{"id":698704,"date":"2026-05-14T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/698704\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T12:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:00:15","slug":"michael-confortos-hot-start-is-a-tale-of-staving-off-regression-cubs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/698704\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Conforto’s Hot Start Is A Tale of Staving Off Regression – Cubs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt’s difficult to overstate the value that Michael Conforto<\/a> has brought to the Chicago Cubs early in 2026. A minor-league signing coming off a brutal season with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the original perception of Conforto’s role was, at best, as temporary depth while Seiya Suzuki<\/a> worked his way back to full health. Instead, he’s gained an increased role in recent weeks on the heels of a torrid stretch of play.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAs of the series in Atlanta, Conforto is carrying a slash of .340\/.448\/.617 with a gaudy 198 wRC+. He’s striking out more than the Cubs would probably like (25.9 percent), but he’s also walking more than 17 percent of the time. Add it all up, and he has been worth 0.6 fWAR for the Cubs in barely 60 plate appearances. It’s all a far cry from where he sat last year with the Dodgers when his line read .199\/.305\/.333 with a wRC+ of just 83 (-0.6 fWAR) across more than 480 PA.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat’s particularly important in the case of Conforto is that this isn’t a player merely flashing despite questionable peripherals. Sure, he’s due for some regression on the merit of his .452 batting average on balls in play by itself, but he’s also driving the baseball. His 54.5 percent hard-hit rate exceeds his career average by about 13 percent while his 15.2 Barrel% is nearly five full percent better than his career mark. We know good things happen when hitters pull the ball in the air, and Conforto is deploying those contact metrics to the tune of a 30.3 PullAIR%. In short, it’s not blind luck driving the start. He’s been legitimately good.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIn general, this performance seems to be driven by his approach. Conforto’s swing rate is down, with a 40.2 percent number that would be the lowest of his career if it holds up over the full season. What’s more is that his chase rate has fallen to just 20.5 percent (also the lowest of his career). Perhaps most importantly, as the chase rate has plummeted, the in-zone swing rate has remained steady. He’s working with a 64.2 percent swing rate on pitches inside the zone that represents just a two percent decrease from last season.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIt’s not solely about the eye, though. There are also mechanical tweaks at play. Conforto’s attack angle is up to 13 degrees in 2026 after falling to 10 degrees last season. It’s a steeper swing and one that reads around league average (10 degrees), but when you combine the improved approach with a swing generating fly ball contact, you’re able to find the type of early results that Conforto is producing.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, it’s important to note the managerial component within all of this as well. While a recent scuffling from the Cubs’ offense at large has forced Craig Counsell<\/a> to insert Conforto into the lineup with greater regularity, he’s also shielding him entirely from left-handed pitching. Conforto isn’t as drastically bad against pitchers of the same handedness as some lefty hitters may be, but he did go for a wRC+ of just 76 against them last year. As such, Counsell has sent Conforto to the plate against a left-handed pitcher just a single time this season. That’s certainly something not to be overlooked in matters of his early run.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAs impressive as Michael Conforto has been, the regression monster is something that’s going to continue to loom, especially in the case of a player that hasn’t experienced sustained offensive success since, realistically, 2019. In short, that regression is going to come at some point. The batted ball fortune alone is indicative of that inevitability. However, the trends which Conforto has demonstrated to date do offer some encouragement that he can continue to be a regular contributor to the offensive output.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen you put a player in a position to succeed, as Counsell has, while said player demonstrates a command of the strike zone and uses that command toward making meaningful contact with the baseball, it’s going to yield positive results. Given those two factors, it isn’t a surprise that Conforto has good; it’s merely a pleasant turn of events that he’s been such an uplifting force in the lineup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s difficult to overstate the value that Michael Conforto has brought to the Chicago Cubs early in 2026.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2399],"tags":[5,138,24,4245,161,111,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-698704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-cubs","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-cubs","11":"tag-chicagocubs","12":"tag-cubs","13":"tag-michael-conforto","14":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116572823485287615","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}