Julio Rodríguez is on the brink of eruption

Things haven't gone as planned for the 22 year old superstar in 2023, but I believe he is on the brink of something special.

As a Robbie Grossman bomb landed 20 rows deep in the right field seats in T-Mobile Park many fans hung their heads in disgust. Their team had just blown a massive lead at the hands of the Atlanta Braves, blowing a 6-1 advantage with just six outs remaining. This blast put Seattle behind 7-6 after the implosion of Paul Sewald and the Mariner bullpen.

The one person in the ballpark who knew the game wasn’t over was the one with the power to change it. Julio Rodríguez grinned from ear to ear as he ran off the field, imploring his teammates not to give up. It was almost as if he knew exactly what he was about to do.

The young superstar and his team will head into Atlanta to play against the best team in the National League again Friday night, the first matchup since Seattle’s legendary win last September. At that point, Rodríguez was in the midst of a slam dunk rookie of the year campaign, setting expectations high for 2023.

This season has been anything but easy for the Seattle centerfielder, struggling out of the gates with a .211 batting average, 7 home runs, and just a .684 OPS. His struggles have caused plenty of concern among the fanbase, with the common and somewhat lazy phrase “sophomore slump” being thrown around often.

In reality, the struggles are easy to explain, the league figured out a temporary way to slow him down. The age-old approach commonly used against young hitters has been deployed against Rodríguez this season, with fastballs in on his hands and soft breaking stuff away to get him to chase.

It is clear the approach was working early in the season, the young star stopped looking for fastballs and instead looked more worried about the pitch away from him, in a likely attempt to stop striking out. When a hitter becomes in between fastball and offspeed they become susceptible to miss pitches they should hit and get into two-strike counts more often than not.

Seattle attempted to help him by dropping him out of the leadoff spot, first down to the six spots, and more recently in the three-hole. His last seven games have been much better than the previous few weeks, hitting .241 with one home run and a .313 OBP.

Still, the concern remains. Where is the production we saw from him in his stellar rookie season?

The answer may be much more clear than you think. One look at his Baseball Savant page tells a lot, Rodríguez is close.

A lot better than you thought right? This kid hits the ball exceedingly hard at a very high rate, he has gotten extremely unlucky so far this season.

The 22-year-old is running a BABIP of just .264, (the league average is typically around .300) meaning that he has gotten unlucky with the placement of his batted balls. This should normalize much more than it currently stands, especially with his speed.

Last season Rodríguez posted a BABIP of .345, and I expect him to get a lot closer to this number as the season rolls along.

Expected results are a great way to predict how well a player will perform if the batted-ball production continues, and these numbers are really impressive.

Some of these metrics are xwOBA, xBA, and xSLG. All great measures of expected results on batted balls, and all of them suggest the same thing his BABIP does; he is due for some results.

His batted ball data is excellent and nearly identical to his 2022 campaign, ranking well above average in Hard Hit percentage, Avg Exit Velocity, and Barrel percentage.

You would love to see him cut down on the strikeouts and the whiffs, but his K%, Whiff%, Chase Rate, and BB% are all near carbon copies of his 2022 season.

Ultimately Rodríguez needs to get back on the four-seam fastball. He has just a 40 percent hard-hit rate and a run value of -4 on four-seam fastballs this season.

Last season he posted a 7-run value and a 62.9 percent hard-hit rate on fastballs. He crushed them.

If you can’t take advantage of fastballs it is difficult to be productive, especially when you are struggling to hit offspeed as well. The young star has missed plenty of fastballs in the zone, causing him to get to two strikes all too often.

This isn’t a huge fix, and having an off day to clear his head could be a blessing.

On Friday night Rodríguez will see the Braves, seemingly a perfect opportunity to elevate his game once again. Seattle is going to need him, as Atlanta may be the best team in all of baseball at 27-16.

Though it has been frustrating to watch, it has been every bit as frustrating for Rodríguez himself. One thing we know about Julio is that he doesn’t lack confidence or belief in himself, an outstanding quality for an elite athlete.

Though the results haven’t yet come, they will. Julio Rodríguez is about to erupt.