The batting stance reasons Bo Naylor's hitting growth is real for Guardians

It took a little while, but now, Bo knows hitting.

Bo Naylor made major improvements at the end of last season at the plate for the Cleveland Guardians, and they're worth believing in.

If he can keep it up for this whole season, Naylor can go from an afterthought at the dish into a star.

"Thus it went until September, when Naylor hit .290/.324/.548 (.872 OPS), then homered in Cleveland’s Wild Card Series loss to Detroit," MLB.com's Mike Petriello wrote in a new article on Saturday. "This part is key: A month’s worth of good play does not outweigh two seasons worth of poor play. That said, we wanted to find real changes, and Naylor gave us a good one. His bat is faster, and his stance is totally different. He was openly talking about it in the second half, and the numbers couldn’t be clearer."

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Petriello then shared that Naylor's stance widened by an entire foot over the course of last season.

He also transitioned from having an open stance to much closer to neutral.

"Naylor swapped out a leg kick for a toe tap, too," Petriello added. "If he looked like a different hitter when he was hitting better … well, that’s because he was."

The Guardians have to love that the evidence here matches the anecdotes. Everything points to Naylor improving at the plate, from the intentional changes he made to the outcomes he got.

Hitting is hard, but it appears Naylor has put himself in position to maximize the chances he gets in the batter's box in the season ahead.

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