We’re now more than a week into the 2021 Baltimore Orioles season and outside of the heartwarming return of Trey Mancini, there’s been two players who have been earning most of the attention: Cedric Mullins and Ryan Mountcastle.
Entering Saturday’s game, Mullins has been hitting a scorching .448/.484/.655, delivering three doubles and a homer in his first seven games. He’s also continued to provide strong defense in centerfield, using his excellent range to run down balls. During the home opener, he made a diving catch in front of Baltimore’s first crowd at Camden Yards since September 2019.
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Meanwhile, Ryan Mountcastle delivered a key two-run double on Opening Day and a homer in his first game at Camden Yards with fans but otherwise hasn’t produced with a .555 OPS. While I don’t think we need to worry about his bat, his glove is what has produced cause for concern.
During Wednesday’s game against the Yankees, he was unable to field a 113 mph liner from Gary Sanchez in the bottom of the eighth, which extended the inning and eventually allowed the Yankees to score the tying run. Then against the Red Sox on Thursday, Mountcastle wasn’t unable to run down a 79 mph blooper that Baseball Savant says had an expected batting average of just .030, which makes it much more frustrating than the scorching liner from Sanchez. The issues in the field continued when he airmailed Rio Ruiz at third, allowing a runner to advance on what should have been a single.
So, what does the early success of Mullins and the early struggles of Mountcastle have in common? They show the need for patience when you’re doing a rebuild.
Unless he secretly became the best hitter in the history of MLB during the offseason, Mullins is probably not going to end the year batting .400. However, starting the year with a scorching start stands in stark contrast to what he did in 2019 when he began the season as the seeming heir apparent to Adam Jones. He struggled, providing a hideous .094/.181/.156 slash line in 22 games before being sent down to Norfolk and further demoted to Bowie in July. When you remember the assorted group of players the Orioles stuck in center that year the fact that Mullins didn’t get another crack in center during 2019 sure made it seem like he was a lost cause.
As we know now, 2019’s disaster wasn’t the end of the Mullins story, as he managed to hit much better in 2020 with a .271/.315/.407 slash line that included remarkable proficiency in being able to bunt for a base hit.
A team more focused on contending would’ve been much less likely to give Mullins another chance after Austin Hays suffered a rib injury. Instead, they would’ve looked for a veteran stopgap through free agency or trade instead of letting someone with a career .579 in over 250 PA see major league pitching again. However, the 2020 Orioles weren’t focused on contending and instead were able to provide a second chance to someone who took advantage.
While Mullins is enjoying his second chance, Mountcastle is still working his way through his first chance at being a major league outfielder. Entering Saturday’s game, he’s played 226.1 innings at left field over the course of 29 games, which is hardly a large enough sample to declare he’s beyond redemption as an outfielder. Using defensive metrics, his time in left field last year was pretty competent, although certainly not amazing. Mountcastle had a defensive runs saved of zero, making him about as average as possible in left. Also, UZR/150 ranked Mountcastle 11th out of 25 people with at least 190 innings played in left field.
Mountcastle’s issues this year in the field have also been magnified by the leverage and the opponent. If Mountcastle struggled with a liner hit towards him against the Mariners with the Orioles trailing 8-3, the fanbase would be much less upset over that kind of play. Similarly, letting a bloop fall in against the Twins during the first inning would hardly generate the same kind of frustration as doing so against the Red Sox during the first game with fans in over a year. A mistake is a mistake, but I think we all need to admit the opponent he has made those mistakes definitely has generated more frustration.
I don’t think Mountcastle should play every game for the rest of the season in left and Saturday’s lineup has DJ Stewart at the position, but it feels far too early to give up on sending him to first for the rest of his career. Versatility always makes a player more valuable and Mountcastle’s bat has more potential for the Orioles if they’re able to put him in left on top of the traditional slugger’s position of first base. It’s far better to give Mountcastle more chances in LF, a position he wasn’t drafted to play, this season when making the playoffs is not the focus.
We can afford to be patient with Mountcastle because this season is part of the rebuild and letting him learn the position will be more important for the future than any individual win the Orioles get this year. There’s certaintly the chance he doesn’t improve and continues to struggle with a position he only recently started playing, but if that happens we can still know it occurred in a season where it wasn’t impacting a possible playoff team.
Mullins has taken advantage of a second chance afforded to him by a team that’s rebuilding. Let’s learn from that and not end Mountcastle’s first chance at playing the outfield after just 29 games at the position.
BSL Analyst
Rose Katz is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland’s journalism school, where she worked for The Diamondback as the online managing editor and a sports blogger. As a student, she spent almost all of her time on campus in The Diamondback’s newsroom or at Xfinity Center, Ludwig Field and Maryland Stadium. Rose gained intern experience with the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN).