Can Julio Rodríguez Return to Superstar Form in 2025?

After a step-back in 2024, can Julio Rodríguez return to his superstar form for the Seattle Mariners in 2025?

Julio Rodriguez of the Seattle Mariners celebrates his solo home run with the trident prop during the fourth inning against the Texas Rangers.
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - SEPTEMBER 28: Julio Rodriguez #44 of the Seattle Mariners celebrates his solo home run with the trident prop during the fourth inning against the Texas Rangers at T-Mobile Park on September 28, 2023 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

Few players have as much star appeal as Julio Rodríguez.

He’s capable of making highlight-reel plays in the outfield that few players could replicate. He has one of the highest ceilings in baseball thanks to his ability to impact the game in so many different ways. And he has an infectious personality who radiates confidence and can lead a clubhouse.

Through his first two big league seasons, Rodríguez showed that he has the potential to be an MVP candidate.

However, his production in 2024 was a far cry from what he did in his rookie and sophomore seasons.

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Rodríguez burst onto the scene back in 2022 with the Seattle Mariners. In 132 games (560 plate appearances), Rodríguez slashed .284/.345/.509 for a 148 wRC+ and a .366 wOBA.

He racked up 28 homers and 25 doubles, and he also stole 25 bases as a 21-year-old getting his first crack at big league action.

He ended the year seventh in the AL in fWAR (5.8), and he won the AL Rookie of the Year award as well as a Silver Slugger award. Rodríguez finished seventh in AL MVP voting in his first big league season.

In some aspects, Rodríguez turned in an even more impressive sophomore campaign the following season. His wRC+ did fall by 20 points, but he hit four more homers (32), he stole 12 more bases (37), and he improved his overall range as a defender, finishing in the 97th percentile in outs above average (OAA) with 12.

In 2023, Rodríguez finished fourth in MVP voting after putting up another 5.8-win season, which was the fifth-best in the AL.

But Rodríguez took a step back in 2024, and his production wasn’t near the level of expectations that were set for him heading into the year. So, what went wrong for Rodríguez last season, and how can he return to his All-Star ways in 2025?

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A Down 2024 Campaign

Julio Rodríguez of the Seattle Mariners walks back to the dug out after striking out in the first inning during a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – MAY 19: Julio Rodríguez #44 of the Seattle Mariners walks back to the dug out after striking out in the first inning during a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on May 19, 2024 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)

On the surface level, the 2024 season was a fine one for Rodríguez, but it was a disappointment for his standards, as he set career-lows in nearly every category.

In terms of his approach, his strikeout rate and walk rate were in line with the levels they were previously at. There are some areas Rodríguez can look to clean up in the bat-to-ball department, but we’ll dive into that a bit later.

Instead, it was Rodríguez’s power that was completely sapped. For a guy with lightning-quick bat speed and impressive barrel control, he didn’t make nearly the same degree of impact on the baseball that he did in his rookie year or in 2023.

He still had an above-average barrel rate (10.2%), but it was nearly a two percent drop from the preceding season and nearly a three percent drop from his mark in 2022. His average exit velocity dropped one mile-per-hour, and his hard-hit rate dipped from 52% in 2023 to 48.4% last season.

But those aren’t bad measurements by any stretch when compared to the league average. Those exit velocity metrics, on top of his max exit velocity of 114.5 mph, were all in the top 15 percent of Major League Baseball.

But for a player of Rodríguez’s caliber who was expected to be in the MVP conversation, it was a concerning step back for the ascending superstar.

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Why the Dip in Power?

When diving into how his slight dip in quality of contact impacted his overall power numbers, there were some fascinating findings.

Rodríguez’s power production wasn’t great last season. His homer total dropped by 12 from the previous season, and his power on a per-game basis just wasn’t at the same level that fans have been accustomed to seeing.

But interestingly enough, his expected metrics- which take into account his overall quality of contact in terms of launch angle, exit velocity, etc.- were not all that different from his first two seasons in the majors, as is depicted in the table below:

2022SLG: .509XSLG: .460ISO: .225wOBA: .366xWOBA: .337xWOBACON: .428
2023SLG: .485XSLG: .475ISO: .209wOBA: .347xWOBA: .345xWOBACON: .431
2024SLG: .409XSLG: .463ISO: .136wOBA: .321xWOBA: .344xWOBACON: .437
Julio Rodríguez stats via Baseball Savant and FanGraphs

In 2024, Rodríguez saw his slugging percentage drop nearly 80 points, which is an extremely substantial margin for a player with his talent at such a young age.

In turn, Rodríguez saw his ISO, which is calculated by taking a player’s slugging percentage minus his batting average, decrease from .209 in 2023 to just .136 this past season.

But Rodríguez’s batting average was nearly the same across his last two seasons (.275 in 2023, .273 in 2024), he was just doing a fraction of the damage on those batted balls.

