Dominic Canzone Stepped Up and Delivered for the Mariners

The Seattle Mariners have spent the past few seasons trying to figure out their outfield combinations. Jarred Kelenic wasn’t the star he was promised to be. Kyle Lewis was a one-hit wonder. Jesse Winker, Dylan Moore, Teoscar Hernández, Mitch Haniger and others all came and went.

Randy Arozarena turned out to be the perfect addition to complement Julio Rodríguez, taking over one of the two corner spots. Victor Robles dazzled in a somewhat small sample last year, and he looked like he could be the answer in the other corner – until injury hit. Back to musical chairs.

The Mariners once again returned to a cycle in hopes of finding one player who could do enough to calm their nerves. Someone who could step in and provide something. Anything. A spark, even for a moment. And they found him. That player who has stepped up and delivered is none other than Dominic Canzone.

Canzone, an eighth-round pick by Arizona, joined the Mariners organization at the 2023 deadline along with Ryan Bliss in exchange for Paul Sewald. He mostly struggled through his first and second stints with Seattle, bouncing back and forth from Triple-A before establishing himself this season.

Sure, Canzone is far from a perfect player. He doesn’t make the best swing decisions and isn’t going to win a Gold Glove. But that’s okay. He isn’t being asked to carry this team. All the Mariners needed was a serviceable player who could bat near the bottom of the lineup, and Canzone has been that player.

Stats updated prior to games on September 2.

More, and Better, Contact

In many ways, baseball is a simple game. Hit the ball, and run the bases. However, over the years, it has become more and more complex. I’ll dive into some more advanced metrics and explanations, but to start in the most elementary way possible: Canzone is making more contact.

Last season, Canzone struggled with a 28.1% strikeout rate thanks to a 37% chase rate and 34.4% whiff rate. Pitchers were attacking him with breaking balls, knowing that he would chase and that even if he did make contact, it would be weak dribblers or pop-outs.

When they did enter the zone, Canzone still was not making enough contact to make up for his shortcomings elsewhere. A 75.9% zone contact rate in 2024 was not nearly good enough. Well, Canzone put in the work and has improved his zone contact rate to 84.7%, more than 2% higher than league average.

Obviously, making contact in the strike zone will lead to more balls in play and better results, and we are seeing that come true this season. Canzone has cut his whiff by 10%, most notably on fastballs, slashing his whiff rate from 27.1% down to 16.1%. This has seen his production take off against fastballs; he is hitting .309 against heaters, compared to .235 last season.

Canzone has also seen his average exit velocity jump from 89.9 mph to 91.8 mph, although his power has not followed suit. He’s been more of a line drive hitter without much lift, which has limited his power output. However, we have seen him tap into a bit more lift recently:

via Baseball Savant

The graph above shows Canzone’s launch angle sweet spot over the past two seasons. What does that mean? It is the frequency, as a percentage, with which a batter hits a ball between eight and 32 degrees. That is the ideal launch angle for positive results.

The area I highlighted is from July 20. Since that date, Canzone has been consistently well above his career norms (and league average). Is he trying to lift the ball and tap into more power? In the time before July 20, he had a 50% groundball rate compared to a 39.4% since. However, the rest of his results have not been as favorable.

Recent Regression

June and July were by far the best months for Canzone, as he posted an .899 and .780 OPS, respectively. But, August saw a .707 OPS, with his slugging percentage taking a 70-point hit from the month prior.

After hitting five home runs in June, Canzone managed only one in July and one in August. While not certain, one wonders if he was trying to get back to that power he showed earlier in the season.

Canzone has shown power in the minors. Over the past two seasons in the minors, he has an ISO over .260 with 29 home runs in 116 games. He has a fast enough swing and impacts the baseball enough for power to potentially be a bigger part of his game, but we haven’t seen it yet.

It’s no coincidence that he also saw fewer fastballs in August. After seeing 53% velocity in July, Canzone saw only 45% in August, with breaking balls being thrown to him at an eight percent increase from July to August. Translation: Pitchers are learning how to attack him in a more efficient way.

What has kept him afloat has been chasing fewer breaking balls and offspeed pitches, helping him walk at a high clip. However, Canzone started to hunt more fastballs when he did get them, which led to him swinging at fastballs outside of the zone at a 15% increase from July to August.

I know all of these stats can get foggy, and the sample size is not nearly large enough to pull concrete conclusions from. So, let’s paint the picture in human terms. A 28-year-old “Quad-A” player had an opportunity to make an impact in what might be his final chance to stick. He started hot, cooled, and now is trying with everything he has to get back on track and hopefully extend his major league career.

Final Thoughts

Dominic Canzone has been a fun player to follow this season. The Mariners did not count on him having to play a role of this size, and he has mostly capitalized on his situation. We all love the classic underdog story.

Regardless of how the rest of the season plays out, Canzone has done exactly what this team has needed him to do, and then some. He provided the Mariners with offense when they needed someone to step up and gave them some big at-bats as their outfield awaited Robles’ return.

Whether or not he can figure it out, rebound, and be an impactful player down the stretch is still unknown. What I do know is how important he has been to the Mariners, even if only for a stretch of the season.