Major League Baseball

The batting practice secrets behind Josh Bell's success with the Nationals

Published May. 18, 2022 8:49 p.m. ET

By Pedro Moura
FOX Sports MLB Writer

During pregame batting practice, Josh Bell drastically chokes up on his bat and aims not to smash homers but merely to make consistent contact, waiting as long as he can to start his swing. Between pitches during games, Bell steps out of the batter’s box and swings straight down, in search of the feeling he has found best correlates with success.

His unconventional tactics are working. Six weeks into the 2022 season, the Washington Nationals’ best hitter has been not superstar Juan Soto but Bell, the sizable, strong first baseman who hits behind Soto most days. So far in 2022, the 6-foot-4, 255-pound Bell has morphed from power hitter to contact-making machine.

Bell, 29, is hitting .328 and striking out in only 11% of his plate appearances, up 24% and down nearly 40% from his career norms. He is not hitting the ball especially hard, but he is hitting it especially often. He credits this success to work he did in the offseason with Rick Eckstein, the former Nationals and Pirates hitting coach whom Pittsburgh fired last year.

Eckstein and Bell met in 2019, when Bell, then a Pirate, logged a career year. Together they dreamed up a number of drills that drove Bell’s success.

When the Pirates traded Bell to Washington after 2020, he could no longer work with his preferred coach. But Eckstein’s August 2021 firing meant that Bell frequently flew to Atlanta last winter to work with him. Even the lockout couldn’t stop them. Bell said Eckstein was "pretty much the only guy I worked with from January on."

"We got back to it," he said. "Nice, little reunion. I’ve been tearing it up so far, so it’s been fun."

The batting-practice approach is two-pronged: It’s relaxing, and it gets Bell into the physical positions that enable his success. No, he doesn’t choke up during games, but warming up with a shortened swing translates into a better swing later. It supplies the confidence that he can move the bat fast enough to at least make contact with most pitches.

"It’s not what it looks like when I swing, but it’s the feeling of trying to take this barrel across my cheek and attack the baseball top-to-bottom that way," he said of the latter. "If I can stay on top of balls and get them in the air, the backswing’s gonna be there. Kind of old-school, but it works for me."

"It’s fun not caring about batting practice at all," he added. "You get into affiliated ball, and you feel like you’re trying to make the team in the cage, during batting practice and on the field during the game. But if I can take my batting practice like this and not care about doing anything but hitting line drives out of the infield, it makes the game a lot more fun."

The affable Bell was not having so much fun during the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign. He produced the worst season of his career, striking out more and walking less than ever before. That held for his first month with the Nationals last season.

"I lost the feeling — I was trying to do too much," he said. "Sixty games, you’re trying to get off to a hot start. You’re trying instead of doing. Last year, I was trying to win games. We started off slowly.

"This year, it’s like, ‘Look, I get the ABs. Don’t try to do too much. It’s cold. Put a ball on the line. Use the barrel. If they make a mistake and I have extension, that line drive is gonna turn into a homer.’ It’s been working out for me."

It has been for a year now, dating back to last season. From May 17, 2021, to May 17, 2022, Bell was tied with Giancarlo Stanton as the 15th-best hitter in baseball by wRC+, ahead of the likes of Rafael Devers and Mookie Betts. In terms of pure on-base percentage over that span, Bell was fifth, behind only Soto, Bryce Harper, Freddie Freeman and Paul Goldschmidt.

He has hit like a star.

Depending on whether the Nationals decide to deal Soto, Bell might prove to be the top hitter available at this year’s Aug. 2 trade deadline. As an impending free agent himself, he is very likely to be available. And if he keeps this up, he could earn a significant sum come the winter.

He will have earned it by successfully simplifying his game and locating the counterintuitive cues that have helped him. Most of the time, he’s just trying to make contact, not launch a home run.

"The game’s really hard as is, and I’ve just been trying to simplify things for myself, trying to stay short to the baseball, not trying to do too much in the box," Bell said. "When pitchers make mistakes, good things happen, but if I’m trying to do damage on their best pitch, I’m not gonna be a good baseball player.

"It’s fun seeing the results."

Pedro Moura is the national baseball writer for FOX Sports. He previous covered the Dodgers for three seasons for The Athletic and, before that, the Angels and Dodgers for five seasons for the Orange County Register and L.A. Times. More previously, he covered his alma mater, USC, for ESPNLosAngeles.com. The son of Brazilian immigrants, he grew up in the Southern California suburbs. His first book, "How to Beat a Broken Game," came out this spring. Follow him on Twitter @pedromoura.