Undoubtedly you’ve tuned in to this here website for John Means, so let me start off by saying that was absolutely tremendous and unbelievable at the same time and also the dropped third strike rule should be dropped from an airplane onto a pike (pointy thing or fish, either is fine), then gathered up and fired into the sun. Congratulations to Means and can someone call Theo Epstein and ask him to please have MLB stop sabotaging perfect games? 

Now on to the topic of this article, Cedric Mullins. There have been a few surprises this season, but any list of such has to include Mullins near the top. The Orioles outfielder has so far bested his career OPS by over 200 points. He has more homers in April and five days of May than he did in all of 2019 and 2020 combined. He is currently the seventh most valuable player in baseball by FanGraphs WAR, right behind J.D. Martinez and right ahead of Trea Turner. 

(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)

So how did Mullins go from marginal fourth outfielder and general organizational afterthought to top 10 talent in baseball and the newest member of everyone’s fantasy baseball team? Well, he stopped hitting right handed. 

Of course that isn’t entirely the answer, but let’s start there. Mullins was a switch hitter up through last season, something which gave him the platoon advantage in every at-bat, but similarly required him to maintain two different swings. So the question was and is for every switch hitter, is that worth doing? In this particular case Mullins determined after many years, that no, it wasn’t. And the performance so far certainly backs that up. Let’s look at some splits. 

-Career numbers against LHP as RHH: .147/.250/.189 (111 career PAs)

-Career numbers against RHP as LHH: .257/.313/.415

-Career numbers against LHP as LHH: .395/.447/.605 (in 47 PAs)

You can see some stuff in those numbers, such as Mullins was lousy against left-handed pitchers despite having the platoon advantage. Lest you think this was just a small sample talking, Mullins hit .216/.288/.334 as a right-handed hitter in his minor league career. As it turns out, he simply wasn’t a very good right handed hitter. 

Against righties as a lefty he wasn’t setting the world on fire, but a .700 OPS with his speed and defensive ability is nothing to sneeze at. Certainly it warrants a major league job, even if as a defensive replacement/fourth outfielder. Mullins minor league numbers back this up as well. 

The most amazing part of all of this is what Mullins has done against lefty pitchers from the left-handed batters box. It’s a limited sample size and you wouldn’t expect anything of this magnitude to continue, but it’s impressive nevertheless. Mullins has improved slightly against right-handed pitching as well, so this isn’t entirely about ceasing to switch hit. 

The improvement is even more shocking when you get into the weeds on Mullins’ pre-2021 performance. Mullins was one of the worst hitters in baseball in 2020. He was saved somewhat by his speed, but as far as his quality of contact, it was pretty bad. He rarely hit the ball in the air, he rarely squared the ball up, and he almost never hit the ball very hard. That this all worked  was a credit to his speed and defense. 

Flash forward to this season and Mullins’ offensive profile has changed significantly. He’s still not crushing the ball, but he is making much better contact. Many of his rankings on Baseball Savant, the place MLB ranks hitters by, in essence, quality of contact, are middle of the road rather than dead last. 

So how is he doing that? A few things. First, he’s simply a better hitter from the left side regardless of the platoon situation, and that has carried over to his numbers. Previously his overall numbers were dragged way down by his performance from the right side, obscuring that he was actually a decent hitter from the left. Of course, some hitters can’t replicate their performance against pitchers from both sides, which is the primary reason hitters switch hit. Mullins is the rare bird where that isn’t the case. 

But it’s not all that. Mullins has also grown as a hitter. Not surprisingly pitchers are challenging him more this year, as you would think they might given how bad a hitter he’s been in his career before 2021. But Mullins isn’t swinging more, as you might expect. Instead, he’s swinging less. He’s being even more selective, and as a result of that selectivity, he’s swinging and missing less than he ever has before as well. Combine that with his newfound refusal to chase pitches outside the strike zone and you have a pretty impressive offensive profile.

All of this has lead to better overall contact. His “hard hit percentage” went from 18 percent in 2020 to 56 percent this season so far. Based on quality of contact, Mullins’ expected batting average has gone from the 13th percentile in 2020 to the 82nd percentile this season. 

So the big question, will this continue? Have the Orioles found themselves a new All Star caliber starting outfielder? It’s tempting to say they have. Most of the telltale signs of a fluke aren’t there. Yes, Mullins has a high BABIP, but it’s not ridiculous, and more to the point, that’s not surprising for a hitter with his speed and current batted ball profile. If you look at some of the best hitters in baseball they have very high BABIPs as well because they’re making consistently good contact, like Mullins is. 

Mullins is also controlling the strike zone better than he has in the past. His walk rate speaks to his newfound selectivity at the plate, and indicates that he’s not willing to get himself out, a fact his decreased strikeout rate backs up. 

Hitters go into slumps all the time and depending on how deep the slump is and how damaging it is to the hitters numbers and confidence, things can snowball. That could be the case with Mullins, but that’s about the only thing I could see that might happen, and that could really happen to anyone. He’s not likely to just stop being a good hitter, which he’s been this season. He’s certainly not going to stop being fast, something that argues against the ‘he might go into a bad slump’ theory. It’s possible pitchers will find a hole in his swing, or gradually he’ll fall into old bad habits and start to chase pitches outside the zone. But there’s no real reason to think those will happen, certainly nothing in the numbers or his performance in the first month plus of the season argues for it.

Right now Cedric Mullins is one of the best outfielders in baseball. That’s a fact, and it’s something you might want to get used to reading. 

Matthew Kory
Matthew Kory

Orioles Analyst

Matthew Kory is a Orioles / MLB Analyst for BSL. He has covered baseball professionally for The Athletic, Vice Sports, Sports On Earth, FanGraphs, and Baseball Prospectus. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, two boys, and his cats, Mini Squeaks and The President. Co-Host of The Warehouse.

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