I’m taking a look back at some players on the Orioles roster, taking a look at how they performed, what went right and wrong, and what we can expect from them next year. I’ve already done a look at Anthony Santander and now we’re going to take a look at Ryan Mountcastle.
Ryan Mountcastle’s first real full season last year was really exciting. Shoot, his 35 games in 2020 were really exciting too, as he hit .333/.386/.492 with five home runs in 35 games. But in 2021, we got a full 144 games from Mountcastle and we saw just how good of a hitter he can be at the major league level, as he slashed .255/.309/.487 with 33 home runs, 77 runs, and 89 RBI.
My hope for 2022 would be for Mountcastle to build on the success of 2021. We saw that Mountcastle has great power (which shouldn’t be a big surprise), was a decent fielder at first base (not in the outfield though, where he had a pretty miserable -5 DRS last year), and had a batting average that wouldn’t kill the team.
So ideally, Mountcastle rolls into 2022, keeps it up with the power, maybe even improves on his power numbers, brings up the batting average, and becomes a more solid player in the field.
But in 2022, Mountcastle finished the year slashing .250/.305/.423 with 22 home runs, 62 runs, and 85 RBI. It’s not an improvement, but it’s almost identical to what he did in 2021 save for one thing—that big drop in home runs.
That’s really the glaring issue here in Mountcastle’s season—he hit 33 home runs in 2021 and lost 11 home runs in 2022. So was 2021’s power a fluke? Is Mountcastle really more of a 20-25 home runs guy than a 30-35 home run guy?
If you take a look at his quality of contact stats, you see a very good hitter. In fact, you see a hitter that improved a bit this year. Mountcastle posted a 15% barrel rate (compared to an 11.8% barrel rate last year) and a 46.3% hard-hit rate (compared to a 39.7% hard-hit rate last year).
So Mountcastle was actually hitting the ball better in 2022 than he did in 2021. He made those improvements that we hoped he would, but it didn’t translate. Why?
Well, some of it was bad luck. A look at Mountcastle’s actual stats versus his expected stats reveals a pretty big gap:
Ryan Mountcastle actual stats—AVG: .250, wOBA: .316, SLG: .423
Ryan Mountcastle expected stats—xBA: .277, xwOBA: .362, xSLG: .509
That’s a pretty significant gap. In fact, Mountcastle had the 12th largest gap between batting average and expected average in all of baseball last year, as well as the largest gap between slugging percentage and expected slugging percentage and the largest gap between wOBA and xwOBA.
Compared to the rest of the league, Mountcastle was in the 91st percentile in xBA, 96th percentile in xSLG, and 93rd percentile in xwOBA. Not only was the gap he had between his actual and expected stats very large, the expected numbers were among the highest in all of baseball.
I anticipate that some of that will correct itself, but unfortunately, I don’t think it’s all going to correct itself, and that’s because of the Great Wall of Camden out in left field.
Yep. With the Orioles moving the left field wall back, they hurt some of Mountcastle’s power potential. Losing five home runs to the wall may not sound like a lot but think of it this way—if Mountcastle had finished the year with 27 home runs rather than 22, I think we’d be a little less concerned about a power drop.
In fact, Camden Yards isn’t doing Mountcastle any favors at all. Per Statcast, had he played every game of the season in one park, only three parks (Kauffman Stadium, Busch Stadium, and Comerica Park) would’ve been worse for his home run numbers than Camden Yards.
By comparison, had Mountcastle played every game in Minute Maid Park in Houston, he would’ve had 36 home runs on the year. And had he played every game in Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, he would’ve had 40 home runs on the season.
Unfortunately this was the reality that came with making adjustments to Camden Yards—right-handed power hitters were going to see their numbers drop both for the Orioles and visiting teams. Now, that’s great news for your Orioles pitchers that Camden Yards stopped being the most home run friendly ballpark in baseball not named Coors Field, but obviously that means players like Mountcastle (and oddly enough, Jorge Mateo, who lost four home runs to the wall) are going to see worse power numbers at home.
The left field wall doesn’t explain everything, again Mountcastle lost just four home runs to the wall compared to where it was last year, but it’s part of the answer. Otherwise, based on Mountcastle’s quality of contact stats and expected stats, I’d anticipate he’s going to see a bit of a resurgence next year.
Now, does he hit in the .270s with 30ish home runs like his expected stats from this year suggest he should have? Maybe, and that would be awesome if he did. I’d like to see his plate discipline improve a bit—his walk rate remained at a below average 7.1% this year, though his strikeout rate, chase rate, and CSW all dropped a slight bit this year compared to last year—but if Mountcastle keeps making the same quality of contact next year that he made this year, I think the law of averages will win out, and we’ll see an improvement compared to this year.
All of that said, when he’s playing at home, he’ll still have to contend with the Great Wall of Camden, and that’s certainly going to be difficult.
Ben Palmer has lived in Maryland his whole life and currently spends his days working as a health care journalist. He also previously wrote for and was a site expert for the FanSided blog The Baltimore Wire and currently works as managing editor at Pitcher List where he writes about fantasy baseball.