Taylor Ward's power has disappeared in his first season with the Baltimore Orioles.
Right-handed hitting outfielder Taylor Ward has not been the player in 2026 the Baltimore Orioles thought they were acquiring from the Los Angeles Angels. Sending 26-year-old starting pitcher Grayson Rodriguez to Anaheim in exchange for Ward this past offseason, Baltimore gave up on the former first-round pick to acquire a player who was coming off a career-high 36 home runs and 103 RBIs.
But through a league-leading 378 plate appearances entering Saturday, Ward has just five home runs in Baltimore. His .369 slugging percentage is the lowest mark he has put up since his first two years in the league, when he slugged .333 in 2018 and 2019.
While this has been a notable power drop-off, Ward is getting on base at a .392 clip. This is largely due to an incredibly low swing percentage, as Ward has been among the most passive hitters in the league this season. His walk percentage is in the 99th percentile, chase percentage is in the 100th percentile, and he also isn't swinging and missing much either.
This is a vastly different profile than what we saw from Ward in 2025 when the power was up, but so were metrics like strikeouts and whiffs, both of which we saw a lot more of from Ward last season.
In modern baseball, more and more players are trading contact for power. But this season, Ward has done the opposite. Speaking on a recent MLB Network segment, six-time MLB All-Star Joey Votto reacted to Ward's new offensive profile, breaking down in great detail whether it's the right approach to be taking.
"Well, I want to be supportive of a leadoff hitter getting on base at nearly a 40% clip,” Votto said. “That's not nothing. That's important to the team. There's a transaction there, as you notice. There's a very clear transaction. Is that predictive of every other player that attempts that? No, not necessarily. But in baseball, specifically in hitting, nothing's for free. Nothing's for free. And I beg the question: How sustainable is the on-base if pitchers are feeling the lack of slug, the lack of threat? You have to, at all times, feel like a threat.”
Votto then told a story about him attempting this strategy himself later in his career.
"I actually attempted this in, I think it was '19, where I kept up that real low O-swing,” he said. “And then all of a sudden, the pitchers could smell that I wasn't threatening them with a double or home run. I'll be interested to see whether or not this is sustainable because, at some point, they just start firing balls right in the middle of the plate.”
When asked for his advice to Ward, Votto went on to say he would lean more into slug, since that is the more sustainable approach than maintaining a very low swing percentage, when MLB pitchers can adjust and start throwing more strikes.
It will be interesting to see how Ward's numbers look at the end of the season.
