After breaking onto the major league scene in 2022, where he took home the AL Rookie of the Year award, Julio Rodríguez immediately followed his breakout campaign with a 30/30 season in 2023, finishing fourth in the AL MVP race while playing a premier center field for the Mariners. Since then, however, Rodríguez has regressed to a roughly league-average bat with elite defense – still a valuable player, yet a few steps short of reaching superstar status, as he appeared destined for in his first two seasons.
While lots of underlying stats have changed for Rodríguez since then, one tool has remained – his elite bat speed. While his swing has shortened slightly, his bat speed remains in the upper tiers of MLB, giving him elite upside despite his whiff/chase problems.
Still, Rodríguez has appeared to be on a downward trajectory offensively, opposite to what is expected for a 24-year-old former top prospect.
Unfortunately, Rodríguez has posted relatively league-average batted ball data in 2025 as of June 23 and has not homered since May 28. While Rodríguez is historically a slow starter, it’s worth looking into what changes have gone into his approach in 2025 and how he could return to superstar form.
Bat Tracking and Approach
Thanks to Baseball Savant, bat tracking has recently become an excellent way to detect year-over-year swing changes, while other results, such as batted ball data and swing decisions, show us how these changes impact game-level performance. In Rodríguez’s case, bat tracking isn’t a fan of his changes.
Most bat tracking stats trending downwards are usually a bad sign, and have been mirrored in Rodríguez’s game-level results. While these changes were likely in an effort to make more contact, Rodríguez still whiffs far too often despite a career-best strikeout rate in 2025.
This stems from an ultra-aggressive approach, with Rodríguez boasting a career-high and nearly league-leading 56.8% swing rate. Rodríguez has always shown poor chase numbers, and this tendency to expand will only give Rodriguez worse pitches to hit as pitchers adapt to his swing-heavy approach. So far, Rodriguez has seen a career-high 45.0% of pitches in-zone, a number likely to decrease as the year progresses.
This is, of course, supplemented by Rodríguez’s elite bat speed – this allows him to continue posting solid offensive numbers despite such a risky approach. However, especially over his nearly month-long homerless streak, Rodríguez’s Process+ has begun spiraling downwards.
If Rodríguez’s contact and swing decisions fall below average, his power will have to do enough to make up for it. However, especially following his swing changes, Rodríguez’s batted ball data has been concerning as well.
Batted Ball
Rodriguez has hit more ground balls while pulling fewer fly balls in 2025, which would typically indicate a decrease in SLG. Still, Rodriguez’s raw power has allowed for decent results, yet that could change without some fixes to his swing and approach as the year progresses.
Overall, it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what works best for Rodriguez. It seems his shortened swing was pushed in an effort to fix a weakness in strikeouts, and while those have improved in 2025, the rest of his numbers seem to pay the price. He’s also still whiffing as often as ever without crushing the ball like he has in the past.
Still, despite all of these negative changes, Rodriguez remains one of the most exciting talents in baseball. His defense and baserunning ranks among the best in the league, and some changes back to his past approach could pay off down the stretch of the season.
