In short: It feels like MLB 21 with more pop-ups and less power.
For context: I played more than 600+ hours of MLB 21, and while the hitting engine didn't suck, I found that there were times when players, particularly lower-skilled players, were being granted foul tips on balls a major leaguer would have very little chance to hit (ie. very late on an inside slider, 8 inches away from the PCI at the bottom of the zone). That's not so say that there wasn't give and take, like hard hit lineouts and bloop singles. That's baseball, I get that. I just felt like when I'd thrown 3 "out" pitches in a row and my opponent was able to foul them off, I was almost being forced into a mistake that my opponent would capitalize on in every other game.
During the tech test, I noticed a lot of similarities to the way 21 played. The biggest changes were the power on balls directly in the PCI, and the number of pop-ups that came from being on the edge of the PCI. I don't hate these changes, but when you show me two identical PCI placements and one is a homer while the other is a pop-up, I just can't see how that makes for a balanced gameplay experience.
All I want is consistency. While this is just a tech test, I feel like there should definitely be some changes to hitting in the early game cycle so that MLB 22's hitting isn't just MLB 21.25.