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Entering Monday’s game, Triston Casas was hitting .167/.241/.250 across 20 games. The biggest issue for him, however, may be the strikeouts, as he’s struck out 20 times in 72 at-bats (25.3%). When looking at his injury-filled 2024 season, Casas has seen his strikeout percentage drop from 31.7%. In 2023, though, it sat at 25.1% — this year hasn't seen a huge increase, but still one that could lead to issues if it persists.
One thing we would have to look at is Casas becoming a bit less patient at the plate, no longer working to get the pitch he wants, a fact that can be seen when looking at other parts of his game. During his rookie season of 2023, Casas was one of the best in the league at laying off pitches, his chase rate sitting at just 22.1% as a 23-year-old. He showed an amazing understanding of the strike zone for such a young player. That has seemingly regressed in 2025, as he’s now chasing 26.4% of pitches. A 4.3% increase may not look too bad on the surface, but it presents a new weakness major league pitchers can exploit.
This more aggressive approach has led to a decrease in several areas of his game, as his whiff percentage has increased while his walk percentage has dropped drastically. Naturally, because he's chasing more, he's not squaring up the ball as much when he does make contact, meaning his hard-hit numbers are also on a downward trend.
One of the biggest issues is definitely his walk rate, dropping from 13.9% in 2023 to now sitting at 7.1%, while his whiff percentage has increased from 28.1% to 32.4%. Now, it’s easy to say that all of this is just a slow start for Casas. It’s easy to see that he’s been known as a slow starter, and if we actually compare his first 14 games of 2023 to 2025 it doesn’t look as bad as we think.
In 2023, Casas had a batting average of .135 while his OPS was .528. He also had two home runs, struck out 20 times and walked six times. Through 14 games in 2025, he was doing a little better, hitting .175 with a .523 OPS. While he only has a single home run, he also had struck out less (18) to go with four walks. Of course, his numbers have declined more as the season has continued, but this isn’t the first time he’s had a rough start to the season.
Besides his more aggressive approach at the plate, there may be another issue with his approach. Last season, he was injured after tearing rib cartilage on a swing, which was partly due to his explosive upper-half compared to a laggy lower body. With improved health, the hope was his bat speed would return to its previous form.
Currently, the average bat speed for Casas is 74.7 mph, and in his injured 2024 season it sat at 74.6 mph, both numbers being a drop off from his rookie season’s 75.8 mph. Add to it that his fast-swing rate (the percentage of swings that register over 75 mph) is drastically below his 2023 number. Early in the season, Casas currently sits at a 49.6% rate, while in 2023 that number was 61.5%.
The injury might have forced Casas to change his stance, and now it’s hindering him at the plate. As mentioned before, he isn’t hurt, but he did return in 2024 while still feeling pain. He admitted that it still stung when he swung, and you could see on some swings he was still feeling it. What if he had to adjust his stance and how he swung because of that? And due to that, his body got used to it and his stance has now changed because of it?
When you look at his stance and the changes made to it, especially with how he stands in the box, you'll notice specifically that his batter position has changed when it comes to his distance off the plate and most importantly the distance between his feet.
In his 2023 season, Casas was 29.3 inches off the plate. Now, he’s 29.7 inches off the plate. While this would help him with inside pitches, it's certainly made him susceptible to outside pitching, which may explain his newfound desire to chase things off the plate. Currently in 2025, he’s whiffing on 82% of all pitches thrown down and outside of the zone to him, a number that was a more sustainable 54% in 2023.
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Along with this, his feet are wider apart than ever in his career at 25.3 inches, an increase from 18.4 inches in 2023. With the added distance between his feet, Casas has also seen a shift in the angle of his stance. As a rookie he stood in a closed stance, just one degree, but now he’s standing at four degrees open, which changes how he views pitches and how he can get to them depending on the zone they’re thrown at. His hands are closer in to his body and appear slightly higher to begin as well, making his timing slightly different as well.
There could be a lot of behind-the-scenes reasons for Casas struggling. As a reminder, it's still only mid-April, and Casas has a history of being a slow starter. Remember, in 2023 Casas hit .133/.283/.293 at the end of April.
He has time to figure it out, especially as the rest of the offense seems to be carrying the load. Though, eventually, Casas will have to show up at the plate, or else the Red Sox will have to look towards someone else to play first base.
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