On Tuesday night in Louisville we saw Hector Rodriguez have himself a big game at the plate. The outfielder went 2-2 with two walks, two home runs, and he drove in three runs in the Bats 5-4 win.
For Hector Rodriguez the two home runs on the evening gave him 21 homers on the season. His previous career high was 19, setting a new record for his season best. And he did so in far fewer games than he’s ever done it in over the past few seasons. In 2023 he broke out when it comes to home run power as he hit 16 home runs in his 115 games. Then in the 2024 season he spent the full year with the Dayton Dragons and hit 12 home runs in 125 games played. Last season he split the year between Double-A Chattanooga and Triple-A Louisville. In those 135 games he hit 19 home runs.
This season he’s played in 84 games and is already at 21. Rodriguez has also added in 14 doubles and four triples this season. The step forward in power for Rodriguez has been fun to see. Not just because of the fact that he’s had 21 of them – including one inside-the-park home run, but partially because he’s not hitting cheap, wall-scraping home runs.
Of his 21 home runs this season only one of them has been under 370 feet. 15 of them have gone at least 390 feet. 10 of his home runs have gone at least 400 feet. And six of them have gone at least 420 feet. The furthest went a whopping 450 feet.
Last night the home run line wasn’t the only line in the stat record book for Hector Rodriguez that got a new addition, though. His two walks gave him 40 of them on the season. That now has him tied with his 2025 season for the most he’s ever had. And again, he’s played in 51 fewer games this season than he did last year.
From an overall statistical perspective, the walk rate for the 22-year-old has gone from 7.0% in 2025 to 10.7% in 2026. Rodriguez played in 53 games last season in the second half with Louisville. His walk rate with the Bats was just 5.2% compared to the 8.1% he showed in Chattanooga in 2025.
The 10.7% walk rate this season is easily the highest he’s ever had in his career for any level he’s been at in the US for more than seven games. There’s a few reasons that his walk rate is up when we dig into the pitch-level stuff. We don’t have that level of information for his entire minor league career, but we do have some of it for all levels and all of it for his time in Triple-A.
Let’s start with something simple. How often he’s swinging at pitches. We will focus just on when he’s been in a full-season league and ignore his time in rookie ball. In 2022 he swung at 66% of the pitches thrown to him. In 2023 that number dropped to 63%. That number dropped again in 2024, this time down to 57%. Last season in Double-A it was 54%, but jumped to 60% in Triple-A after his promotion – giving him a 56% rate for the entire year.
To put all of those numbers in context we can look at the MLB league averages. Over the last four years the average swing rate on all pitches seen has been between 47.2% and 47.8%. Rodriguez has been far more aggressive when it has come to swinging. It’s worked out for him as he’s certainly had few struggles over the years. With that said, even someone with his skillset is going to find more success when he shrinks down his “swing zone” to more pitches that are actually strikes.
This year he has been far less aggressive overall. He is swinging at pitches just 46.7% of the time. That’s a massive change. We only have pitch level data for balls/strikes at the Single-A and Triple-A levels in the minor leagues (teams have it at all levels, but the public only gets to see it at those two levels), so we can’t do a full historical comparison when it comes to chasing pitches that aren’t strikes.
What we can do, though, is to compare how things looked in 2025 while in Triple-A with Louisville over his 53 games and how things are going so far through 84 games with the Bats. Last year he swung at pitches outside of the strikezone a whopping 46.2% of the time. For context, the MLB average rate over the last four years has been between 31.5% and 32.7%. This year he is swinging at pitches out of the zone just 33.8%. That’s another massive improvement.
When it comes to how often he’s swinging at pitches in the zone he has also cut back on how often he’s swinging. Last season he swung at strikes 76.5% of the time. Context here again – MLB averages have fallen between 67.5% and 69.4% over the last four years. This season Rodriguez is only swinging at pitches in the zone 62.4% of the time.
