In our Sunday inside baseball page, we review the week that was, highlighting key trends with the Mariners and ranking the top teams around the league.
Stat of the week
32
The Mariners entered Saturday with an MLB-leading 32 stolen bases through their first 20 games, a club record at this stage of the season. They also led the league with nine caught stealings.
Who’s hot
In eight games with his new torpedo bat, Cal Raleigh had 10 hits, with six homers, two doubles and 10 RBI. The switch-hitting catcher has only been using the torpedo from the left side. He has ordered a custom-fitted torpedo to swing right-handed (although bat manufacturers, as you can imagine, are backlogged because of the high demand for the popular new torpedo).
Who’s not
The surface-level numbers are not good for Julio Rodriguez, who entered the weekend with a .179 batting average, three homers, one double, 11 walks and 23 strikeouts in 92 plate appearances, for a .304 on-base percentage, a .359 slugging percentage and a .663 on-base-plus-slugging (OPS) percentage. Mired in a 6-for-41 slump, Rodriguez was not in the starting lineup Saturday for the first time this season.
Dig a little deeper into the numbers, though, and you’ll find that Rodriguez has effectively been a league-average hitter through his first 20 games, with a wRC+ of 101 (the league average is 100). And for a player who has been a notoriously slow starter — he has a .226 average with a .647 OPS in 97 career games in March/April, by far his worst numbers in any months of his career — that should actually be an encouraging sign of things to come for Rodriguez.
That suggestion is supported by Rodriguez’s advanced metrics. Consider these three:
- His 93.7 mph average exit velocity, which ranks in the 91st percentile among MLB hitters and is a significant bump from his 2024 average of 91.7 mph.
- His 12% walk rate, nearly double his 6.2% from 2024. A positive development, certainly.
- His .212 batting average on balls in play (BABIP), which is 72 points below the league average. His career BABIP is .333, which is to say he’s probably been unlucky on the balls he has put in play so far this season considering his quality of contact rates.
Rodriguez’s strikeout rate of 25.0% is, yes, above the league average (22.6%), but that is also right in line with his career average of 25.2%. His whiff rate has increased to 35.8% — that’s in the 7th percentile, which is obviously alarming — but it is worth pointing out his chase rate has improve slightly (35.2%) since last season, which certainly is a key reason for his increased walk rate.
Prospect watch
In his first two pro ball appearances, 19-year-old Ryan Sloan had nine strikeouts with three walks in 4.2 innings for Low-A Modesto. He allowed three runs on four hits. The Mariners’ second-round pick out of an Illinois high school last year, Sloan is 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds, and Baseball America ranks him No. 83 on its Top 100 prospects list.
Ex-Mariner of the week
Ty France looks like one of baseball’s best bargains after signing a $1 million deal with the Minnesota Twins late in the winter. He was named the AL Player of the Week last week and he entered Saturday at .298/.365/.456 (.821 OPS) in 57 at-bats in April.
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