Deep Dive: Slow Starts - Julio Rodriguez

Article image credit: Cascadia Daily News

Julio Rodriguez has been synonymous with slow starts.  He’s Seattle’s superstar and has been for the past 4 seasons.  In his short career, he’s already amassed 21.2 WAR.  Over 2246 at bats, he’s accumulated 613 hits, 104 HRs, 343 runs, 315 RBI, and 109 steals.  He’s a career .794 OPS guy.  Not to mention, he plays one of the best defensive CF in the game.  He was the 2022 AL Rookie of the Year with the Mariners, and that was only supposed to be the beginning.  But, 4 years in, we still ask the question: what kind of numbers could Julio Rodriguez produce if he was able to play a full season?

His durability isn’t a question; it’s just a matter of him starting slowly and ramping up later in the season.  He’s still only 24, and will be throughout the rest of this season.  But let’s see if we can follow the slow start narrative by taking a look at his month-by-month splits.  Let’s start in 2022:

2022:

This was his rookie campaign, so his March/April was just his introduction to the majors.  In 81 PAs, he hit .205/.284/.260 for a .544 OPS.  But, when he got on base he made it count, tallying 9 steals in April alone.  The next three months he started to catch fire.  Over May, June, and July he averaged .285/.346/.539 for a .885 OPS.  Over those three months and 320 PAs, he had 84 hits, 18 HRs, 51 RBIs, and 12 steals.  He nearly had a 20/20 season within his first 4 months of MLB experience.  He slowed down a tad in August, but bounced right back in September and October, averaging a  1.231 OPS over those two months.  This was enough for him to earn AL Rookie of the Year.

2023:

So the AL ROY now has a full season to play after catching fire in 2022.  The numbers can only go up from here, right?  Well, he started April off better than in 2022, but it wasn’t up to the expectations set now.  Over 114 PAs, he hit .240/.307/.442 for a .749 OPS.  But the problem was, it didn’t quite go up from there.  In May and June, he then averaged a .688 OPS.  At that point, he still had some counting stats: 75 hits, 13 HRs, and 18 steals, but it wasn’t surpassing his rookie season yet.  Then July hit.  He had 31 hits, 11 of which were extra base hits, stole 6 more bases and posted a .825 OPS.  Heating up now, right?  Well, then August hit.  Julio smashed his July numbers with 45 hits, 10 of which were doubles, and 7 of which were homers.  He stole 11 more bases and posted a 1.198 OPS for the month of August.  During that month (and on this day, 8/19/2023), he had at least a four-hit game in four games in a row, surpassing Milt Stock for the record (Julio went 17-22 in that span).  In September, he crept back down to a .792 OPS, but still hit 8 homers, his highest monthly total of 2023.  At the end of the season, he totaled 37 doubles, 32 homers, and 37 stolen bases.  But it was a tale of two halves.  Pre All-Star break he had a .721 OPS; post All-Star break he had a .941.

2024:

This has to be the year, right?  This will be the year Julio puts a full year together.  Not so fast.  The first 4 months of 2024 (March-June) Julio’s highest monthly OPS was .688.  By July, he had only hit 6 doubles, 7 homers, and accumulated a respectable 17 steals.  But then July showed a different story, in 53 PAs, he hit 3 more doubles, 4 more homers, stole another base and posted a 1.122 OPS before going on the IL with a high ankle sprain.  Julio came back in August and posted an OPS in the low .700’s, but bounced back in September in a big way, slugging 9 doubles, 10 homers, 22 RBIs, and stealing 6 more bases for a .895 OPS.  Again, a tale of two halves.  Pre All-Star break = .690 OPS; Post All-Star break = .818.  It was a down year.  Julio failed to make the All-Star team.

2025:

Do we now know what to expect from Julio?  Is he just a slow starter?  Maybe we cast too high of expectations onto him.  Maybe he is a 20/20 guy, who’s shown flashes of 30/30 potential (2023) and plays excellent defense.  He’s clearly a great locker room presence and the face of the Mariners’ franchise, despite Cal Raleigh’s ascendance.  Well, let’s look at his numbers so far this year.  This is from Baseball Savant’s Monthly Splits page.

As you can see, he started slow again in April, but he had a better May than he’s had in the past.  June slipped a bit, but his July was a perfect embodiment of a typical Julio hot streak, which has continued into the month of August.  He’s already surpassed 20/20, with 24 homers and 23 steals.  And he’s already fit his mold of out-pacing his first half production with an excellent second half, just comparing OPS’s pre and post All-Star break.

Julio is in the third year of his 12-year/$209 million contract that keeps him with the club until 2035 (there is a club option in 2030).  

What do we think about Julio’s career at this point?  Does he continue to be the player he’s been, well into his 12 year deal?  Or do we see him pull together a complete season and ascend to being the 40/40 guy we expected when he burst onto the scene?