The soon-to-be 26-year-old suffered through what could be described as a sophomore slump last season after his OPS dropped .067(.796 to .729), much of that due to changes in the ball and the Great Wall of Baltimore. To further quantify Mountcastle’s drop-off his OPS+ dropped from 114 to 105 and hit 11 fewer home runs in more at-bats(21) going from 33 to 22. Ryan should be penciled in as the everyday first baseman where he has shown promise defensively this past season finally finding a home on defense. He will also be entering his third full season at the bigs and with him about to turn 26 he is off prime age as I always look for hitters in their third season as potential breakout candidates. One thing to note about Mountcastle is that he is still under control for four more seasons including 2023 and will be arbitration-eligible after this season.
As mentioned, Mountcastle had what I would describe as a disappointing campaign last season as his weighted On Base Average and weighted Runs Created plus decreased from .335 to .316 and 111 to 106 respectively. There is a lot of improvement demonstrated by Mountcastle, especially with his defense which boosted his WAR increasing it from .9 to 1.3 according to Baseball Reference or more notably .6 to 1.6 according to Fangraphs. Diving into Mountcastle’s stat cast numbers there are several things to like as his average exit velocity(88th Percentile), max exit velocity(81st percentile), and hard hit percentage(82nd percentile) are all well above average. Furthermore, his barrel percentage(94th percentile), expected weighted On Base Average (93rd percentile), expected Batting Average ( 91st percentile) and expected Slugging Percentage(96th percentile) are all excellent and would lead one to expect him to be one of the top hitters in all of MLB. The areas where he struggled are well known to anyone that watches him play as his strikeout Percentage(24th percentile), walk rate(37th percentile), Whiff Percentage(18th percentile), and chase rate(8th percentile) are all well below average which will limit how high his ceiling is going forward. The former first-round picks defense at first has markable approved to the point where he ranked in the 80th percentile in outs above average for the 2022 campaign and he runs well for a first baseman measuring about average at the 53rd percentile in sprint speed.
As we look forward to this upcoming season I have a lot of hope for a potential breakout going forward mostly because of his stat cast numbers being elite. Fangraphs has him projected for roughly 30 home runs with a slash line of .269/.322/.482 which if he stays healthy are reasonably within reach. I expect him to put up at least 30 home runs and be a solid start this season with a 3 WAR which is similar to the 2.8WAR ZiPS has him projected for. There is a chance he breaks out this year and if the wall wasn’t moved back I think he would have 50-home run potential it will be interesting to see how the wall affects him going forward. In summary, I expect a big year from Mounty and am excited about what this season could bring for the Oriole’s everyday first baseman.