How can Bryson Stott snap out of his slump? The Phillies have a few ideas.

Bryson Stott hates to strike out. The Phillies second baseman has a good feel for the strike zone and doesn’t want to have an unproductive at-bat. It is an understandable sentiment. But this season, he has started to look at those at-bats differently.

“It sounds weird to say, but I think I could swing and miss more,” Stott said.

The Phillies’ hitting coach agrees. Kevin Long knows that it sounds counterintuitive, but in the spirit of being more selectively aggressive, he has been encouraging Stott to work more out in front of the baseball. To attack right when he sees the pitch he wants.

It means taking more chances, and more chances often lead to more swings and misses. No one wants Stott to become overly aggressive. His plate discipline is an asset. But the Phillies also don’t want him to hesitate when he gets fooled.

“If I get fooled on a changeup or something, it’s about not slowing down,” Stott said. “To just hit it. Being OK with swinging and missing and getting a strike or two, and going from there. I feel like I find myself slowing down sometimes and trying to hit certain pitches, instead of just swinging through it and living to see another one.

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“That’s that kind of selectively aggressive approach. If I’m going to be aggressive on a certain pitch and I get fooled on it, it’s better to just take my swing. If I miss it, I miss it. Better than to not take my swing and be like, ‘Oh crap, it’s a slider away, and I’m going to tap it, because I don’t want to swing and miss.’

“It’s just a cat-and-mouse game. It’s baseball.”

When Stott looks at his season to this point, he sees a mixed bag. There are some positives — he’s chasing fewer pitches outside the strike zone and has doubled his walk rate — but he is not doing as much damage on pitches as he could.

The numbers back that up. Stott’s slugging percentage has dropped from .419 in 2023 to .346 in 2024, and his OPS has dropped from .747 to .669. He’s barreling the ball at a rate of 3.5% — a career low — and has a hard-hit rate of 29.8% — also a career low.

He has fallen victim, at times, to some bad luck. Stott is running a .265 batting average on balls in play in 2024, which is another drop from 2023, when he posted a .312 BABIP. But the biggest reason he’s struggled this season is because he hasn’t been able to strike that balance between passive and aggressive.

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It isn’t an easy balance to strike. And overthinking generally doesn’t help. Many hitters are at their best when they feel like they can hit a pitch without thinking about it. When they’re just seeing and reacting.

That is what the Phillies would like Stott to do. When he is in the box, they would like him to think more about situations — where the runners are and who is hitting around him, for example — and less about the pitch being in a perfect spot.

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“It’s more of seeing it and then hitting it, rather than seeing it, seeing it, waiting to see what it is, and making sure it’s a strike, and then swinging,” Stott said. “Because then you’re really late. So just taking your swing when you see it and you think you’ve got it, and swing at it, and see what happens.”

Long believes Stott is trending in the right direction. He says the quality of his swings have been much better since the games leading up to the All-Star break. He’s driving from his lower half, and working more efficiently.

He’s also swinging at more first pitches overall than he did last year — but those swings often have come in clusters. The Phillies would like him to swing at first pitches he can drive more consistently.

Stott is known for making good decisions at the plate. Now, it’s about trusting his gut — and accepting a strikeout here and there.

“There’s a give-and-take to the aggressiveness,” Long said. “He’s walked more, so what does that mean? It means he’s probably not ultra-aggressive, but he’s got to know when to take chances to be aggressive. I think he’s going to be better because he’s a good player. I just believe in him. I believe in his swing; I believe in his process. I think he makes really good decisions. He’s a good player with a good swing.”