Coby Mayo Has Shown Signs of Life for Orioles Despite Rough Plate Discipline Profile

Back in 2020, the Baltimore Orioles selected Stoneman Douglas slugger Coby Mayo with their fourth-round pick in the Draft. He was a raw high school kid but eventually became one of the best prospects in MLB, peaking at 14th in 2025.

Now 24, Mayo has mostly failed to live up to the hype as a young MLB player, at least in comparison to the huge expectations associated with him. In 646 plate appearances as a major leaguer, the righty slugger is slashing .207/.282/.390 with an 89 wRC+. He is far from unplayable, but his below-average bat and defense seriously limit his upside.

Mayo, however, seems to be trending in the right direction. He is, at the very least, making some strides. The Orioles might have traded away their chances to contend for a postseason spot, but that means they have no excuses to play Mayo almost every day from this point forward. The player, however, needs to enjoy a sustained period of success, especially at the plate. That’s exactly what he’s been doing for a few weeks now.

His recent splits, before Wednesday's action, are excellent:

Last seven games: .381/.409/.667

Last 15 games: .310/.356/.619

Last 30 games: .278/.337/.595

Mayo, who owns a 98 wRC+ for the season as a whole – meaning he has been a league-average hitter – has a 118 mark since the start of June, with a .511 slugging percentage. The real problem is his plate discipline: over that span, he has a mediocre 6 percent walk rate and a horrible 36.2 percent strikeout rate.

If we zoom in and examine his stats since the start of July, he is slashing a much more impressive .286/.333/.614 with five homers and a much better 162 wRC+ in 75 plate appearances, trimming his strikeout rate to 30.7 percent over that span: still bad, but more palatable. The 5.3 percent walk rate is not ideal, though.

Plate Discipline Is The Key

A look at Mayo's Baseball Savant page tells us that he has potentially impactful power. He ranks in the 85th percentile with his 48.1 percent hard-hit rate this year (it was 36 percent in 2025, so there has definitely been growth in that area), in the 74th percentile with his 11.6 percent barrel rate, and his 92.3 mph average exit velocity is good enough to rank him in the 91st percentile among all MLB hitters. The problem is his subpar plate discipline.

Mayo has an extreme fly ball profile with lots of pull power, and that approach leads to plenty of home runs but a low batting average, hence his .214/.278/.436 line for the season and 15 dingers in just 306 plate appearances. If he could achieve even marginal improvements in his plate discipline over a long stretch, he could set himself up for a big 2027 in which he resembles the hitter that Orioles fans believed he would be.

He faces an uphill battle, though, mainly because his plate discipline profile looks like this:

Chase%: 32.6 (30th percentile)

Whiff%: 31.4 (13th percentile)

K%: 32.7 (3rd percentile)

BB%: 7.2 (25th percentile)

Mayo is in the bottom 3 percent of the league in strikeout rate, and that won’t improve unless he stops chasing balls out of the zone and starts making more contact.

He has managed to bring that strikeout rate down to a much more decent 25 percent in August, but the sample, 28 trips to the plate to be exact, is tiny.

To sum up: good things happen when Mayo hits the ball. He often pulls his fly balls, and that leads to healthy home run totals. To truly take off, however, the plate discipline needs to take a giant leap. That won’t happen unless he gets all the playing time he can handle against MLB pitching, night in and night out.

Give the kid some credit, though. He has been playing very well in recent weeks, and if the O’s give him plate appearances and the tools to improve – the jury is still out on how much of a difference they, as a team, can make – he could start scratching that lofty ceiling of his.

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