Travis Swaggerty Getting Back to Form — And GM Has Noticed (+)
For the Pittsburgh Pirates in spring training this year, outfielder Travis Swaggerty was certainly one of the standout performers.
The 25-year-old appeared in 19 games in the spring and slashed an impressive .379/.471/.690. He finished tied for second on the team in home runs with three and RBIs with 10. Swaggerty also stole a base and scored nine runs.
Due to his performance, it looked like Swaggerty had a strong chance of making the Pirates’ initial 26-man roster, but the Pirates opted to have the 2018 first-round draft pick begin the year in Indianapolis.
So far with Indianapolis, Swaggerty has carried over his strong spring to a pretty good start to the regular season in Triple-A, especially in the power department. Through 13 games with the Indians, Swaggerty has an even .800 OPS, a .229 ISO, four doubles, two triples, a homer and three RBIs to go along with three steals.
General manager Ben Cherington recently talked about his outfield prospect.
“He’s off to a good start. He was one of the tougher conversations in the spring given how he did. It’s exciting, speaking of, getting over disappointment, it’s exciting to see how he’s responded in Triple-A – continues to do the things we’re asking him to do.”
Swaggerty received his first chance in the big leagues last year with the Pirates, appearing in five games. He recorded his first big league hit against the Atlanta Braves during his brief stint in the majors.
Now, Swaggerty is vying for a prolonged chance in Pittsburgh this season, and he could be on his way to making that happen if he’s able to continue what he’s been doing.
“Just keep going… I don’t think there’s anything else but just keep going where he’s at,” Cherington said on what he needs to do to get back to the Pirates.
Swaggerty has started to more consistently show why the Pirates made him the 10th overall pick in 2018 of late.
The outfielder’s 2021 season consisted of only 12 games after undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery that year. He was still dealing with some effects with his shoulder last season but still managed to play 107 games with Indianapolis.
Now, Swaggerty seems to be all-the-way back from the setback and the Pirates are seeing the player of old.
“You know, after all the shoulder injuries and the missed time last year, I think he would even admit it took him a while to get, kind of, psychologically passed that to be aggressive defensively again and we started to see that aggressive defender this spring training again.
“That’s just something he can do that some guys can’t. He’s got a chance to be a defender in center field and not everyone can do that. It’s an important part of his game. To see him get back, it looked like he got back to that was really encouraging and he’s picked that up in Indy,” Cherington said.
Even when his offense has been a question mark in his career, Swaggerty has always been a consistent defender in the outfield and has shown he is more than capable of playing center field. His defense and his speed are both big elements to his game and are often on display.
Now that Swaggerty seems to be finding his groove at the plate again, we may see him get another shot with the Pirates this season. This time, it could be longer than the cup of coffee he received last year.
For now, Swaggerty will continue to focus on what he needs to keep doing with Indianapolis. As Cherington said, he just needs to keep going.