Burleson went up to the top of the strike zone and drilled a pitch out of Oracle Park for his 22nd home run and 104th RBI of the season. Burleson’s contact was so pure that teammate Jordan Walker raised his right arm in celebration right away from the on-deck circle as the 109.5 mph, 431-foot blast sailed into McCovey Cove. Burleson became the 153rd player to hit a “splash” homer in San Francisco and just the third Cardinals player ever to do so, joining Larry Walker and Matt Carpenter.

The titanic blast allowed Burleson to set a new career high in homers and it ended a 20-game drought without a long ball, but the Cardinals still fell to the Giants 5-4 in 11 innings. That was his second longest stretch of the season without a homer, behind only the 21 games where he didn’t homer from July 9-Aug. 2.

Still, Burleson has already set career highs in doubles (34), homers (22), RBI (104), walks (48) and strikeouts (105) in 2026. His 34 doubles are tied for the second most in MLB behind only San Francisco’s Rafael Devers, who passed him on Monday night. As for Burleson’s 104 RBI, he is one of just three MLB players in triple digits along with Cincinnati’s Sal Stewart (107) and Walker (100).

As good of a year that Burleson has had, computer models suggest that it should have been even better for the sweet-swinging left-handed hitter. He’s hitting .283 with a .467 slugging percentage but based on his quality of contact his expected batting average should be .291 and his expected slugging should be .524 – two figures that rank in MLB’s 98th percentile.

The significantly better expected numbers stretch the specific pitches that Burleson has already feasted on. Against fastballs, he has batted .293 with a .505 slugging percentage and 14 doubles and 14 homers. The expected numbers sit at .314 and .594, respectively. He’s hitting just .240 with a .389 slugging percentage against breaking balls, but computer models suggest that his average and slugging percentage against those pitches should be .267 and .473 based on his quality of contact in 2026.

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When Burleson won the National League’s Silver Slugger award in 2025 for utility players, he credited his improved plate discipline for helping him snag the award. He chased 34.5 percent of pitches out of the strike zone in 2024, but he trimmed that number to 28.8 percent in 2025, per Baseball Savant. This season, Burleson is swinging at 38.2 percent of pitches out of the strike zone, but he has been more productive than ever. Also, his strikeout rate (17.2 percent) has remained one of the best in baseball, ranking in MLB’s 72nd percentile, per Savant.

One of the areas out of the strike zone where Burleson is thriving is on elevated pitches. Because of his quick hands and excellent hand-eye coordination, Burleson has shown a knack for being able to get to the elevated pitches that Wetherholt marveled at early in the season.

On pitches up and in and out of the strike zone – think pitches at the top of the bat on his Cardinals jersey – Burleson has hit 17 of those and he’s hitting .429 on those elevated offerings.

When pitchers try and target the upper portion of the strike zone on the inside corner, Burleson has swung at 80 percent of those pitches (56 of 70) and incredibly he’s hitting .292 on those elevated strikes. For comparison’s sake, MLB hitters are hitting just .234 in the up-and-in zone that Burleson has feasted upon in 2026.

“Oh, I like neck-high fastballs,” Burleson joked earlier in the season following a double he pounded off Texas left-hander MacKenzie Gore.

Other statistical trends that have helped Burleson produce more this season than he ever has before: He’s pulling the ball 48.6 percent of the time compared to just 33.6 percent of the time in 2025. More specifically, he’s pulling the ball in the air 20.8 percent of the time – far more than his 13.5 percent in 2025. Then, there’s also this: Burleson’s weak contact rate (from 3.8 percent in 2025 to 2.9 percent in 2026) has gone down and his barrel rate (from 9.5 percent in 2025 to 11.1 percent in 2026) has risen. That has allowed him to post a hard-hit rate of 49.7 percent and an average exit velocity of 92 mph, numbers that rank in MLB’s 90th and 89th percentiles.