The 2023 season saw Hector Rodriguez play 101 games in Single-A with the Daytona Tortugas before he got a late season promotion up to High-A where he joined the Dayton Dragons. This season he returned to Dayton and spent all of his 125 games with the Dragons in the Midwest League.
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In Dayton’s opening game of the year, Hector Rodriguez wasn’t in the starting lineup. He came off of the bench to pinch run in the 9th inning. The next day he was in the starting lineup where he went 0-2 with a walk and he was hit by a pitch. Over the next month he played in 25 games and hit .315 while slugging .500 thanks to 11 extra-base hits. During that time he only struck out nine times and walked six times.
Things slowed down a bit on May 8th and for the next 11 days, Rodriguez went into a slump. He fell a home run shy of the cycle on May 15th, but even including that game he hit just .184 during that time and did not draw a walk. The outfielder got a few days off before returning to the field on May 22nd for a doubleheader that kicked off four straight multi-hit games that helped him hit .405 over the final week-and-a-half of May to go along with three walks and just four strikeouts.
June started out a bit slow, but on the 6th Rodriguez went 1-4 at home against Lansing to kick-start a 12-game hitting streak that saw him hit .375 in 48 at-bats. The streak came to an end on the 21st and over the last three games of that series in West Michigan he went 0-10 with two walks. The final series of the month came in Fort Wayne and Rodriguez showed off some power as he picked up two doubles, a triple, and two home runs in the 6-game series to finish up the month.
For as well as he was hitting to end June, Rodriguez slowed down to begin July. Over the first two weeks he hit just .194 in 10 games played before the league took off five days for the big league All-Star break. Coming out of the break things didn’t exactly pick up. From July 19th through August 14th, Rodriguez hit just .191 in a span of 22 games.
Things turned around quickly on August 15th, though, as he went 4-6 and didn’t slow down over the next two-and-a-half weeks, hitting .366/.403/.578 in 16 games. On September 2nd the Dragons began a series against Great Lakes and Rodriguez went into a slump, going 3-21 (.143) to end the regular season.
For all 2024 Season Reviews and Scouting Reports – click here (these will come out during the week throughout the offseason).
Hector Rodriguez Scouting Report
Position: Outfield | B/T: L/R
Height: 5′ 8″ | Weight: 187 lbs. | Acquired: Trade (Mets 2022)| Born: March 11, 2004
There’s plenty to like from Hector Rodriguez. He’s got an above-average hit tool and he’s hit for a quality average everywhere he’s ever been. He has good speed and while he doesn’t exactly look like there’s much power in there – he’s got more pop than you’d think.
His power is to the pull side, and he pulls the ball frequently, so there isn’t likely some large increase in power coming down the line. With that said, he’s got a knack for squaring up the ball and pitchers can’t look past his power.
Defensively he’s made some improvements as an outfielder as he’s transitioned from the infield. With that said, he’s best suited for the corners than he is for center where his speed is fringy at best for a true center fielder.
There is one big question mark for Rodriguez, though. Will his low walk rate hold him back? Rodriguez makes contact at a high rate – he struck out just 13.3% of the time in 2024 with Dayton. And a part of making so much contact is that you generally aren’t getting deep into counts, which is going to limit how frequently you walk in most cases.
The low walk rate means that he’s going to be heavily reliant on his batting average being high in order to make up for a lack of walks if we assume he won’t begin to pick up additional free passes. Finding some more patience as he continues to develop, though, would likely go a long way as it could probably improve what he can get out of his hit tool and of course being able to add some walks to his hit total would boost his on-base percentage as well.
There isn’t a long track record for low-walk rate hitters finding too much long term success in the big leagues. Most of the time, though, those hitters are also striking out a bunch or guys who have next to no power. Neither of those describes Rodriguez. Still, it’s a bit of a riskier profile and how his walk and strikeout numbers go as he moves up the ladder will be worth keeping an eye on.
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Interesting Stat on Hector Rodriguez
In 48 games where he played left field he hit .249/.279/.411. In 50 games where he was a right fielder he hit .330/.371/.474.