The Hector Rodriguez we are seeing this year is a very different guy than the the Hector Rodriguez of the past. He’s less aggressive in some areas and far less aggressive in others. And while he’s never been a slap-and-dash kind of hitter and has shown some pop, he’s taken his power to a different level this year.
On the season Rodriguez is now hitting .290/.369/.549. He’s walked 40 times and he’s struck out 75 times in his 374 plate appearances. He is striking out more than ever before, but not by too much when it comes to the previous high point in his career (20% this year, 19% back in 2023, but as low as 13% in 2024). Still, his strikeout rate is lower than the league average even at his current rate.
I watched the first of Hector’s bombs last night before switching over to the Dragons game. Hayes took a pitch off the wall the at bat before and then Hector put a charge into a pitch left over the middle.
The thing about his improved plate approach is that it doesn’t make Hector so batting average dependent to provide value, which is something most MLB players have to be able to do. Being more selective, he is also driving the ball more consistently because all those balls out of the zone he used to make contact with would never be hit all that hard because out of the zone isn’t really a place to make quality contact the vast majority of the time. So now he is getting a better sample of hard hit balls and getting on base more.
Hector is approaching a full year in AAA now, the Reds need to sell off some pieces and figure out where to get him in the lineup and let him learn at the big league level to hit the ground running next year.
Why ??????????? Are the Reds not bringing him up to Cincinnati? The Reds are 27th in runs scored this year? It makes no sense?
Well, Rodriguez is a corner outfielder with iffy defense. So to call him up you would have to decide that you have to bench or severely cut into the playing time of JJ Bleday, Noelvi Marte, Nathaniel Lowe, Spencer Steer, or Eugenio Suarez.
That’s just not going to happen for Steer or Suarez, like it or not. Slumps or not. JJ Bleday is in a slump right now but only Elly De La Cruz has hit better than him this season among Reds. So you probably aren’t going to bench him. Marte is slumping, so maybe you send him down to Triple-A again, but he outhit Rodriguez in Triple-A…. Nathaniel Lowe has been one of the few above-average hitters on your team.
So there are a few roadblocks to calling him up.
Lowe and Suarez shouldn’t be here 3.5 weeks from now. Maybe Bleday too, and if I could get something of value, I would look to get rid of Marte.
Just wondering do they get an extra run if the HR goes 400 feet instead of just 350? Don’t get the big deal about length as long as it goes over the fence.
You might get an extra run on a ball hit 400 feet instead of just 350 feet because the walls are more than 350 feet in a lot of the ballpark areas. And 400 feet means if the wind is blowing in or if it’s raining that the ball doesn’t lose as much distance as the other one would. While it doesn’t happen often – unless it’s hit to dead center, guys aren’t reaching over the fence to pull back 400-foot home runs, but they can and do that on 350-foot fly balls.
Distance matters up to a certain point. 425+ – no, it doesn’t matter. Under that? It kind of does.
On any particular ball length does not matter, but length does show repeatability.
Bragging rights. ?
We need to commit to a full sell-off and let this next wave of talent start breaking in. The last wave just hasn’t gotten it done. They may figure it out elsewhere but we can’t wait forever. As hard as it is to do, they should look to trade anyone of value, including Elly and Greene. They need to demand an absolute hail for those two but could likely get it. I don’t relish the idea of another rebuild but it seems clear that this team isn’t going anywhere. Too much inconsistency and underperforming.
Put me on team trading Hunter Greene, Elly De La Cruz, Chase Burns, or Sal Stewart as an insane proposition. You are not going to get anyone back that can or will provide the value of the first three, and Stewart is around for the next five years. All of them are under control through the 2029 season. All of them are All-Stars and three of the four are MVP/Cy Young contenders.
If the premise is that you can’t build a team around THAT over the next three seasons then just fold the franchise and move on.
Anyone who says we should trade Elly and Hunter are not to be taken seriously.
I should have specified that Stewart and Burns are off limits. And again, the return needs to be HUGE for Greene and EDLC. At some point though, you need to acknowledge reality. This team is highly unlikely to compete this year or next. So we are really talking about a one-season competitive window at most.
