Behind Cody Bellinger, Anthony Volpe, and Will Warren’s hot Mays

5 days agoLast Updated: May 27, 2025

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Memorial Day is, of course, the traditional start of the summer season. We’re about 50 games into the MLB season as well, meaning this Memorial Day also marks the beginning of baseball takes being grounded in a large enough sample size to mean something. You can wear white again. I’ll also take the opportunity to say I was right in three particular ways—Cody Bellinger is finding success by lifting the ball, Anthony Volpe is in the midst of the best season of his young career by eschewing contact for power, and Will Warren’s stuff was simply too nasty for him to not find success at this level.

Let’s take a look at Bellinger first. Through the end of April, Bellinger was hitting .204/.281/.357 with a 78 wRC+. In May, it’s been a completely different story. He’s hitting .333/.395/.609 with a 184 wRC+, bringing his season total to a strong 122. He’s walking more and striking out far less. Most importantly, though, he’s pulling the ball in the air—bringing his percentage of batted balls pulled in the air on the season to 26.1 percent, the highest its been since his 2019 MVP season (which saw him pull 27.7 percent of balls in the air).

Not to say I told ya so, but I did. It may have been a somewhat obvious prediction to make with such a prominent pull-ball hitter in Yankee Stadium, but an adjustment in his batting stance has allowed him to launch balls to right. Compared to earlier in the season, Bellinger has shifted his batting stance to be nine degrees more open, helping him get to his pull power. With his elite defense in the outfield, Bellinger will be an extremely important player for the 2025 Yankees if he keeps this up.

Volpe is another case in which I’m obliged to toot my own horn. He showed signs in spring of swinging the bat harder, which led to subsequent better power numbers. That storyline was overshadowed a bit as the torpedo bat narrative sent waves throughout the baseball world. Just as if not more important than his bat, Volpe has increased bat speed from 69.3 to 72.2 mph. 22.8 percent of his swings are more than 75 mph, up from 9.1 percent last year. He’s now sporting a 48.4 percent hard hit rate—placing him in the 79th percentile.

Sure, his average is down some (.239 instead of .243) and his .322 OBP is fine. He could improve his situational at-bats too, as his performance on Sunday Night Baseball in critical at bats attests to.

But this is a marked, sustained improvement Volpe has shown this year. He already has half of his 2024 home run count with six homers so far. With his walk rate at a healthy 10 percent (thanks to his now-elite chase rate at 20 percent), it’s easy to see why Volpe’s .754 OPS and 113 wRC+ are cause for excitement.

Finally, in spring I wrote about Will Warren’s upcoming season in the wake of the devastating Gerrit Cole news. He started off his 2025 in the same vein of his 2024—walking too many hitters and struggling in big spots. But his stuff was still nasty, nasty enough that he simply had to see improved results.

That sweeper that was getting rocked in April to the tune of a .360 BAA is now commanding a .231 BAA—with a .170 xBA. He’s still maintaining more than 3000 RPM on the sweeper, an eye-popping spin rate, and the whiff rate is still a healthy 35.5 percent (up from 31.3 percent in April). He’s certainly found a groove so far in May, and he’s transformed from a liability into an exciting young starter a là Mike King. It’s still a long season, but when you’re right, you’re right.