‘On-Time’ Mike Tauchman Gets Results

At the end of last year, outfielder Mike Tauchman had a .292 career average and a .361 on-base percentage in four professional seasons.

He’s a solid-average runner with well above-average instincts to hit and to play all three outfield positions.

But through his first 1,622 plate appearances, Tauchman hit just eight home runs, including one last season in 527 plate appearances at Triple-A Albuquerque.

The 26-year-old Tauchman felt he “had more in the tank” but didn’t know “how to access it.”

That problem no longer exists. Tauchman hit .331/.390/.547 through 76 games at Albuquerque with 11 home runs and 63 RBIs and 11 stolen bases.

The lefthanded-hitting Tauchman said he wasn’t “getting my whole body into my swing where I could generate bat speed without maximum effort in a way that was repeatable.”

Tauchman had discussed this last season with Albuquerque manager Glenallen Hill. When he returned to his Chicago-area home, Tauchman via social media discovered Justin Stone, a hitting instructor based in Chicago, who had experience with things Tauchman wanted to work on.

“There were some inefficiencies in my load where I was kind of getting outside my body,” Tauchman said, “which was just causing my hips to fire late, which then didn’t allow my core to get into my swing, which basically caused my body to be really disconnected, which then sapped my potential power.

“It was just about getting sequencing of my body to work in the order that it should work.”

A 10th-round pick out of Bradley in 2013, Tauchman made his major league debut shortly before the all-star break, going 2-for-9 (.222) in seven games. Upon returning to Albuquerque, Tauchman continued getting results starkly different from previous years, results not simply measured in distance.

“It’s not even balls that I hit out of the ballpark or off the wall,” Tauchman said. “It’s a ball where I feel like I’m about to get beat, especially on the inside part of the plate. I still almost get beat, but where I would hit like a ground ball to the shortstop, it’s a line drive over the second baseman’s head. And it’s not even hit hard. It’s a ball where I felt like, ‘Wow, last year I wouldn’t get to this ball.’

“It’s just getting a little more out front. I think it’s just because I’m more on time.”