Baseball Info Solutions via FanGraphs).
| NYY | O-Swing% | Z-Swing% | Swing% | Z-Contact% | Contact% | Zone% | F-Strike% | SwStr% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 21.8% | 63.7% | 41.1% | 90.6% | 83.0% | 46.1% | 54.2% | 6.7% |
| 2010 | 26.5% | 65.3% | 42.9% | 92.3% | 83.8% | 42.2% | 55.5% | 6.7% |
| 2011 | 27.8% | 65.1% | 42.6% | 90.9% | 82.4% | 39.6% | 52.6% | 7.2% |
| 2012 | 27.2% | 60.2% | 40.7% | 90.5% | 84.4% | 40.9% | 50.6% | 6.2% |
| 2014 | 28.1% | 62.7% | 42.5% | 87.9% | 79.3% | 41.7% | 58.1% | 8.5% |
| 2015 | 21.6% | 62.7% | 38.9% | 92.3% | 84.3% | 42.2% | 53.5% | 5.7% |
| Career | 23.3% | 66.2% | 43.0% | 88.8% | 80.6% | 45.9% | 54.8% | 8.1% |
So far this season, Teixeira has displayed his best plate discipline to date with New York, chasing just 21.6 percent of pitches outside the strike zone (O-Swing%). A reason for that is that he's offering at a smaller percentage of pitches overall (Swing%). After all, he's swinging at the same percentage of strikes (Z-Swing%) as he did last season.
When he does swing, he's making contact with 92.3 percent of pitches inside the zone (Z-Contact%), which is tied for his best mark with the Yanks in 2010. His overall contact percentage (Contact%) of 84.3 percent trails only his 2012 season (84.4 percent) by a smidgeon and makes his mark from last year (79.3 percent) look like an outlier.
Teixeira has seen a first-pitch strike on 53.5 percent of his appearances (F-Strike%), a noticeable decline from the 58.1 percent mark he saw last year, and he's not helping pitchers get ahead either, as he maintains a 5.7 percent swinging strike rate (SwStr%), his best mark since donning the pinstripes.
It's great to see Teixeira back as an elite power hitter, but it's not as though he's just swinging freely and making contact. Rather, he's seeing fewer first-pitch strikes, not chasing balls (and swinging less frequently in general), and cashing in on his swings with a solid contact percentage, much like he had done prior to his 2013 and 2014 injury issues.
The Yankees are tied for eighth as a team in wRC+ (104) and rank sixth in ISO (.171). With 35 homers as a team, the Yankees are again living up to their Bronx Bomber moniker. Teixeira is a key reason why.