My ask for Elly from someone like the Dodgers would be Josue De Paula, Mike Sirota, Christian Zazueta, Zach Root, Chase Harlan, and Cam Leiter.
LF and CF in AA about ready for AAA
AA RHP and a High A LHP who is ready for AA
A promising 19 year old 3B already in High A
Promising 2025 2nd rd LHP
Well…..maybe that’s the answer, Doug. With a no spend ownership, maybe cinci doesn’t deserve a team. Not making waves, but you’d think at some point, the league would decide if a team doesn’t make a certain amount of expenditures and attempts at being somewhat competitive, then that city is gone and forfeits it’s right to a team. Possibly, in the end, Cinci could find an ownership group the is willing to spe d to win.
Agree
Hey, Doug, I’ve been a little concerned with Hector’s home/road splits, in part because the ball has seemed to be flying in Louisville (even with the AAA ball) a bit more than I recall. Thoughts?
I honestly haven’t thought about it or even looked at it. But generally speaking, I don’t put much into home/road splits unless it’s something like Coors or some of the PCL parks. Louisville has generally been slightly more hitter friendly than the International League as a whole, but nothing crazy. I don’t know if that’s changed this year or not, but there’s no reason it should have.
That is a pretty hefty split:
Home: .318/.390/.671
Away: .258/.346/.413
As are his L/R splits:
RHP: .314/.400/.619
LHP: .238/.298/.400
The good news is that as a Red he would play half his games in GABP where the RF designed for Ken Griffey Jr would work for him as well, and the majority of MLB starting pitchers are right handed. His LHP splits aren’t completely untenable either and you can hope that improves with more experience.
I looked at them a few weeks ago on a hunch and then forgot about them, to be honest. But it was part of the reason I’ve been slower to the opinion of promoting him. Now that he’s got 137 games and over 600 plate appearances, it’s a lot harder to stake that position.
I still think Hector’s edged more into ‘fulltime regular’ rather than 4th OF. I just find myself resisting the drumbeats and unrealistic expectations more and more this season, with all of our upper level players. I mean, after Elly, Burns and Sal, with Greene, our next really prospective elite players are catching in AA and playing SS in AZ. The rest are complementary players or role players. Valuable, not a bad thing for them, but not All Stars.
@Dave CT , Elly wasn’t on anyone’s radar either , UNTIL he was !! Things change
The Elly De La Cruz situation was different from just about any other, though.
He went from 17-years-old to 19-years-old without anyone really seeing him because of how things played out in 2020. And even if we ignore that, he’s the kind of guy who has elite level tools nearly across the board. Almost no one in baseball can match that. Using him as an example is similar to saying just pitch like Greg Maddux. It’s a nearly impossible ask. It’s why he was Greg Maddux and no one else was.
J, no doubt. And there are kids in the Dominican that are very talented. But they are farther away than Duno and even Hall. And, in the top 25-30? Doubtful any surprise Elly’s there. I remain a fan, nonetheless, and truly enjoy following the lesser heralded players.
Impressive improvement this season. He just turned 22 before the season started, shouldn’t be in a rush to promote him due to roadblocks as Doug mentioned in his prior comment.
However, after selling some rentals, or possibly injuries, it’s likely he might get a cup of coffee late in the season. Marte, Dunn, and Bleday are likely locks for next season and should continue to play. HROD could be a fourth rotational piece that he’ll need to battle for.
