Fresh-faced White Sox utilityman Brooks Baldwin has put on a full-court press to make sure no beat writers inquire if he's secretly 16 years old this season.
The thick black rims on the glasses he dons on his way in and out of the clubhouse age him at least a year or two, but he's also added a wispy mustache, and perhaps most importantly, a filled-out midsection after a winter of working to add strength to his legs and core.
"Totally different body," said director of hitting Ryan Fuller. "He's a guy that's been very diligent."
Miguel Vargas' extreme in-season weight loss last year and offseason addition of 20 pounds was more noticeable, but Baldwin's wrist injury held him to three at-bats in the month of September, obscuring that he was already feeling the toll of a professional career-high in games played, and that the form that powered his monstrous first half in Birmingham had dissipated.
"I was having to use more of my upper body [in my swing] near the end of last year, just from the duration of the season and losing a lot of weight, and not having the strength I needed to use my lower half to swing the bat," Baldwin said. "Being able to use your legs allows you to hold your posture a little better and allows you to stay on it a lot better."
"By the time he came up late last year, you could tell that it was later in the season for Brooks," said Chris Getz. "That’s one of the benefits of getting young players up here to get a taste of the big leagues. Although there might be struggles along the way, they learn from those struggles or those experiences and in his case, a lot of it was physically getting stronger."
But rather than a transformation aimed at making him a radically different player type, Baldwin uses the term "maintain" a lot to describe his offseason training goals. However ambitious it feels for his larger development to make himself available for manning seven different positions, or being active on the basepaths, Baldwin takes a specific pride in being available for anything that needs doing on a baseball field. It's a survival skill for a former 12th-round pick who has never been the most ballyhooed prospect in any professional clubhouse, but the urge also dates back at least as far as UNC Wilmington.
"I played every position [in college], infield and outfield, except for pitcher and catcher," Baldwin said. "I tried to pitch but it didn't work out. They did let me [try]. I got in there during the fall a little bit, but some arm issues delayed that, so they stuck me back at a position."
In kind, Baldwin wasn't willing to let last year's tired legs curb his ambitions. He was called up last season just as the White Sox were diving into their 21-game losing streak, with Pedro Grifol getting fired soon after the first victorious postgame clubhouse Baldwin ever got to experience. So while it was hard to parse his rookie struggles from the larger torrent of disappointing White Sox results, Baldwin compiled a .211/.250/.316 line in 121 plate appearances that weren't necessarily a cause for panic for a 24-year-old who began the season in Double-A, but nevertheless contained atypical habits for those more familiar with his game.
The most easy to spot was that Baldwin could be frequently seen "coming out of" his swing last season, where his legs would bail out of his swing to the pull side. Sure, he's simply fooled on this Brady Singer slider, but isn't well positioned to hold up, stay back and spoil it as he would have been earlier in the season.
In turn, a lot of his work in the offseason and in spring resided in using the added strength in his legs to rep holding his posture and position in his swing all the way through. Baldwin has run an elevated chase rate throughout his short major league tenure and he's likely to always err on the side of aggression -- "I like to be on go from pitch one, just so I don't miss that first pitch if it's something I like to hit" -- so his leg base needs to be up to matching his ambition to pursue pitches all over the zone.
"The biomech staff gave us really great info on him and it's just been a very targeted, concerted effort to make sure he's continuing to trend upward," Fuller said. "The ability to hold his positions and move the bat a little bit faster through the zone [leads to] higher-end exit velos. Those are the thing where even if you're not feeling good, maybe it's a ground ball but it's hard enough to get through, those are the things that keep a good year from going a little bit bad."
As Twins starter Simeon Woods Richardson tried to finish Baldwin off with high fastballs Tuesday night to strand a runner in scoring position, simply laying off the shoulder-high offerings wouldn't have been a bad result, especially for a more power-and-patience oriented swinger. But instead, Baldwin's dedication to situational hitting and aggressive leanings ran headlong into his skill for manipulating his barrel to touch pitches outside of his hot zone and his revamped strength for staying balanced throughout.
"it's just something I worked on a lot this offseason, just being able to get on top of the high pitch and kind of use my top hand a little more to be able to hit those balls when I need to," Baldwin said. "It's been a lot better than last year so far. First couple at-bats weren't what I've been working on this offseason. Right before I went up for my third at-bat, Marcus [Thames] said just hold [my posture] a little longer, so I think it helped put a little cue in my head to stay on the ball a little longer."
As one impassioned Bluesky follower has been helpful in pointing out, the Sox have dropped all four games in which Baldwin has started so far. Since Will Venable pinch hit for him against a lefty reliever just after his solo homer on Wednesday, it's fair to wonder if he'd even have this much playing time early on if lefty-swinging infielder Josh Rojas was healthy, let alone if Colson Montgomery and Bryan Ramos had smoother springs.
But Baldwin's whole deal is positioning himself to slide in and contribute wherever the cracks emerge. Given how quickly and frequently the White Sox's best-laid plans give way to auxiliary options, it's a necessary step that Baldwin spent the winter prepping himself for the long haul.
"There’s been times where he’s needed to adjust his path depending on fastball types, where you've seen him get on top of some four-seam fastballs and get under some two-seamers," Venable said. "When you talk to him, he’s just very even-keeled. That’s a really good personality trait that fits what we’re asking him to do. He’s not going to get too high, not going to get too low, he’s not going to overthink where we’re putting him. He just wants to go out and play."
