‘Swing like you did in high school’: How Brandon Marsh became one of the Phillies’ most consistent hitters

Brandon Marsh spent a lot of his rookie season searching. He’d search for the right swing. He’d search for the right routine. He’d search for the right approach. And it was hard to blame him.

Marsh hit his way through the Angels’ minor league system, en route to a big league call-up at the ripe age of 23. But once he got there, he had trouble finding consistent success. At his lowest point, from late July to mid-August, he was hitting below the Mendoza line. He remembers looking up at the scoreboard one day and seeing a .180 batting average next to his name.

It was demoralizing, and it caused him to search some more. In 2023, Marsh is a completely different hitter. He’s doubled his walk rate and lowered his strikeout rate from last year. In the span of a season, he has raised his batting average by 44 points, to .289; his on-base percentage by 86, to .381; and his slugging percentage by 78, to .462.

But above all, Marsh is consistent. He doesn’t have prolonged slumps. And even when he is struggling, he isn’t tinkering.

“I’ve had the same swing pretty much the entire year here,” Marsh said. “I haven’t tried to change anything. Maybe once I did, just to stop striking out in May. But even then I was like, ‘Dude, what am I doing?’ Before, I would probably change it a couple of times a year.”

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This is the way the Phillies want it. When Marsh first arrived in Philadelphia, after the Angels traded him at the deadline last August for catcher Logan O’Hoppe, he met with hitting coach Kevin Long. Long noticed that Marsh’s timing wasn’t right. There were too many moving parts.

So, they simplified his swing. Marsh spread out to get into his legs more. He stopped moving his head. But beyond that, Long wanted his pupil to stop thinking so much.

“Swing like you did in high school,” Long told him.

“[It resonated] because I banged in high school,” Marsh said.

“He told me it was a clean slate,” Marsh added. “He was like, ‘Hey man, you’ve got to relax. Go be you. Swing like you did in high school.’ And that’s kind of where we started. And we’ve progressed since then. He told me to go out there and be an athlete.

“Once I stopped thinking about what I’ve got going on from head to toe, and started hitting the ball, it became a little easier. Not a lot easier, but a little bit.”

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Marsh has tried to bring that consistency to all facets of his game. For the first time in his pro career, he has maintained the same routine — from his cage work, to his batting practice, to his outfield reps — all season long. His approach hasn’t changed, either. Marsh calls it “controlled aggression.” He’s not trying to do too much.

“My role is to get to first by any means necessary,” he said. “Whether it’s a walk, or a bunt, or an error. Any way, any how. Because the guy coming up behind me is Kyle Schwarber, and if we’re on base when he’s up, it’s great. There’s a very high chance he’s going to hit a homer, and we like people on base for that. So my job is just to get on first. And if I end up hitting a double or hitting one over the fence, it’s just a plus. If I see something I like, I might jump on it a little bit more.

“But I’m definitely trying to stay within myself. Don’t be Superman. We’ve got, like, six of them.”

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Marsh reflected on all of this when the Angels were in town a few weeks ago. He was watching the Angels take batting practice and turned to Long and assistant hitting coach Jason Camilli.

“I was like, ‘It feels like I’ve been here for eight years and I’ve only known you guys for a year,’” Marsh said. “That’s weird.”

But maybe it’s not. Marsh feels comfortable in Philadelphia because he feels like he can be himself. He knows there’s still work to be done. There are other facets of his game to develop. But he feels like he’s in the right place to do that.

“They let me be the 15-year-old kid who plays baseball,” he said. “They let me play like that, and act like that, but when it’s time for me to lock it in, when it’s time for war, they know I’m about it. It’s a good combination. They let me be a kid, and when it’s time to go, it’s time to go. That’s what helped me flourish.”