Steven Kwan is back to ‘being Kwannie’
Steven and Samantha Kwan were married in February 2025 (courtesy Steven Kwan)
Updated 8/30/2026 11:23 AM
Steven Kwan has been hot, and so have the Cleveland Guardians.
Kwan’s bat has been on fire, and the Guardians were riding a Major League-best seven-game win streak as they entered a three-game series with the Kansas City Royals Friday at Progressive Field.
“I am trying to keep that rolling,” Kwan told me Friday from his home in Cleveland. “It is a good time to get hot.”
The Guardians cooled after we talked, dropping the first two games of their series with the Royals, 3-0 on Friday and 8-3 on Saturday. Kwan went 1 for 8 in those contests, his batting average for the season dropping from .275 to .273.
Over the previous four games, Kwan was 11 for 20 at the plate with four straight multiple-hit outings, including a 5-for-5 performance on Tuesday in an 8-6, 10-inning victory over the Los Angeles Angels. It was the former Oregon State standout’s first 5-for-5 showing since his first week in the majors in 2022, when he debuted as American League Player of the Week. (He would go on to finish third in AL Rookie of the Year balloting that season, behind winner Julio Rodriguez of the Seattle Mariners and Adley Rutschman, the ex-Beaver then with the Baltimore Orioles.)
“Kwannie is back to being Kwannie,” Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt said recently, a proclamation that Kwan is a bit uncomfortable to make himself.
“I am not going to fall in love with making any claims like, ‘I’m back,’ ” he said. “I have the perspective of what it was like to be really bad. I don’t want to look too far down the horizon. I will just try to take it day at a time. I found some solid routines that have got my swing back to where I’m happy with it. But you have to keep plugging away. You can’t get too comfortable with it.”
Cleveland’s two-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove left-fielder began the season in the worst slump of his young career, and it lasted for awhile.
Kwan hit .188 in May and was at .196 as late as May 23. The batting average was still only .212 heading into July, when he turned a corner and never looked back. He hit .403 with a .484 on-base percentage in July and was at .337 with a .440 OBP in August going into Sunday’s series finale vs. Kansas City. Since July 1, he has hit .375 with an MLB-best .470 OBP. For the season, Kwan went into Sunday’s game with a .374 OBP, the latter figure sixth in the MLB ranks and on pace for a career-best.
For the season, Kwan entered the weekend at .275 with a .378 OBP, the latter figure sixth in the MLB ranks and on pace for a career-best.
What changed? In a nutshell, he stopped trying to pull the ball so much.
“The big transition was trying to get away from what my approach was in ’24,” said Kwan, who will turn 29 on Sept. 5. “I was trying to pick up some bat speed, to get to my pull side more whenever the pitch was inside.
“Whether it was that the pitching strategy against me changed, my wrist that I hurt last year bothered me or whatever, something just stopped working. I was hitting a lot of fly balls to left field and getting beat when (the pitch) was inside.”
Vogt, hitting coach Grant Fink and others worked with Kwan to iron things out.
“Ultimately what we stumbled upon was I needed to keep a really short swing to left field,” he said. “Forego trying to pull the ball in the air and just hit line drives to left field. Stay away from the pull side and try to go more ‘oppo’ (opposite field) and up the middle.”
Kwan also had to get used to the ABS (automatic balls and strikes) system that is being implemented for the first time in the MLB this season.
“The upper quadrant was one I wasn’t familiar with,” he said. “I have gotten used to it throughout the year, which has allowed me to lay off those pitches and work some walks. Those things in combination have been instrumental to getting on base and working counts.”
Kwan, who carried a .281 career average through his first four seasons and had never had a season below .268, took the slump hard.
“I was definitely losing confidence,” he said. “I am not a big numbers guy. I never look at my average or OPS (on base plus slugging percentage). I knew I was doing very poorly, but there was never a moment where I looked up at the scoreboard and saw where I went from .200 to .199.
“But going 0 for 4 with weak contact every day is damaging to the confidence. The frustrating part was, there was no real answer for it. It was like, ‘It might be this; it might be that. Let’s put some stuff on the wall and see what sticks.’ ”
Kwan began to figure things out in late April, “but it took to mid- to late June to see any real change,” he said. “Throughout that time, the confidence was definitely low. You go so far as to wonder, ‘I am getting older. Maybe my body is deteriorating. Maybe my eyes aren’t as good.’ You go through every kind of rabbit hole as to what it could be. It was a frustrating time to figure out what was the problem.”
Now, does he feel like he is back to the old Steven Kwan?
After a slow start this season, Steven Kwan has regained the form that has carried him to All-Star acclaim with the Cleveland Guardians (courtesy Cleveland Guardians)
“I would say so,” he said. “I would still like to go to my pull side when I want to. With a 2-0 or 3-1 count with a pitch inside, I would like to have that club in my bag like, ‘OK, I am going to try to get this ball in the air and give it a good fly.’ I still don’t have that.
“But maybe that’s for the best. I am back to my 2022 skill set, where I am hitting low line drives to where I want it to be. And I am walking the most I have ever walked in my career. That is been a big part of my game, which is really cool. (Opponents) pick up on that, so you get more strikes.”
Indeed, Kwan has already matched his career high with 70 base on balls. On the flip side, he has hit only two home runs after swatting 14 in 2024 and 11 last season. But Kwan has struck out only 53 times, on par with his rate through his career and among the best percentages in baseball. He has never struck out more than twice in a game this season, and twice only nine times. And he has continued being, as Vogt recently pronounced, “the best left fielder on the planet,” with three errors in 275 chances this season.
