Canha is refining his swing in hopes to produce better results

NEW YORK — Mark Canha knows that he hasn’t produced at the same rate in 2023 that he did in 2022, or even at the rate he did when he was with the Oakland A’s. But the good news is that he’s seeing the signs of a turnaround.

The Mets outfielder came into Tuesday’s series against the Philadelphia Phillies slashing just .233/.318/.360 with a .678 OPS, which is almost 100 points below his 2023 OPS (.769), and his 89 OPS+ would indicate that he has been producing at a below-average rate.

Canha has been focusing on the process instead of the results, which has sometimes been frustrating, but he’s seeing signs of progress.

Over his last five games, he’s gone 4-for-14 with four walks. He had a four-game hit streak before going 0-for-2 with two walks Sunday in Denver during the Mets’ 11-10 loss to the Colorado Rockies.

“I’m working on things,” Canha told the Daily News. “I’m trying to identify that there’s something that needs to be fixed and trying to address it. And there’s an element of that where I have to stay within myself and try to kind of stay on the tracks toward progressing to where I want to go and not try to get there too quickly and rush the process. I’m just working through stuff.”

One of the main things Canha is trying to work through is limiting his head movement at the plate. It’s a habit that he has fallen into in the past, but there’s a reason for that. At times, the head movement is a byproduct of explosive movements. Canha wants his swing to be explosive. He wants to hit for power and he wants to hit in a way that allows the ball to explode off the bat.

But in order to barrel the ball, the movement has to be controlled.

“It’s always something you want to think about, I think it’s a body control thing,” Canha said. “And sometimes that’s an issue for me. Controlling my body in an explosive way, it’s kind of hard for me because I do tend to be explosive and kind of whip my body around in ways that it gets me out. So it’s like controlled violence that I’m kind of trying to work on within the swing. But yeah, it’s been an issue for me throughout my career, something that I constantly work on.”

Canha isn’t trying to completely demolish his swing, but he wants to rebuild it from the ground up. The 34-year-old knows that he can have success at the plate with his swing because he’s had success with it in the past. The goal is to eliminate this habit in order to find a much more refined swing.

“It’s hard, it’s so hard when the results aren’t there,” Canha said. “You want to flip the script and just throw everything out and start fresh and try something else. But I’m trying to be methodical about the way I’m working.”

The Mets aren’t worried about Canha because they know how he works. They trust that the work he’s putting in with the hitting coaches in the batting cages and reviewing video will pay off. They know how badly he wants to contribute and wants to help the Mets win by getting on base and driving in runs.

“Mark is a guy that’s so easy to trust,” said manager Buck Showalter. “He always wins a tiebreaker when you’re doing lineups because he’s so prepared. He’s going to seek his level.”