Angels fixing Kyren Paris’ obvious flaw at the plate is easier said than done

The story of Kyren Paris is a fascinating one. Once a top prospect in the Los Angeles Angels farm system, the buzz around the youngster cooled dramatically after what seemed like a make-or-break 2024 campaign.

In 2024, Paris flopped. Hard. He slashed just .167/.254/.278 between Rocket City and Salt Lake. During a big league cup of coffee, he struggled even more, hitting just .118/.224/.216.

That led Paris to seek out Aaron Judge's personal hitting coach, Richard Schenck, to revamp his stance and his swing. The result was a sizzling .400/.449/.667 performance that took him from afterthought to Opening Day roster lock.

As the career infielder adjusted to playing the outfield and bouncing back and forth as needed, his hot spring carried over from the spring. Until it didn't. When things came to a screeching halt in mid-April, it became clear that the hot hitting was merely a mirage. Once pitchers had figured out what he was doing, he was at a loss to adjust.

As it turns out, you can have Judge's hitting coach, and you can steal Judge's stance, but if you don't have Judge's plate discipline, things won't work as planned.

Now, this spring, Paris finds himself buried on the depth chart again. And once again, he'll be looking to rebuild himself into something new to rise to relevance once more.

The Angels hope Kyren Paris can fix his fatal flaw, but that's easier said than done

What torpedoed Paris last season was pitchers realizing that he had a hole in his swing, low and away. Once they figured that out, he got a steady diet of breakers diving down towards the outside corner. Many of them were out of the zone, but Paris couldn't lay off, chasing 37% of the time on pitches to that spot. Even worse, when he swung at those offerings, he whiffed an eye-popping 77% of the time.

“As the pitchers adjusted to how they were pitching me, I think that I could have done a better job with my approach,” Paris told Jeff Fletcher of the OC Register. “That’s something I’ve been continuing to work on and look at. I don’t think it had anything to do with the swing. I think it was more just the pitches that I was swinging at.”

Swinging at pitches you can drive and laying off the ones you can't is Baseball 101, but while it sounds easy, it can be more difficult than it seems. If it were as simple as simply laying off the tough stuff, we'd see a lot more offensive excellence.

Some guys have that kind of eye, while others don't. Paris has always been a high-whiff, high-strikeout player. When he was at his best in 2023, he still struck out 29.4% of the time with the Trash Pandas, and things have only gotten worse from there. Paris finished his injury-shortened 2025 with a 42.3% K-rate in the majors. While he was better once he got sent down to Salt Lake, he still struck out 27% of the time.

So far this spring, he's running a 36.4% K-rate through five games. Can you write him off completely? No, he is still just 24 years old. But should you bet on him to break out? That's a hard pass. Some hitters have an overaggressiveness that is hard-wired into them, ripe to be exploited by major league hurlers. Given what we've seen from Paris since his pro career began back in 2019, he seems to be one of those guys who will never truly buck the trend.

We'll be rooting for him, of course, but the logic side of our brains tells us this won't work out well. If it doesn't, at least we'll have that epic spring performance to look back fondly on.