The Orioles catcher’s prolonged slump to begin the season is holding back the Baltimore offense. So, can it be fixed?
This past Sunday against the Angels was another somewhat frustrating outing for Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman. He started off the day with a bit of good fortune, rocketing a ball so high into the California sun that Angel’s left fielder Taylor Ward lost track of it and it turned into an RBI triple.
The luck Adley had on that triple is the opposite of what we’ve seen from him over the first quarter of the season. His more typical batted ball luck is closer to what we saw in his third and fourth ABs against LA. With two outs in the fifth, Rutschman hit a 104 mph laser to left, only for Ward to snag it. Later in the seventh, Adley hit a 101 mph moonshot almost 400 ft to center, only for Angels’ CF Kyren Paris to reach on top of the center field fence and snag the ball. The triple had an expected batting average of .020; the two outs each had an expected average of .510.
That bad batted ball luck is one of the factors that has the O’s All-Star backstop off to the worst start to a season in his career. Through 37 games last year, Rutschman was hitting .316 with a .806 OPS, well on his way to his second All-Star appearance. In 2023, through 37 games, Adley was hitting .274 with a .823 OPS. This year, through 37 games, The O’s catcher is hitting .203 with a .636 OPS—both of which rank last among all qualified catchers.
Right now, the results are at odds with Rutschman’s process. In today’s MLB, where analytics do a lot to drive people’s perceptions of players, many judge players based on their Baseball Savant page. If they search up a player on Baseball Savant and see their percentile rankings have a lot of red (i.e., the player ranking highly in a lot of categories), that player is automatically seen as a good player. If there’s a lot of blue (low rankings), then that player must suck. Here’s what Adley Rutschman’s current Baseball Savant profile looks like:
That profile shows a lot of red for a hitter that, statistically, has been one of the worst regular starters in the AL this season. Rutschman has always been a low bat speed, low average exit velocity, low hard-hit rate type of hitter. What’s made the former No. 1 overall pick successful in the past is an excellent command of the strike zone, coupled with the ability to spray the ball to all fields.
When Rutschman started to struggle last year, the most noticeable difference in his advanced stats was his chase rate, which ballooned from a career rate of about 23% to a glaring 29%. Swinging at bat pitches (even if you’re making contact) will always lead to more outs as it’s harder to make meaningful contact on balls out of the zone. That becomes especially true for hitters like Rutschman, who can’t make up for questionable swing decisions with great bat speed and exit velocity.
This year, the quality of Adley’s swing decisions—and ability to make contact when he swings—are at all-time highs. When it comes to discipline and commanding the strike zone, the O’s catcher is as good as he’s ever been. However, good plate discipline doesn’t mean anything if you can’t convert the hittable pitches into hits.
The most notable change in Rutschman’s profile as a hitter is where he’s hitting the ball. When he had his breakout season in 2023, Adley excelled at hitting the ball the other way. He drove balls to the opposite field on 31.5% of his batted balls, a whole six percentage points higher than the major league average. As his swing broke down last year while he dealt with a lot of wear and tear, he became below average at taking the ball the other way (23.6%) and started getting under the ball way too often.
Rutschman’s ground ball/fly ball ratio has trended back toward his career average this season, but currently, he’s pulling the ball more than ever. Rutschman ranks third on the O’s with a 42.2% pull rate, behind Ryans Mountcastle and O’Hearn. That’s up from Adley’s pull rate of 41.5% last season and his career rate of 39.5%. Being pull-happy is not necessarily a bad thing, but it works better when you consistently generate above-average exit velocities (like Mountcastle and O’Hearn).
More than anyone on the Orioles, Rutschman seems to be trying to play outside himself to buoy the Orioles’ struggling offense. Ever since his arrival on May 21st, 2022, the Orioles have gone as Adley Rutschman goes. This past Saturday’s loss to the Angels saw the O’s drop 10 games below .500 for the first time since May 18th, 2022—three days before Adley’s debut. Rutschman’s hitting .207 in the second half last season coincided with an offensive decline that saw the Orioles crash out of the playoffs by scoring one run across two games. With Rutschman currently hitting .154 with RISP, the O’s are hitting an MLB-worst .189 with runners on second or third.
Like most of the Orioles’ problems this season, there’s no simple fix with Adley. For better or for worse, he’s the foundation on which this team is built. Sure, his performance certainly warrants dropping him down the order. For a lesser player, it might warrant the team making up an injury so he can go on the IL and get some low-pressure ABs on a rehab assignment.
The uncomfortable truth with Adley is that the best approach is probably to continue to allow him—and us—to suffer through these frustrating lows. Because if he never turns it around, it probably means the Orioles never turn this season around either.