“It is about your foundations and what you pride yourself on,” Kwan said. “With me, it is defense, putting the ball in play, smart baserunning. Those are the things I can hang my hat on every time. Those are important to me. This season, there have been a lot of hits with two strikes as well. That part of the game is always going to be important. It especially helps when I am not trying to pull the ball and hit homers. I am able to work counts. They go hand in hand.”
Kwan is one of five major leaguers ever to earn Gold Gloves in their first four seasons, joining catchers Johnny Bench and Charles Johnson, third baseman Nolan Arenado and outfielder Ichiro Suzuki.
“I take a huge amount of pride with that, especially with how much work goes into it with the coaching staff with positioning, scouting reports every series, different fields and so on,” he said. “Defense is a part of my game that should never slump. I always take it seriously.”
And this season, Vogt has used him at center field at times for the first time in his career.
“That has been a lot of fun,” Kwan said. “It has actually made me a better left fielder. It has kept things fresh. I know the left fields of almost all the ballparks pretty well, but center field is a different beast. It’s almost like I am a rookie again and I get to relearn the outfield. I go into those games with a kind of new wide-eyed, bushy-tailed perspective."
Often times this season, Kwan has batted lead-off, one spot ahead of another former Beaver, Travis Bazzana. The No. 1 pick in the 2024 draft, who made the All-Star Game this season as a rookie, went into Sunday’s game hitting .241 with a .332 OBP. (The MLB averages are .241 and .316). Bazzana is hitting .240 in August after averaging only .189 in June and .231 in July. The Guardians’ second baseman has only six errors in 343 chances and has been part of 42 double-plays.
“Travis has been amazing,” Kwan said. “He has been a lot of fun to get to know and to watch play. I was a fan of him when he was at Oregon State. I remember watching a game in Surprise (Ariz.), and he hit a home run while we were in the berm in right-center field. Funny enough, (then-Guardians outfielder) Myles Straw caught his home run ball.
“Travis’ work ethic has been super impressive. That is going to bear fruit as he goes throughout his career. It is easy as a rookie to be pulled in a lot of directions and get overwhelmed by the lifestyle. From Day One, he has been consistent. He knows what his process is. His understanding of the game is impressive — swing metrics, pitch shapes, etc. It feels like this new wave of baseball player comes in super educated. It has been fun to be with him and learn some stuff as well.”
Kwan is a newlywed of sorts. He wed the former Samantha May in February 2025.
“Got married on 2-5-25,” Kwan said with a laugh. “I have no excuse to forget the date. She made that easy for me.”
Samantha, an Arizona State grad, and Kwan met in Cleveland in 2022. They make their offseason home in Chicago, though Samantha has bounced back and forth between there and Cleveland during the season. They have no children yet.
“Our plan is to wait a little bit and enjoy big-league life,” he said. “(Players) who have kids in the big leagues, their wives end up being a single mother for a lot of it. That would be unfair to her. We are going to wait and make sure the time is right and then commit our lives to that whenever it happens.”
Since July 1, Kwan has hit .377 with an MLB-best .472 on-base percentage (courtesy Cleveland Guardians)
Cleveland’s pitching was superb during its recent hot streak, and had yielded just 23 runs over 10 games before allowing eight to the Royals on Saturday.
“We have had strong pitching the whole year,” Kwan said. “It has been magnified recently. We were one of the only teams to have five starting pitchers make every start through the first four months. That speaks to the consistency of our pitching. It has been huge through this whole stretch.
“The other thing has been timely hitting. During the middle of the year, even early, runners in scoring position was a tough thing for us. It was the elephant in the room. We weren’t getting the job done. Runner on third with less than two outs, we were stranding that runner. Lately, we have been able to pick up those runners. And with our bullpen and good pitching, two runs is the difference in a lot of the games.”
The Guardians began a 10-game homestand with the Royals series, which is good except that they were 31-34 at home and 37-32 on the road going in.
“What we did on the last road trip tipped the scale,” Kwan said. “It feels like it has been a lot of middling .500 baseball this whole year. Right after the All-Star break was our bad streak. It didn’t feel like Cleveland baseball — sloppy defense, sloppy base running. Something almost every series caused us to drop a game. After this last road stand, we are tightening up all the things we need to.”
Cleveland (68-68) went into Sunday 4 1/2 games behind the American League Central-leading Chicago White Sox with 26 games to play in the regular season. The Guardians and Chisox play a big three-game series in Cleveland from Sept. 14-16. Winning the division would be easier than securing a third AL wild-card spot behind the leaders in the AL East, either the Rays, Yankees or Red Sox.
“There is a chance to make up some ground on (the White Sox),” Kwan said. “We are confident right now. The boys are feeling good. It doesn’t feel like August baseball, which a lot of times can feel like a drag. Spirits are high. All signs point to being optimistic going forward.”
The Guardians have made the playoffs in three of Kwan’s four seasons, missing only in 2023. He has hit .321 with a .380 OBP in 20 career postseason contests. Does he feel like he rises to the occasion when the stakes are highest?
Kwan has continued the defensive form that has earned him four straight Gold Glove awards (courtesy Cleveland Guardians)
“The numbers would say so,” he said. “What I would attribute it to is understanding my approach and what my job is. When you think postseason, you think of so many big moments, but I think of the flip side. I am a guy who tries to keep things moving, the guy who is on base for the big moment. I am not going to be the guy to hit the one-off homer, but I work the count, try to do a number of things that put the team in a good spot to succeed.”
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