A new baseball season means, among other things, ample opportunities to ask, “What the heck is going on here?” Consider Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman Tommy Edman.
Edman launched his fifth home run of the year on Friday night against the Philadelphia Phillies, putting him in a tie with Arizona Diamondbacks third baseman Eugenio Suárez for the most in the National League.
Aaron Judge, the New York Yankees star and reigning American League MVP, leads the majors with six.
This is a shocking development for Edman, who is already 38% of the way to his single-season high (13) after making just 6% of his likely appearances this year.
If you didn’t see Tommy Edman, the home run hitter, coming… well, who did?
When the Dodgers traded for him last July, the buzz wasn’t about his bat at all. Back then, we praised the Dodgers for getting him mainly for his “secondary skills” – not his hitting power. That might’ve been true then. But now? The five-year, $74 million extension he signed over the winter might turn out to be an absolute steal for L.A.
Of course, a hot streak to start the season doesn’t automatically mean a player has transformed overnight. But there’s real evidence suggesting this isn’t the same Edman who entered 2025 with a career 100 OPS+ (exactly league average).
For starters, the switch-hitting Edman has completely changed his swings. Compare one of his first at-bats with the Dodgers to his current lefty swing, and you’ll notice he’s raised his hands and altered his bat angle when striding. But we don’t need to rely just on what our eyes tell us anymore.
Thanks to Statcast’s limb-tracking technology, we can see exactly how Edman has changed his approach at the plate:
As a lefty hitter, he’s lengthened his swing slightly (from 6.8 to 7 feet), moved closer to the plate (from 25.9 to 23.9 inches), and widened his stance a bit (from 22.9 to 23.4 inches).
His right-handed swing shows even bigger changes – a significantly longer swing (from 7.2 to 7.6 feet), a closer stance to the plate, wider feet positioning, and a much more squared stance (from 10 degrees open to just 4).
These aren’t just cosmetic differences. Edman is hitting the ball much harder in 2025.
His average exit velocity has jumped from 87.6 mph to 91.5 mph. He’s now hitting the ball over 95 mph every 2.3 batted balls. Last year? That happened only every 3.9 batted balls.
Power comes from bat speed and point of contact. Both are trending up dramatically for Edman.
Nearly 7% of his lefty swings have cleared 75 mph this season. The combined total of his previous two years was just 6% – not the average, the total!
He’s also making contact more than five inches in front of the plate from both sides of the plate. Before this season, he’d never cleared two inches.
Edman is pulling more than 22% of his balls in the air after pulling around 14% in 2023 and less than 17% in his career. That’s not quite at Isaac Paredes’ pull-happy levels (30%+), but it helps explain where all this power is coming from.
So yes, this does seem to be a different Tommy Edman – and the Dodgers might have one of their former MVPs to thank for it.
During a post-World Series episode of Mookie Betts’ podcast last fall, Edman revealed: “Obviously it sucked that you were injured too, but since we were both kind of going through the same thing, we were able to work on our swings together. I know you showed me a few really good things about my swing early on that kind of helped me out and helped drive me through the season.”
Will Edman keep hitting homers at this pace? Probably not – even Aaron Judge won’t maintain an 81-homer pace.
The beauty of Edman’s game is that he doesn’t need to in order to be valuable. He still makes tons of contact and remains an excellent baserunner and fielder.
Whatever power gains do stick – and there’s enough evidence to think some will – will just make him an even better player rather than completely redefining him. That’s a pretty great position to be in.