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On a per-game basis, Rodríguez was generating hits at a similar rate to previous years, but many of those hits were turning into singles as opposed to extra-base hits- hence the stark drop-off in these power metrics.

In 2023, Rodríguez had 109 singles and 71 extra-base hits in 654 at-bats. In 87 fewer at-bats this past season (567 total AB), Rodríguez notched 118 singles but hit just 37 extra-base hits. The difference is particularly noticeable when comparing his hits spray chart from 2023 (the first image below) to 2024 (the second image below).

He was still putting the ball in play at a high rate, and his BABIP was even up in 2024 (.344, compared to .330 in 2023), the singles just weren’t turning into doubles.

But despite that 76 point drop in slugging percentage, that didn’t translate to his expected statistics, as his peripherals were far more optimistic.

In 2024, Rodríguez’s xSLG, which assigns every batted ball an expected slugging number based on its quality of contact metrics compared to similarly-hit batted balls, was only down eight points from 2023. His mark in 2024 (.463) was actually higher than it was in 2022 (.460) when he actually slugged .509.

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It’s a similar story with his wOBA, which is a version of on-base percentage that takes into account how the player reached base.

Last season, Rodríguez’s wOBA dipped to a career-low .321, which was 26 points lower than 2023 and 45 points lower from 2022. But despite that substantial drop, his xwOBA, which functions the same as xSLG, was nearly identical from 2023 and was seven points higher than 2022.

To take it one step further, his expected weighted on-base average on contact, or xwOBAcon, highlights this even more. This stat functions similar to xWOBA, but it removes strikeouts, walks, and HBP from the equation to only focus on balls put into play.

Rodríguez’s xwOBAcon was at a career-high in 2024 at .437. That was better than his mark in 2023, and it was nearly 10 points better than his number from 2022. Both his xwOBA and xwOBAcon were in the top 20 percent of Major League Baseball last season.

Of players with a minimum of 600 plate appearances in 2024, Rodríguez had the seventh-highest negative difference between his wOBA and xwOBA at -0.023.

In other words, Rodríguez was one of the baseball’s biggest under performers relative to his expected metrics based off of his quality of contact.

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Point being, not all down years are created equally. Context is needed to determine if a player took a step back in terms of ability, or if there were other aspects involved that led to a decrease in production.

In Rodríguez’s case, the argument could be made that he was victim of some substantially-bad batted-ball luck in 2024, and better days are ahead next season.

The Path for a Bounce Back

If Rodriguez wants to return to his old ways in 2025, there are some areas he will need to improve upon.

For starters, Rodríguez will need to improve his contact rate in 2025- specifically on pitches within the strike zone.

In 2024, Rodríguez saw his in-zone contact rate drop from 83.3% in 2023 to just 78.8% in 2024 (for reference, the league average last season was 82%). That 4.5% drop is substantial for a player who can do so much damage when he makes contact on pitches within the strike zone.

Julio Rodríguez 2023 Whiff Rate by Zone via Baseball Savant
Julio Rodríguez 2024 Whiff Rate by Zone via Baseball Savant

When comparing his overall swing-and-miss numbers from 2023 (the first image above) to 2024 (the second image above), there are some areas that will need to be cleaned up. Specifically, the vertical middle-third of the strike zone saw a noticeable leap in whiff rate this past season for Rodríguez.

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His whiff rate in the top-middle of the zone rose nine percent, and his whiff rate in the middle-middle zone and bottom-middle zone rose eight percent. In order for Rodríguez to see better results in 2025, he can’t afford to whiff that often on pitches in those parts of the strike zone.

Secondly, when looking at how pitchers attacked Rodríguez in 2024, it was clear that offspeed pitchers were his point of weakness in the batter’s box.

2022BA: .250xBA: .207SLG: .412xSLG: .320wOBA: .318xWOBA: .265Whiff %: 33.1%
2023BA: .241xBA: .239SLG: .494xSLG: .440wOBA: .336xWOBA: .319Whiff %: 37.7%
2024BA: .173xBA: .197SLG: .272xSLG: .322wOBA: .220xWOBA: .251Whiff %: 37.8%
Julio Rodríguez production against Offspeed pitches via Baseball Savant

Offspeed pitches have been Rodríguez’s weakest pitch type throughout his young career, but his efficiency against the pitch type saw a substantial step back this past season.

It’s a pitch type that he only sees roughly 12% of the time, so it’s not a complete gaping hole in his offensive game. But for a hitter who demolishes fastballs (Rodríguez hit .315 with a .480 slugging percentage and a .365 wOBA against fastballs in 2024), it gave pitchers a way to attack him, and any weakness a hitter may have is going to get exploited at this level.

All in all, the foundation is certainly there for Rodríguez to return to his MVP-caliber ways in 2025.

The peripherals from a season ago suggest Rodríguez had a better season than the surface level numbers might indicate. And if he can clean up a few things in his offensive profile, Rodríguez could be in store for a career year as he enters his age-24 season.

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