Brewers have already made a drastic Bo Naylor change Guardians couldn't

It’s not hard to picture Bo Naylor’s average at-bat with the Guardians. He’d see a lot of pitches and set himself up in a dangerous situation, only to strike out swinging or pull a harmless fly ball to right field that would harmlessly land in the right fielder’s glove. 

While it was clear that Naylor had a ton of power lurking under-the-hood, those kinds of moments were few and far between during his time in Cleveland. 

That may not be the case anymore. 

Even though Naylor has played exclusively at Triple-A Nashville since the Guardians traded him to the Brewers at the deadline, his batting approach has featured some pretty stark changes.

Brewers Fanatic’s Jake McKibbin highlighted those changes on X by posting a screenshot of Naylor minor league advanced stats page from TJ Stats. 

As you can see, Naylor has pulled the ball just 31% of the time across his time with the Sounds, which has led to an increase in his barrel rate along with most of his expected stats. 

Even if that production comes with the obvious caveat that it’s occurring in the minors, it’s still a bit frustrating to see Naylor produce in a way he was never able to do with the Guardians. 

Bo Naylor has started to turn his career around with Brewers

All of those under-the-hood numbers have resulted in Naylor having a .270/.341/.541 slashline in nine games with Nashville to go along with three home runs and nine RBI. 

The real test for the deal is going to come whenever the Brewers decide to call Naylor up from Triple-A — whenever that may come. The Brewers catching tandem is currently set with veterans William Contreras and Gary Sánchez, but Milwaukee’s trade for Naylor was about the future as much as the present. 

Sánchez is an impending free agent and Contreras only has one year of team control remaining, so Naylor stands out as an obvious choice to be their catcher of the future. He could also get called up in September when each team gets an additional roster spot. 

Although we don’t know if the Guardians always wanted Naylor to institute the profile change he seems to be embracing in Milwaukee, it seems clear that change is happening in the minors. 

Whether he’ll be able to incorporate it on the big league level is a different story, however.

Naylor went from being a prime part of the Guardians’ catching tandem to an afterthought in under a year and ended up finishing his tenure with Cleveland with a batting average .200, so it’s no guarantee that he’ll be able to translate that minor league success to the big leagues. 

One thing that could work in his favor is the Brewers’ track record in fixing hitters. The most recent example of that is former Guardians flameout Jake Bauers, who is in the midst of a breakout season at 30. 

But Naylor’s early minor league returns with Milwaukee have been exciting, which is more than can be said for how things went after the Guardians demoted him to Triple-A.

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