In January of this year, the Orioles acquired Ryan O’Hearn from the Kansas City Royals in exchange for cash considerations, and the general consensus from most Orioles fans was something between “wait, why?” and an understanding that the Orioles wanted some left-handed hitting infield depth (the same thought process behind the signing of Francy Cordero in the off-season).
But what I don’t think anyone expected is how good O’Hearn has been so far this year. It’s a small sample size to be sure, but in 24 games, O’Hearn is slashing .328/.380/.609 with four home runs, 17 RBI, and 10 runs. Pace that out to a full season and you’re looking at a guy with more than 20 home runs and over 90 RBI and runs.
Now, on-pace stats aren’t particularly meaningful, but the point of this is to say, O’Hearn’s been pretty good. Like, better than he’s ever been. So how much of this is for real?
What O’Hearn is doing differently
O’Hearn has been in the league for a while now. Drafted in the eighth round of the 2014 MLB Draft by the Royals, he’s shown some flashes here and there of being a guy with decent pop and a poor batting average at first base.
In 2019, he saw his most consistent role, playing in 105 games for the Royals and slashing .195/.281/.369 with 14 home runs, 38 RBI, and 32 runs. And honestly, that’s probably his best season to date. He’s had seasons with better batting averages (his career-best to this point was .262 in 44 games his rookie year in 2018), but he’s never turned in an especially good season, which is likely why the Orioles got O’Hearn for basically nothing.
Cut to this year, where O’Hearn is mashing the ball. So what’s going on?
One of the first things I like to do when evaluating a hitter’s success is to look at their batted ball stats, and O’Hearn’s look pretty good. His groundball rate is right around the league average at 43.8% (which is good, we wouldn’t want him hitting a ton of groundballs) and he’s sporting a career-best 12.5% barrel rate alongside a career-best 10.4% solid contact rate (think batted balls that fall just short of being classified as a barrel) and a career-best 33.8% hard contact rate (total number of balls hit harder than 95 MPH divided by total plate appearances).
O’Hearn is also hitting a ton of fly balls, with a 41.7% fly ball rate, well above his career average of 32% and the league average of 33.3%. Luckily for him, since he’s been hitting the ball so well, those fly balls aren’t dying in the outfield, as he’s posted a 20% HR/FB rate.
So O’Hearn’s quality of contact stats all look pretty good. Sure, I’d say it’s likely the HR/FB rate regresses some, but given the way he’s hitting the ball, it’s no surprise that his expected stats look as good as they do, with a .270 xAVG and .562 xSLG.
And on top of this, O’Hearn’s plate discipline looks better than ever. So far this year, O’Hearn is sporting a 26.1% chase rate, way better than his 33.4% chase rate from last year. Even in two-strike situations, O’Hearn is showing a lot of patience, with a 25.3% two-strike chase rate, down from 31% last year and slightly better than the league average.
So let’s review: Alongside his success so far this year, Ryan O’Hearn is posting good quality of contact metrics and has noticeably improved his plate discipline. These are two things you absolutely love to see when a guy is having success, and it gives me optimism that O’Hearn’s success might be sustainable to some extent.
Now, for the caveats—obviously this is the smallest of small sample sizes, so we can’t draw any definitive conclusions from it. It’s encouraging that O’Hearn’s batted ball stats seem to back up the success he’s had to an extent, and it’s especially encouraging that his plate discipline looks better than it has been in the past, but none of that is a guarantee of future results.
However, given the changes and success we’re seeing from O’Hearn (i.e. he isn’t just doing the same thing he’s always done and lucking his way into success), there’s reason to think O’Hearn may have figured something out and could be more than just a warm body at first base while Ryan Mountcastle is on the IL or whenever Mountcastle needs a day off in the future.
O’Hearn’s likely to only play against righties, since he has a career .171/.244/.263 line against lefties, but for a guy the Orioles got for basically nothing, it looks like there might just be something here.
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.