If someone were to tell you following the 2020 season that Alec Bohm would be starting the All-Star Game in 2024, you would have little cause for surprise. Bohm had just wrapped up an abridged but impressive rookie campaign that saw him post a .338/.400/.481 line and be named co-runner-up for National League Rookie of the Year (the best finish for a Phillie since J.A. Happ did the same in 2009). He certainly looked like a shot in the arm for a franchise that was approaching a decade without the postseason, and there was every reason to feel optimistic.

But Bohm’s trajectory veered, if not entirely off track, somewhat askew. A middling sophomore season and solid though unspectacular performances in 2022 and 2023 seemed to establish that Bohm’s rookie season was a case of playing above his head, and that his true talent level lay a notch or two below. And then, just when we thought we knew him, Bohm burst out of the gate in 2024 and put himself at the top of the stats columns alongside some of the game’s most notable names. Most telling is this: there were a few laughs about his selection for the Home Run Derby. But few questioned his place in this year’s All-Star Game.

The big picture of what he’s done to become a player worthy of the Midsummer Classic, if you’ve been following the Fightins this season, is likely known to you. Lots of doubles (more than anyone else in the Senior or Junior Circuits, in fact). Excellent hitting with runners in scoring position. Each component of his line of .295/.348/.482 is the best he’s posted outside of his rookie season. But knowing what he did still leaves the question of how he did it. He’s hitting the ball more, and he’s getting on base more often, and he’s doing more damage when he does hit the ball. But we can look at a more granular level.

Looking at how he’s handling individual pitch types reveals a few things. Against 4-seamers, he’s putting up a batting average of .350, well above the .246 he posted in 2023. He posted a similar average against the heater in 2022, but with a slugging percentage far beneath the .563 he has this year, which is by far the best of his career. He’s improved in both average and slugging against the slider and sweeper. Against the curveball, cutter, and sinker he’s posting a lower batting average than he did in 2023 (and for the first of those, it’s a career low), yet he’s improved in slugging against all of them. That suggests that his overall improved batting average is largely a result of his performance against a few pitch types, but his elevated slugging percentage is the product of improvements against nearly everything (not, however, against the changeup, where his average and slugging are both at career lows).