Brewers have already made the Bo Naylor change we suspected they would after trade deadline

The Milwaukee Brewers do not pull the baseball. Ranked last in all of baseball with a pull rate of 36%, the Brewers' offense approach heavily relies on letting the ball travel, adjusting to where it's thrown, and putting it in play rather than selling out for an inside pitch and pulling it.

Brewers' manager Pat Murphy went as far as saying that he hates the term "pull" ahead of the team's Tuesday night series opener against the Seattle Mariners. Murphy, who was addressing Joey Ortiz's recent uptick in pull rate, which coincides with his hot stretch over the last month and a half, explained that Ortiz's change is the result of his confidence increasing at the plate and him being more convicted in his swing decisions, rather than a reason for his improved production at the plate.

Murphy's distaste for trying to pull the baseball stems from what the approach can lead to if a player becomes too absorbed in it. If a hitter is constantly focused on pulling the baseball, their ability to find success on a pitch on the outer half of the plate decreases significantly. More often than not, if a player tries to pull a pitch on the outer half of the plate, they will end up rolling over, and producing a weak groundball to the pull side. Therefore, going to the plate with the approach of letting the ball travel and reacting to where it's pitched, is Murphy and the Brewers' preferred offensive approach.

As a result of this approach, the Brewers tend not to have many players with high pull-air rates (calculated by the number of pulled balls in the air divided by the total number of batted balls), and even players whom they acquire tend to see a rather significant decrease in their pull-air rate after arriving in Milwaukee. Take, for example, David Hamilton, who the Brewers acquired from the Boston Red Sox this past offseason. During the 2024 and 2025 seasons with Boston, Hamilton posted pull-air rates of 22.0% and 17.3%, respectively. Since joining the Brewers, that pull-air rate has dropped to 10.6% this year. Brice Turang's back-to-back quantum leaps in 2024 and 2025 coincided with a decreasing pull-air rate as well.

In fact, two of the few true "pull-air hitters" that have come through the Brewers' organization in recent years were Caleb Durbin and Isaac Collins, both of whom were traded away after their rookie seasons. Clearly, there is an emphasis in Milwaukee on not trying to pull the ball in the air but rather taking what the pitcher offers and adjusting accordingly.

Already, the Brewers are instilling that approach in their lone position player addition at this year's trade deadline. While it's undoubtedly a small sample size for catcher Bo Naylor, whom Milwaukee acquired from the Cleveland Guardians two days before this year's trade deadline, the early returns show a clear emphasis on not trying to pull the baseball nearly as much as he was in Cleveland.

Bo Naylor is already pulling the ball far less since joining the Brewers' organization, adhering to recent organizational pattern

Before joining the Brewers back on August 1, Naylor was playing for the Guardians' Triple-A squad, after a prolonged slump at the major league level that dated back to the 2025 season. With Cleveland's Triple-A team this year, Naylor was maintaining an elevated 51.4% pull rate. That's a bit higher than where he's lived during his four-year MLB career, but Naylor still boasts a 42.0% pull rate throughout his career in the majors. His career pull-air rate, meanwhile, has been even higher than Durbin or Collins', checking in at 24.0%.

That profile makes Naylor something of a confounding acquisition for the Brewers, unless they believe the solution to his recent struggles is him adopting Milwaukee's less pull-centric approach. Naylor's first few games with the Nashville Sounds, the Brewers' Triple-A team, suggest that this may, in fact, be the case.

Since joining the Sounds, Naylor's pull rate has plummeted to 36.7%, which is lower than it's ever been over the course of a full season throughout his professional career. The significant caveat here is that Naylor has just 40 at-bats in Nashville thus far. However, in that small sample size, he's slashing .275/.370/.525, good for an .895 OPS that should at least have Brewers fans' interest peaked. Naylor has already crushed three homers in his 10 games with the Sounds, none of which have been to straight-away right field for the left-handed hitting Naylor.

The 26-year-old Naylor, who is under team control through the 2030 season, could be a significant piece of the Brewers' future, especially if Milwaukee elects to continue their recent roster construction strategy and trade William Contreras this offseason. If Naylor's early offensive turnaround since joining the Brewers' organization continues, Milwaukee's deadline deal with the Guardians could end up looking rather lopsided.

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