Brenton Doyle makes baseball look effortless.

The Gold Glove center fielder glides across the vast expanses of Coors Field. He goes Superman to make diving catches and emerges with a know-it-all grin. His powerful swing sends balls soaring over the fence.

We can see all of that. We don’t see the monotonous work that transformed Doyle from an offensive liability into a budding star. And we don’t grasp what it takes for a major league player to recognize a major flaw and embrace a major change.

But the 26-year-old Doyle did that,altering his swing over the course of one strenuous offseason and, in doing so, turning himself into a promising young hitterfor a Rockies team trying to chart its future.

“It is not easy to change your swing — especially not in the big leagues,” veteran third basemen Ryan McMahon said. “But ever since Doyle came to spring training, he’s looked the same every time up to the plate. He’s been so much more consistent. I’m kind of amazed. The dude’s been really impressive.”

Doyle’s statistics illustrate the turnaround.

After slashing .203/.250.343 as a rookie last season, Doyle entered Saturday night’s game slashing .263/.324/.471. He hit 10 home runs in 126 games last year. He’s hit 20 in 110 games so far this season. He’s dramatically cut down on strikeouts while increasing his walks.

Doyle’s diligence was rewarded when he was named the National League player of the month for July, becoming just the 12th Rockie in franchise history to win the monthly award. In 25 games, he slashed 333/.394/.800, with 11 home runs, seven doubles, one triple and 27 RBIs. He was the first Rockies player to hit 11 home runs in July since Carlos Gonzalez in 2015.

In Colorado’s 6-5 win over the Braves on Friday night, he reached 20 homers and 20 steals in 110 games, a feat accomplished five other times in club history — by Hall of Famer Larry Walker (1997), Dante Bichette (1994, ’96), Ellis Burks (’96) and Gonzalez (2013).

“I like being in that company,” Doyle said.

Doyle already had enormous self-confidence and solid pitch recognition. His improvement was based primarily on fixing flawed mechanics.

“The biggest thing was trying to minimize the movements in my swing,” he said. “That allows my body to stay quiet and it allows my eyes to work a little bit better. Also, when things aren’t going well — and that happens all the time in this game — if your swing is really simple, it’s easier to make little adjustments. You don’t have to work so hard on it because there aren’t so many moving parts to fix.”

Doyle’s fundamental problem last season was his tendency to drop his hands when he began his swing. That bad habit disrupted his timing and caused him to move his head.

Hitting coach Hensley “Bam Bam” Meulens began tinkering with Doyle’s approach last season, and the Rockies staff told Doyle that some major changes were needed in the offseason. Teaming up with personal hitting coach Kevin Lachance back in his native Virginia, Doyle got to work.

There were thousands of swings in the cage, naturally. But there was also the drudgery of drills.

One involved using a medicine ball. Doyle wedged the medicine ball between his hands, his bat, right shoulder, head and neck. He focused only on the beginning of his swing. The goal was to keep his hands high and his head steady,

If he did things correctly, the ball stayed in place and his hands and head didn’t move. The ball fell if he dropped his hands or shoulder or moved his head too much.

The drill and the practice time paid off. Manager Bud Black immediately noticed a difference when Doyle reported to spring training.

“We definitely saw less movement with the hands, and his head and posture have remained more consistently in the same spot,” Black said.

When Doyle opened the season slashing .311/.355/.485 with seven doubles and three homers in his first 28 games, Black saw a hitter transformed.

“As the hits came, there was some momentum of confidence in the batter’s box,” Black said. “There was a feeling that it would be a productive at-bat. He knew that hits were coming.”

Doyle entered Saturday with a team-high 58 RBIs. His .311 average with runners in scoring position is the best on the team and an improvement from last season when he hit .277 in the clutch.

“Last year, I was getting exposed to certain pitches,” Doyle said. “I knew I needed to make some changes to make my swing more efficient. Also, the changes have allowed me to make more damage when I connect.”

Breaking balls were Doyle’s bugaboo last season. He hit just .151 against them, according to Baseball Savant. This season, the average is up to .256.

While Doyle’s 20 homers lead the team, and he’s shooting for the 30/30 mark this season, he doesn’t think of himself as a home run hitter.

“My biggest thing is just to make hard contact and work on hitting line drives,” he said. “Homers just happen in the game when I hit slightly under the ball and get a little more lift.”

Toglia, who played with Doyle at High-A Spokane, Double-A Hartford and Triple-A Albuquerque, has been wowed by his friend’s dedication and transformation.

“I’m really proud of him,” Toglia said. “Making adjustments at this level is so hard, but he was committed to it. We all knew he had talent. We’ve all seen it in the outfield, and now it’s showing up at the plate.”

Doyle is lousy at talking about himself, and patting himself on the back is a foreign concept to the fleet center fielder.

So it’s telling when Doyle opened up enough to say, “We went into the offseason with a plan. We wanted to make me a more efficient hitter. That’s what we did, and the results have been pretty awesome.”

Evolution of a Hitter

Rockies center fielder Brenton Doyle won a Gold Glove as a rookie in 2023 but struggled at the plate, hitting .203 with a 35% strikeout rate that was the highest in the majors (minimum 400 plate appearances). But Doyle has made a dramatic turnaround in his second major league season. Here’s a look:

* Through games of Aug. 9 | Source: Baseball Reference

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