The 2011 season began for Henry Rodriguez as an intriguing prospect after hitting .307/.337/.477 the season before with the Dayton Dragons. Despite that strong line, there were some questions about his game. Some had questioned his defense and most considered plate discipline to be in need of improvement. But his switch hitting ability with a little bit of power and a good average was worth keep an eye on for an up the middle prospect heading to the California League.
He would begin the year off with a bang in April, taking a 17 game hit streak through most of the month, beginning in game one of the season with a two-hit campaign. At no point during the month did his average drop below .344, which is where he stood after the final two days of the month with a line of .344/.386/.462 with 6 walks and 12 strikeouts. The improved plate discipline was good to see and the numbers were clearly strong.
For as good as April was, the month of May began in an opposite fashion with 4 strikeouts in the first game. He was up and down for the next two and a half weeks and was hitting just .236 as of May 18th before catching fire over the next twelve days to finish up the month. Over that stretch of the month Rodriguez went 23 for 47 with 4 walks, 5 strikeouts and 8 extra-base hits to raise his monthly line to .336/.373/.529 with 7 walks and 19 strikeouts and keeping alive an 11 game hitting streak.
June began where he had left off, getting hits in the first seven games of the month for the Bakersfield Blaze which pushed his seasonal line to .340/.378/.513 with 14 walks and 35 strikeouts. Rodriguez was promoted to the Carolina Mudcats for the June 9th game with an active 18 game hit streak. He kept the streak alive in his first game but was unable to push the streak to 20 games. The transition to AA wasn’t quite smooth, with the second baseman hitting .270/.308/.351 with just 4 walks and 16 strikeouts in the month of June (in AA only).
July got better on some fronts, but was also a tale of two stretches. For the first three weeks of the month Rodriguez was hitting .257, but had shown improved plate discipline with 4 walks and 4 strikeouts through that point in the month. However he turned things up a notch for the final eleven days of the calendar by hitting .341 to raise his monthly line to .288/.328/.396 with 6 walks and 10 strikeouts. Another fine month on the plate discipline front, but overall the on-base skills were mediocre at best, as was the power.
In August Rodriguez turned it up to 11 (if you don’t get the reference, go here) and showed off the things that hadn’t been there in July. He went on to hit .344 on the month with 15 walks and 17 strikeouts to go along with twelve extra-base hits. That pushed his line for August to .344/.450/.538. For his time in Carolina he went for a .302/.367/.432 with 25 walks and 43 strikeouts.
Overall Thoughts
Henry Rodriguez came into the 2011 season with two questions on his resume. His plate discipline improved dramatically, going from a 3.9% walk rate with a 13% strikeout rate in 2010 to a 6.9% walk rate with a 13.8% strikeout rate. Defensively I was only able to see him about 10 times on the season and his defense looked to be similar to what it was in the past. He shows flashes of some pretty good skills but also seems to have a brain cramp on an easy play now and again.
Stats
| Tm | PA | AB | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| Bakersfield | 254 | 238 | 17 | 0 | 8 | 44 | 12 | 7 | 14 | 35 | .340 | .378 | .513 | .891 |
| Carolina | 312 | 278 | 19 | 1 | 5 | 37 | 18 | 3 | 25 | 43 | .302 | .367 | .432 | .799 |
| Total | 566 | 516 | 36 | 1 | 13 | 81 | 30 | 10 | 39 | 78 | .320 | .372 | .469 | .841 |
Spray Chart
| As LHH | |||||||||
| Total | 1B | 2B | 3B | HR | AVG | SLG | IsoP | ||
| P | 15 | 4.6% | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .200 | .200 | .000 |
| C | 1 | 0.3% | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 |
| 1B | 27 | 8.3% | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .111 | .111 | .000 |
| 2B | 47 | 14.4% | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .043 | .043 | .000 |
| 3B | 15 | 4.6% | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .385 | .385 | .000 |
| SS | 28 | 8.6% | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .286 | .286 | .000 |
| LF | 57 | 17.5% | 18 | 5 | 0 | 0 | .418 | .509 | .091 |
| CF | 74 | 22.7% | 24 | 10 | 0 | 3 | .500 | .757 | .257 |
| RF | 62 | 19.0% | 27 | 7 | 1 | 4 | .629 | .968 | .339 |
| As RHH | |||||||||
| Total | 1B | 2B | 3B | HR | AVG | SLG | IsoP | ||
| P | 5 | 4.3% | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .250 | .250 | .000 |
| C | 1 | 0.9% | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 |
| 1B | 7 | 6.0% | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | .143 | .286 | .143 |
| 2B | 12 | 10.3% | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 |
| 3B | 16 | 13.7% | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .125 | .125 | .000 |
| SS | 17 | 14.5% | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .059 | .059 | .000 |
| LF | 27 | 23.1% | 9 | 9 | 0 | 6 | .889 | 1.889 | 1.000 |
| CF | 18 | 15.4% | 8 | 3 | 0 | 0 | .611 | .778 | .167 |
| RF | 14 | 12.0% | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | .357 | .429 | .071 |
What really sticks out is that from the right side, Rodriguez showed incredible power to left field. He didn’t have much power at all to center or left though from the right side. From the left side of the plate his power side was to pull, but he didn’t really show impressive power to any field from the left side.
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