Why Is Charlie Condon Struggling In His Pro Debut?

Through his first 16 games and 70 plate appearances with High-A Spokane, Condon has hit .219/.286/.344 with a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 21:2. That amounts to a 30% strikeout rate and 2.9% walk rate, respectively.

Condon’s strikeout rate is the primary concern at the moment. While it’s true we’re still very much in small sample size territory, it’s also true that strikeout rate is one of the quickest offensive stats to stabilize. 

Condon’s already cleared the 60 plate appearance “stabilization point” for strikeout rate, so perhaps there’s more signal than noise here for a player who entered the draft as one of the most well-rounded and accomplished hitters in the class. 

In a down 2024 draft, Condon ranked as a consensus top-two player in the class and finished as the No. 1 player on the BA Draft board thanks to a strong combination of power and bat-to-ball skills. Here’s how we described his offensive game in our draft report:

“Condon has a special blend of power and pure hitting ability. He has a chance for 70-grade raw power, with the ability to homer to all fields and some of the best top-end exit velocities in the class. He has more pure bat-to-ball skills than might be expected of a tall hitter with such long levers.”

Strikeouts weren’t ever a huge question for Condon in college. He struck out at a 17.7% clip as a redshirt freshman with Georgia in 2023, then lowered that figure to 13.5% as a redshirt sophomore in 2024. Overall, his career strikeout rate in college stands at a perfectly respectable 15.4% clip.

That said, he was unique as a 6-foot-6, long-levered hitter at the top of the class. On a recent Baseball America Hot Sheet interview, Condon spoke to the benefits and challenges that come with his size in the batter’s box: 

“It can play to your advantage if you know how to use it,” Condon said about his long levers. “So for me, it was about being really good at learning how to use it to my advantage and not letting it tie myself up. There’s a lot of things that you have to get down when you’ve got long arms … It can create a long swing, it can create casting and coming around the ball and stuff like that. So for me, it was about learning to use my levers on the back end of my swing and using my extension as an advantage while also keeping things short and tight and compact to my body in the first half of my swing. 

“Just being able to be close to my back shoulder and still have a direct path to the ball even with my long arms, and then once that barrel kind of turns and gets out front the extension and my length that way also helps me stay on the ball longer, be on plane longer and keep the ball in play and handle the barrel better as well.”

So far, pro pitchers have managed to more consistently expose the length of Condon’s swing compared to SEC and other college arms. Specifically, he has shown issues making contact with spin and off-speed offerings.

The table below shows Condon’s contact and swing decisions through his first 14 games and 61 plate appearances in the minors:

	Miss%	zMiss%	Chase%	Swing%
Overall	36.60%	25.00%	29.50%	44.90%
vs. Fastballs	26.90%	22.20%	29.40%	49.50%
vs. Breaking Balls	52.90%	31.60%	25.90%	35.10%
vs. Offspeed	33.30%	22.20%	46.20%	65.20%

He’s struggled to put the bat on the ball against breaking pitches, and he’s also struggled to hold back on his swing decisions vs. offspeed pitchers out of the zone. 

He’s been far better against fastballs and so far has had few issues handling top-end velocity, which is consistent with his production from college. Below are the same data points from his two-year Georgia career, by way of Synergy Sports: 

	Miss%	zMiss%	Chase%	Swing%
Overall	21%	11%	27%	43%
vs. Fastballs	13%	9%	28%	47%
vs. Breaking Balls	29%	13%	23%	38%
vs. Offspeed	30%	18%	29%	44%

So we can see that most of the swing-and-miss in Condon’s game has always come against non-fastballs. Despite that, college pitchers still attacked him with fastballs—which he feasted on—nearly 54% of the time. 

Condon will now face pitchers who have better velocity, better breaking balls, better offspeed pitches and, perhaps most importantly, a better understanding of how to locate those pitches and exploit hitter weaknesses. 

Finding the barrel more often against spin and spitting on soft stuff out of the zone will be Condon’s first test to pass in pro ball.