I don’t see the Reds selling any talent unless they are a rental (Lowe, Suarez, Myers), no/low years remaining on contract (Singer, Steer, Burke, Ferguson), or get a really solid return. The salary cap would change the market significantly next season so young players/prospects should be off limits
Make that 23 home runs… wow what a couple nights for HROD
The Reds have not finished higher than 3rd in the division since 2012. Obviously, the way the FO is doing things is not working. Without the shortened COVID year in 2020, we probably don’t make the playoffs in a full year. Without wild card expansion, we don’t make it last year. 3rd place 5x, 4th place 4x, 5th place 4x since 2012 and currently 5th this season. Something has got to change. Sell, sell, sell! Got nothing to lose when you’re consistently 3rd, 4th or 5th in the division. Hovering around .500 every year will just end up getting a mid round draft pick. The Reds got extremely lucky with a $65k investment from a then skinny kid from the D.R. The other 2 impact players on the team this year are 1-2 Burns and 1-32 Stewart. Our misses with the 1st round picks since 2020 have hurt us, leaving the Reds and Bats short on high end talent. We have been more successful going the college pitcher route recently, so that’s where I’m hoping they go this weekend. Just one man’s opinion
All selling will do is lead to more non-1st or 2nd place finishes.
The Reds POBO joined the team in 2003 and worked his way up.
The Reds GM joined the team in 2009 as a scout after being the Cincinnati Bearcats associated head coach for a decade.
The Assistant GM joined the team in 2007 and worked his way up.
The other Assitant GM joined the team in 2006 and worked his way up.
I don’t think it’s difficult to understand why, perhaps, the team stinks.
It’s time to clean house and bring in outside voices. Poach the best up and coming assistant GM you can and give him the reigns.
Well that is why I think that the front office needs to be blown up, but I don’t think that the people left would make the right decisions on how to hire. Your first hire should be a GM from outside the organization and then let that person hire the rest. But I don’t think that will ever happen. Probably just guys local or already in the minors that would be promoted. As the hall of fame radio announcer said “ They ain’t the Rays”
If you could predict how they would finish, you wouldn’t be running this site and sitting on a beach in the Bahamas. There’s no way for you to know how they would finish. And yes, currently the team stinks. But, it’s because of those in the positions that put the players where they are, that are at fault. The players are not twisting the arms of Krall and Meador to sign players like Cadelario, Myers, Moose, etc. The players don’t decide who their teammates should be on the 40 and 26 man roster. The Reds have stunk it up for a long time.
Yes. And this is the reality we have to reckon with as fans. Either become a fan of another, well run, team, or recognize that the Reds are a poorly run, cheap organization that needs to sell. Hopefully this gives us another competitive window in a couple years that goes better than the last one, which is pretty much closed. I too would love to extend EDLC but that ship has sailed. Given the realities of how this organization is run, we are much more likely to win in the next 5 years if we get a haul like the one described by The Duke than if we stay the course and end up losing our current assets for pennies on the dollar.
Sell, rebuild from top to bottom. That’s the only solution to this lifelong 64 yr old reds fan. I’m tired of rooting for a losing team.
Reds rebuilt after 1981 season. Reds next made playoffs in 1990.
We are not in a rebuild position people.
Burns and Greene are legit #1’s
Stewart, and EDLC are a very good 2 and 3 hitters.
If I’m the Reds GM, I’m grabbing the OF bat, and Closer we didn’t sing this last off season this season.
I’d also hang onto Suarez if he’s willing, and I imagine he would be willing to stay in 2027.
Trade away Singer, Steer, and anyone who is a UFA next year, and try to win in 27/28
I would NOT trade EDLC but if you want to go to a team to make a deal it’s Seattle not the Dodgers and there system that clearly gets annually overrated. I would start with Kade Anderson and Ryan Sloan and have to get Emerson back in the deal. You start with those 3 and maybe you start to listen on an Elly deal… As I said I am against dealing Elly. This yr hasn’t worked out for Reds and the bullpen injuries hurt and the lack of development of Phillips, Mey, Maxwell, etc has really hampered them. Also, by far the worst BA with runners in scoring position has been brutal. The offense has been bad but there have been some bright spots. Stewart is developing at major league level. Arroyo has shown some signs he can be a major leaguer. Bleday has flashed power even though he is proving he should be platooned. Dunn provided a spark as lead off hitter and energy guy. Unfortunately Dunn also showed he is high injury risk…not what we wanted to see but don’t think it’s a team to strip down to the bolts…