The Triple-A season continues on until nearly the end of the MLB season. It lasts longer than the other minor league seasons do and as such their postseason awards are announced later than the rest of the levels. The International League and Minor League Baseball have announced their 2026 All-Star team this week and outfielder Hector Rodriguez got the nod as one of the outfielders. He was the only Cincinnati Reds player or Louisville Bats player to make the team.
Since Major League Baseball took over Minor League Baseball after 2020 they have eliminated the in-season All-Star games at the minor league levels with the exception being in the Dominican Summer League. Now the leagues just announce an All-Star team after the year is over.
For Hector Rodriguez, the 2026 season is one that saw his dreams come true. His big season in Triple-A for the Louisville Bats led to his call up in early August where he joined the Cincinnati Reds and spent the final two months of the season with them.
During his time in Louisville he was the best hitter for the Bats. He would play in 104 games for Louisville in 2026 and racked up 455 plate appearances. During his time he had 11 hits, with 16 doubles, four triples, and 27 home runs. He also scored 72 runs and had 69 RBI. Rodriguez would also steal six bases in eight attempts.
After being called up by Cincinnati Rodriguez had some ups-and-downs in his 41 games played. During that time he lost his “prospect” status and will not be eligible for the 2027 Rookie of the Year award. With the Reds he would hit .229/.270/.410 and hit four doubles, two triples, and six home runs. Rodriguez would score another 16 runs and drive in 17 with the big league club. Overall he hit 33 home runs on the season, which was tops in the organization for all levels combined.
You can see the career stats for Hector Rodriguez here.
That’s good. He could be a “keeper”.
To say Hector’s HR power was a pleasant surprise doesn’t quite make the grade.
In 2025, he hit 19 home runs and we were rooting for him to reach that magic number of 20 as a sign he might have enough pop to be a good 3rd or 4th OF (and those 19 were not with the juiced ball).
But he came relatively close to doubling those 19 HR’s this year, with 33 total in just 32 more plate appearances (607 to 575). And these were also without the juiced ball, might I add (and I will).
He did have fewer doubles, so maybe it is true about doubles becoming homers …
But the point is, we were hoping Hector could just get a few more HR’s to get into the 20-25 range (Spencer Steer territory) and be viewed as an average starting ML outfielder, 4th OF at worst. And that may still be where he lands. However, even though his .229/.270/.410 is not quite there yet, i’d say the conversation has changed, and it now reasonably has ML average as Hector’s floor with a pretty fair chance of more than that. We shall see.
Also, I’ve been saying for a while Hector just seems so unflappable. Nothing rattled him, bad calls at the plate, etc. His personality seemed as unique as his ability to make contact anytime anywhere. But one thing I’ve noticed seeing him more and with better coverage is he’s got some burning going on, that desire to be good if not great. There is a lot to like about him.
Good post but I think his floor is as a 4th/5th OF and we hope he can be an average ML OF.
We desperately need Hector to be a .260/.320/.480 kind of OF sooner rather than later. That would at least solidify one corner OF spot with above average offense.
Stock, my thinking is the dramatic increase in power raises the floor; his prior history of 15-20 HR power makes him a 4th OF, while 25-30 HR power gets him into the ML average range (and I’ve had him as a 4th OF for years now). I’m pretty confident his elite contact ability, even with his historically high swing rates, will serve him well. We’ll see, right? A lot more will be known in 12 months.
There’s a lot to like. His transition to the bigs would grade out to a B imo. The defense was better than advertised, he got to his power in-game, and got his A swing off most at-bats. Diving into the analytics there was nothing weird with his BABIP, but he hit a lot more ground balls and the walk rate dropped a lot. He saw a lot less fastballs as pitchers took advantage of the eagerness. He swung at 44% of pitches outside the zone and swung the bat 55% of the time overall. Pretty clear he needs to settle down and let the game come to him, but at the same time you don’t want to change what makes him good–the aggression. I think he’ll figure it out. With such a thin free agent market, I’m inclined to keep him as the incumbent RF for 2027.
Reds RF’ers combined for -2.9 WAR this year. If Hector could get into the 2 win range, that would be a huge part of a Reds rebound.
Well earned. He has been one of my favorite follows through the minors and glad to see him succeeding. The “undersized means no power” trope is starting to fall away with guys like Mookie Betts, Jose Ramirez and Jose Altuve.