Written by Shawn Trewartha | September 9, 2026

Dating back to spring training of 2025, when he took home the Abby Greer Spring Training MVP award, Zac Veen has been arguably the most anticipated Rockies prospect and fan favorite in the organization. He plays with a passion that’s endearing to fans, and his journey to overcome personal demons has made his story even easier to root for.

Unfortunately, he didn’t burst onto the scene the way so many of us had hoped. His 2025 season, in which he played 12 games, was largely forgettable outside of one slightly awkward celebration at second base after recording his first big-league hit.

In 2025, his batting average couldn’t surpass his weight – even his significantly lighter weight from a year ago – and his strikeout rate was concerning: 14 Ks in 34 total at-bats. Albeit a small sample size, that lack of production, combined with rumors of immaturity, had many Rockies fans worried that the former first-round pick was going to be yet another poorly developed draft bust.

This season, though, fans have been treated to better production out of Zac. He’s hit two home runs in his first two games since being called up, both finding bodies of water. One in the right-center-field pool in Arizona, the other in McCovey Cove beyond the right-field porch in San Francisco. Along with the increased power, his on-base metrics are improving, allowing his OPS to nearly double year-over-year, from .424 to .847.

This increased power and consistency at the plate is a product of an improved swing, clearly developed to lean into his power potential. However, it’s done very little to improve his swing-and-miss and strikeout numbers, which haven’t improved. His K% actually rose from 37.8% in 2025 to 38.6% in 2026, and his whiff rate remains in the mid-40% range.

As Rockies fans, it’s perfectly reasonable to be encouraged by the recent success and increased power at the plate while also being concerned about the lack of improvement in plate discipline. There’s good data to back up both points of view, and below I’ll outline the different perspectives. We’ll start with the not-so-fun stuff – swing and strikeout rates – then get to the good news: the power surge that’s got fans excited again. 

Plate discipline 

Veen has always been a free swinger; it fits his personality: fast, aggressive, and bordering on arrogant. That’s not inherently a bad thing. Many great power hitters of the current era have had high swing rates, like Jackson Merrill (57.0%), Salvador Perez (57.4%), and Pete Crow-Armstrong (55.7%) — all of which are still lower than Zac’s 60.7%, considerably higher than the MLB average of 43.7%.

It’s not just that he’s swinging too often; he’s also swinging and missing at an alarming rate. His whiff rate of 44.3% has increased slightly from last year, leading to a strikeout rate of 37.8%, far above the MLB average of 22.2%.

These are not great numbers. No legitimate MLB player will last long in the league with this kind of plate discipline. It’s worth digging into the data a bit more to determine where the biggest areas for growth are.

Breaking down swing rates by pitch type, we start to see improvement in some areas, and one very large red flag. Veen has actually been laying off fastballs and offspeed pitches more in 2026; however, his swing rate on breaking pitches has skyrocketed to 64% in 2026.

To exacerbate the problem, he’s been doing a terrible job laying off breaking pitches outside the zone, something that was less of a problem last year. His swing rate on those pitches is up to 52%, compared to 27% in 2025. These pitches are also generally much harder to hit, leading to a 54% whiff rate on out-of-zone breaking balls.

We can also break down whiff rates by pitch type and whether the pitch was in or out of the zone.

Honestly, there isn’t much in his swing habits that’s encouraging. We’re seeing more of the same as last year, with some areas regressing even further. Luckily, though, plate discipline can be improved with proper coaching and experience. Something that might take a month of spring training to dial in. Good thing we can look forward to spring training 2027… right?

Swing mechanics

Here’s where we start to see a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel. While it may not look tremendously different on the broadcast, the data shows it clearly: Zac has taken the time to overhaul his swing in an attempt to settle into a power-hitting role.

Starting with his stance, Veen has moved to a wider, more athletic setup in 2026, increasing the distance between his feet by almost a full foot. This shortens his total forward movement in the box while the pitch is in flight, cutting down on unnecessary body movement.

Along with that, he’s implemented a more dramatic tilt to his swing, increasing his swing path angle from 30° to 33°. Admittedly, that’s a minor tweak on the surface, but it plays a huge role at the point of contact. His average attack angle – the angle at which his bat meets the ball – has increased from 4.7° to 12.4°, meaning he’s swinging with more of an uppercut in 2026, which plays well with his above-average bat speed.

While that’s an average across all pitches, the increase in attack angle is consistent across pitch types. Most interesting is how he’s now attacking fastballs. Fastballs, which are generally thrown up in or above the zone, are difficult to get under and drive. In 2025, against fastballs, Zac had a negative attack angle, meaning he was literally chopping down on the ball, making it impossible to drive in the air. In 2026, that attack angle is now +3.7°, meaning he’s managing to work underneath high fastballs to generate more line drives.

To me, the most important improvement to his swing is his point of contact. In March of 2025, MLB’s own website published a great article by Mike Petriello, using Statcast data to correlate power potential with a hitter’s point of contact relative to home plate and their center of mass. The crux of the article is that virtually all power in the MLB is generated when contact is made between 25 and 45 inches in front of the hitter’s center of mass – 82% of all home runs are hit from that zone. More specifically, Petriello details how contact between 33 and 39 inches is the only range with a positive average run value, and that range also shows a decrease in whiff percentage. To summarize: if the goal is to generate power, don’t let the ball travel,  jump on your pitch out in front.

Veen’s own numbers bear this out. Looking at his top 10 swings by expected slugging percentage, the average point of contact was 35.4 inches out in front. Those swings resulted in three home runs, three hard-hit outs, two doubles, a triple, and a single. Seven of these swings came this year; only three were from a year ago.

When we average all of his swings, the discrepancy becomes even clearer. In 2025, Veen’s average point of contact came at just 24.3 inches in front of his center of mass. Based on Petriello’s research, contact from that point carries a home run rate of just over 2%. In 2026, however, his average point has moved up almost a full foot to 35.1 inches. A contact point with a home run rate of around 8%.

Veen, in line with the Rockies’ now analytically driven philosophy, has clearly engineered his swing to better suit a power hitter’s profile. Even with a small sample size, I believe we’re starting to see it pay off.

Moving forward

The swing-and-miss issue can’t be waved away. A 38.6% strikeout rate and a whiff rate in the mid-40s aren’t a footnote, in fact they’re the kind of numbers that could end careers, and nothing in the 2026 data suggests that side of his game has taken a dramatic step forward. I don’t know whether his plate discipline will ever improve, and I suspect he’ll always be a free swinger, because that’s who he’s always been. History isn’t kind to hitters who strike out at this rate without elite, sustained power to offset it, and it’s fair to wonder whether a bloated strikeout total eventually cap what he can be at the highest level.

Still, the version of Zac Veen hitting the ball right now looks meaningfully different from the one we saw in 2025. The swing changes are real, they’re purposeful, and the underlying data backs up the idea that he’s chasing the right kind of contact. That’s enough to be genuinely encouraged. It’s just not enough, yet, to ignore the red flags. So, as Rockies fans are so accustomed to doing, we wait and see. 

Written by Shawn Trewartha.