Carson Williams had a fairly underwhelming stint in the majors this year after being thrust into the starting SS role. The game appeared to speed up on him; he expanded the zone more than ever and committed several uncharacteristic defensive miscues. While the defense will almost certainly rebound to comfortably plus territory across a larger sample, his hit tool remained a real concern despite offseason efforts to be more direct to the ball.
Since his demotion to Triple-A, Williams has begun adjusting his approach to better manage his below-average contact ability. He’s using the whole field more effectively while still picking spots to do damage. The results haven’t shown up for Williams yet this year, but adjustments he’s making will help him find success in a larger sample both in Triple-A and the majors.
Improving his swing decisions is the first step for Williams to get back to the majors. His zone-minus-out-of-zone swing rates pulled from Savant (a higher number reflects better swing decisions) depict an encouraging trend:
Carson’s swing decisions suggested he was overmatched in his small major-league sample this season, but he has since settled in nicely in AAA. Pitch recognition has long been a developmental focus for Williams given his relatively limited experience against breaking balls compared to his peers, so it’s good to see his improvements in his swing decisions continue. His chase rate against breaking balls has gone from 33.7% in 2025 across both levels to 23.9% in 2026.
His next steps are to reduce his swing and miss to a more palatable rate. While the whiff will likely always be part of his game, Williams is starting to improve his contact ability by adjusting his approach.
Just as his swing decisions have improved, Williams is showing better contact rates too:
Some of this is related to his improved swing decisions, but he appears to be showing an improved two-strike approach in which he’s shortening his swing by letting the ball travel deeper and using the opposite field. It’s still early so the exact data points matter less than the trend, but they support the eye-test when we watch him hit with two strikes. The opposite field rate of his batted ball events in AAA with two strikes has increased to 38.5% this season after sitting at just 23.6% last year. His whiff rate with two strikes has dropped as a result of this new approach – going from 43.1% in 2025 to 35.0% so far this year.
This approach may suppress some pull-side power, so the key will be whether he can do enough damage early in counts to compensate. It’s too early for something like SLG to stabilize, but I’ll be watching his SLG in counts with less than two strikes to see if he’s able to do damage in those situations to compensate for his new two-strike approach.
Williams still has the tools to profile as an everyday shortstop, even with some swing-and-miss. The question now is whether his adjustments will hold against major-league pitching. If they do, the overall profile becomes much easier to bet on.
