Jarren Duran's New Batting Stance Is Worrisome

The Red Sox are over a quarter of the way through the 2025 season, and something seems off. Amidst the never-ending Devers drama, other stories are being swept under the rug. Many fans questioned whether or not Jarren Duran would replicate his breakout 2024 performance. Unfortunately, Duran is off to a cool start this year. In 42 games, the outfielder is slashing .254/.300/.381 with two home runs and an 86 wRC+.

Duran is the Red Sox’s offensive spark plug. He wreaks havoc when he gets on base. He turns routine singles into doubles and doubles into triples. He even makes stealing home look easy. The lineup is a lot deeper when his bat is hot. On May 10th, Duran had two hits in five at-bats and the Red Sox won 10-1 against the Royals. On April 27th, he collected four hits in six at-bats and the Red Sox won 13-1 against the Guardians. He needs to get on base to wreak havoc, but he hasn’t been doing that much this year. 

Upon first glance, Duran’s batting stance looks similar to the previous year. However, thanks to Statcast’s new batting stance metrics, you can see the minor change in Duran’s stance. The distance between his feet has increased. He’s using a wider stance (26.1 inches), an increase of 6.6 inches from 2024 (19.5 inches). 

Duran’s wider stance disrupts the timing of his swing. Since his feet are further apart, he faces more difficulty transitioning to the proper launch position, causing him to miss the ball more. Looking at Duran’s pitch splits, his struggles are most evident versus four-seam fastballs. He’s chasing the pitch more this year at 30.6%. [His overall chase rate is up to 33.9%, up from 28.1% in 2024.]

Narrow stances utilize long strides to generate power. Duran’s batting stance has changed significantly throughout his career. 

Last year, he incorporated a leg kick into his swing, and it helped him breakout at the plate. 

He discontinued the leg kick for most of this year, but recently adopted it again on May 9th. 

It’s unclear whether Duran is inadvertently widening his stance or if someone from the organization advised him to. (I’m leaning towards the latter.) Typically, power hitters have wider stances, but Duran isn’t a power hitter. Despite his impressive Gabe Kapler-esque physique, I don’t foresee him ever becoming one, which is fine! Leadoff headers typically aren’t sluggers (unless you’re Kyle Schwarber or Shohei Ohtani). Duran’s primary job is to get on base. He has plenty of protection behind him in the lineup to drive him home.

The Red Sox rank 19th in the league with a .239 average with runners in scoring position. That’s unacceptable for a team making a playoff push. Jarren Duran isn’t solely to blame for the team’s offensive woes, but his lackluster performance at the plate is certainly making things worse. In the sixth inning on Tuesday, Duran struck out with the bases loaded to end the inning. The Red Sox lost the game by one run in extra innings. Duran walking in the sixth would’ve put them over the bump.

The rub is that Duran is putting up uncompetitive at-bats. He hasn’t recorded a single walk in his last 54 plate appearances. He’s seeing 3.52 pitches per plate appearance, the 10th lowest in MLB. For reference, free-swinging Ceddanne Rafaela sees 3.54 pitches per plate appearance.

In a weak American League, the Red Sox have the opportunity to make the playoffs for the first time in four years. Changes are needed to capitalize on that opportunity, and it starts with Duran’s bat getting hot again.