Julio Rodríguez’s Consistently Slow Starts
Julio Rodriguez has always had the talent. He is big, strong, fast, explosive… Whatever athletics-based adjective you want to use, he’s got it in spades. He has every baseball tool you could ask for: Hit, run, field, arm, and power. He’s also a good guy by all accounts, and has proven to be very adaptable and intelligent over the years. He heard the concerns about his outfield defense and speed while coming up as a prospect, and worked hard to make those weaknesses his strongest attributes. He learned English while also training to be a world-class athlete and developing his baseball skills at a blistering pace, making his MLB debut at just 21 years old. He clearly has an incredible aptitude for quick learning and a desire to improve himself constantly. But he’s still one of the biggest what ifs in all of baseball.
2022 was his first season, best offensive season, and the closest he’s ever come to putting together a complete season at the plate. You could argue that he actually did put together a full season at the plate in 2022, because he didn’t do as poorly as we remember. Julio’s first half wRC+ was 137—and it would have been much higher if umpires hadn’t called him out on strikes that were actually balls 10 times in his first 73 plate appearances. It was so bad that the team wrote a letter to the league protesting his unfair treatment. Outside of that hiccup, his rookie season was a success from start to finish, both at the plate and in the field, culminating in a ROTY award. But normally, young players improve as they approach their mid-20’s, and they certainly don’t peak in their rookie season. So why is his first season still his best, four years later?
Julio Rodriguez First Half wRC+
Julio’s chase rate in 2022 was the best of his career, as was his walk rate. In 2022 his quality of contact was his best as well, more ‘barrels’ and ‘solid’ contact as defined by savant. He is a slow starter, but his struggles aren’t always as isolated to the beginning of the season as you would think, given his “notoriously slow starter” label. In 2023, he performed slightly worse in his final 130 PA’s (105 wRC+) than his first 130 (109 wRC+). In August of 2022, he had a terrible August by his standards, putting up a wRC+ of 101, which was barely better than his March/April last season (98 wRC+). He also seems to always have a decent May and then follow it up with a terrible June. In 2023 and 2024, he actually was worse at the plate in June than in the first month of the season, and in 2025, he came very close to doing so again.
This suggests that there may be something more behind the struggles than just “a slow start”. It seems that while he does indeed start slow most of the time, he might also have some trouble adjusting when pitchers pitch him differently, especially in the first half. It also seems like he struggles with consistency in general at the plate, no matter what time of year it is. Digging into the numbers, his biggest issue seems to be that he is making worse swing decisions. In 2022, he swung at just 50.2% of all pitches, 70.5% of pitches in the zone, and chased outside the zone at a career low 33.5% rate, even though pitchers tried to get him to chase more. In the following seasons, he swung more often at all pitches, including ones outside the zone.
The swing rate on pitches in the zone in 2022 is particularly telling when combined with the chase rate, as it means that he laid off certain pitches even if they were strikes, as opposed to his more recent years, where he laid off fewer pitches both inside and outside the zone. Not swinging at strikes seems like a bad idea, but not all pitches in the zone are created equal. There is a concept in baseball of the “pitcher’s pitch”— a two seamer away that comes back at the last second to just barely clip the zone, or a slider that just dots the inside corner. Every hitter also has a “hole” in their swing, which is just a part of the zone they have trouble getting the barrel to. If a pitcher’s pitch happens to land in that area, it is even more effective. Swinging at pitcher’s pitches generally doesn’t go well for batters, because they will miss a lot, or generate an easy out via weak contact.
The best hitters usually just try to spoil those kinds of pitches, fouling them off with two strikes to stay alive. But with no strikes, they usually just take the pitch. Because the best hitters are waiting for their pitch to hit. Sometimes they will sit on a certain pitch or location, other times they will avoid swinging at certain pitches, etc. The point is that most good hitting approaches involve a high level of patience and discipline, trying to be aggressive on pitches they can handle, and laying off ones they cannot, regardless of the strike zone. Failure is part of the game of baseball more than most sports, so obviously that doesn’t always happen. But that is what they are trying to do, nonetheless.
Julio has also developed a reputation as a tinkerer, constantly making changes to his swing, setup, or approach. This is backed up by his pitch-type data, which shows that his “kryptonite” pitch changes every season. In 2022, the sweeper was the only pitch he saw regularly that he struggled with. In 2023, he slugged .588 and had a .405 xwOBA against sweepers but struggled against sinkers. In 2024, he had an xwOBA of .405 against sinkers, but struggled to hit changeups and sweepers. In 2025, he was much better against changeups and sweepers, but struggled to hit cutters.
This tinkering is also represented in his zone chart data, which splits the zone into nine segments and has four quadrants for pitches outside the zone. As you can see, he struggled to produce against pitches in different parts of the zone each season. It seems clear to me that Julio has a deep desire to turn weaknesses into strengths, like he did with his defense and speed in the minor leagues. The problem is, no hitter can crush every pitch in every location. Even Aaron Judge has some weaknesses. For example, he hit just .069 with a .195 xwOBA against splitters last season. He also struggled to cover the upper inside section of the zone. Even a guy who might be the best right-handed hitter in the history of baseball struggles against a certain pitch and has a hole in his swing. That’s the reality of hitting a round baseball with a round bat, and no one can escape it. Every time Julio makes a change, he solves one problem but creates another, in an endless game of whack-a-mole. In his pursuit of perfection, Julio has wandered further from it.
Julio Rodriguez’s xwOBA on contact by zone, 2022- 2025 from left to right
But this season, and every season after it, is a new opportunity for him to change that reputation. Hitting coach Kevin Sitzer said before the season that Julio really turned a corner around the all star break in 2025. And that leads him to believe that he can be more consistent in the future, implying that he thought Julio would be able to avoid having a slow start. So far, it’s been slow as usual, but the first half is far from over, and there are some real positive signs. His strikeout to walk ratio is especially telling, and those numbers typically normalize after just 50-100 AB’s, unlike most other stats. As of 4/20/26, Julio’s strikeout to walk ratio is 0.44, which is a massive improvement over his career high water mark of 0.29 that he achieved last season. Only time will tell, but there are some positive signs, and the ceiling is so high that it’s impossible not to hope.
Ultimately, the gap between Julio Rodríguez as he is and Julio Rodríguez as a full-season MVP candidate does not come down to talent, work ethic, or ability. It is a gap that can only be crossed with consistency and acceptance that perfection cannot be achieved. In trying to eliminate every weakness, he has made it harder to sustain his strengths. The right path forward is stability, not perfection. If Julio can commit to a more disciplined approach, trust what works, and resist the urge to constantly reinvent himself, the full-season breakout is not just possible, but probable. The stretches of greatness we have seen are proof of that. Now it is time for Julio Rodriguez to make it reality.
-Isaac Harai
