Seattle Mariners shortstop Colt Emerson has had some impressive moments during his first two months in the major leaguers.
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But like most rookies, the 20 year old has run into some troubles along the way.
Lately, Emerson has been mired in slump.
Over his past 19 games entering Wednesday, he was hitting .169 with a .466 OPS and one extra-base hit. His massive 41.5% strikeout rate over that stretch is the second highest in baseball among player with at least 60 plate appearances, trailing only Athletics first baseman Nick Kurtz.
Emerson was touted for his bat-to-ball skills as he came up through the Mariners’ organization, but he’s had quite a bit of swing and miss thus far with an overall 34.2% strikeout rate in his first 42 MLB games.
So, how concerning are the big strikeout numbers and recent struggles for Emerson. Longtime MLB reporters Jeff Passan and Keith Law each weighed during appearances on Seattle Sports this week.
Jeff Passan’s take
“The thing is coming up through the organization he wasn’t the swing-and-miss guy, he wasn’t the strikeout guy,” Passan told Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk on Tuesday. “I am not yet concerned. I am a little bit alarmed though, and the alarm is more from I just didn’t expect it.”
Passan pointed to Tampa Bay Rays All-Star third baseman Junior Caminero as an example of how good young hitters can overcome early challenges with swing and miss. In his second full year in the majors this year, Caminero has seen modest dips in his strikeout and whiff rates (each down roughly 2%) while seeing his walk rate double from 6.3% to 12.6%.
“Great hitters are capable of adjusting when it comes to strikeouts and of making leaps forward,” said Passan, who noted Caminero is a different style hitter with a more power-first profile. “And while I’m not sure we’re going to see that this year from Colt Emerson, he’s been a league-average hitter at this point, and doing that plus the defense that he’s got, I feel like at the end of the year we’re gonna look back and say there’s some things to improve upon certainly, but Colt Emerson is a central part of this franchise going forward.”
Keith Law’s take
Law also didn’t seem to be too concerned with the areas Emerson has struggled in, pointing to his strong first month as a good sign for the future. Over his first 24 games, the left-handed-hitting shortstop batted .241 with an .867 OPS, six homers and 12 total extra-base hits.
“When a player comes up like Emerson does and particularly he hits well out of the gate, I do think it’s a big mark in his favor,” Law said. “Because so many elite prospects, really highly talented hitting prospects who’ve performed all the way up through the minors, have come up and struggled in their first go-round in the majors, and it doesn’t necessarily hold them back in the long term. But the fact that Emerson, so young (and) relatively inexperienced by playing time in the minors, hit so well right out of the chute, I do think is a marker of why he was one of the top prospects in baseball coming into the year.”
Hear the full conversation with Jeff Passan here and Keith Law here. Brock and Salk airs weekdays from 6-10 a.m. and Bump and Stacy weekdays from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on Seattle Sports 710 AM and the Seattle Sports app.
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