It Might Be Time To Start Dreaming On Coby Mayo's Potential Again

Coby Mayo is giving reason to believe that maybe, just maybe, his power is going to spread across the American League.

(Couldn’t help myself folks. I’m a 52-year old dad of three kids and two dogs. We lean into the dad joke bit. I promise this article is filled with interesting advanced data and research that will make it worth you time to continue past this point.)

The onetime uber-prospect was paid a lot of money to eschew a free ride to the University of Miami down the street in 2020 and start his pro career with the Orioles because of one elite carrying trait – extreme, easy power on a striking frame with long levers. You could live with the swing-and-miss and issues in the field if the power was special.

And after coming off a road trip in which Mayo, 24, looked like a trip back to AAA could be in order two weeks ago, he now looks more comfortable and, perhaps most importantly, more prepared to do damage to a baseball than ever before. There are still holes in his game, and the kid still doesn’t have 500 MLB at bats, but he also seems to be understanding his profile and prowess more than ever before.

With third-baseman Jordan Westburg - the only right-handed power-hitting prospect the Orioles have developed in eight years under Mike Elias and the only plus defender they’ve developed – out for the season without even swinging a bat in spring training, Mayo’s growth is crucial, and the last two weeks provide hope he and the Orioles hitting staff are starting to figure it out.

Pulling His Weight

Mayo is never going to be a high average guy. Sure, he could go the other way a little more than he is, and better situational-hitting approaches have been a huge issue for this entire regime – HYPER 4 PAN – but this kid was born to smash left field walls (honestly Fenway Park is ideal for him as we saw in Boston) and if he has a solid career, that’s going to be why.

Over the last two weeks, beginning with that 10-game homestand and extending to the Toronto series now, he is getting regular plate appearances and has a .281/.324/.625 line, putting him third on the team with a .949 OPS in that span. Mayo leads the team with a 48% hard hit rate in that stretch.

Why?

Because, yeah, they have tweaked his trigger mechanism some, but he also is turning on balls and pulling the ball 62% of the time. Those numbers obviously lead the Orioles in that span, and the pull-side rate is certainly extreme, but that’s also the side of the field he has to mash.

Do you love the fact that he’s striking out 32% of the time during this tear, and walking just 2.9%? No, but he’s still very young and experience will help with that. When you do this kind of damage to the baseball when you do make contact, the equation still works and in this lineup, in the great form most hitters are in, Mayo can hang out in the bottom third and the pressure isn’t as high.

Southpaw Smasher

If nothing else, and Mayo isn’t an everyday guy for a contending team for years to come he is going to be a part of the answer to fixing years of issues against left handed pitching. Elias has been trying to add right-handed bats to curb this problem going back multiple trade deadlines, and Mayo truly lets it all hang out against these guys.

Mayo has five homers against lefties, tied for 10th in MLB (just behind Gunnar Henderson, who has his lefty/lefty power groove going) and he is in the top 15 of all MLB hitters with a 1.032 OPS vs southpaws. The Orioles are just outside the top 10 in OPS vs left-handed starters on the season and have looked much better recently against elite lefties like Shane McClanahan and Connelly Early, and solid ones like Steven Matz. Mayo has certainly been a part of that.

His pinch-hit homer – off a lefty- keyed a huge win over the Yankees a few weeks back (in which they bested lefty starter Ryan Weather who had dominated them in the Bronx) – helped the Orioles finally compete against AL East foes, and he’s carving out a niche for himself if nothing else.

Glove Good Enough?

Mayo had a rut early in the season where the same issues with footwork and lateral quickness and throwing accuracy that made so many scouts believe he was headed for first base throughout his time in the minors cropped up. Having to switch quickly back to third, when he was pretty told his future was on the right side of the diamond, after Pete Alonso was signed had plenty to do with that.

But his hard work is paying off through the winter and during fielding practice and his instincts are better than ever. When Westburg went down it wasn’t a stretch to think Blaze Alexander was going to have to play third everyday – or close to it – even if he didn’t hit a lick.

Mayo has quelled that, at least for a while, and Alexander’s bat woke up big-time in May, and Mayo’s defense has been superior to what Jeremiah Jackson could offer there. If you can live with the defense (and to be clear lately the performance has been better than that) and he’s slugging to his potential, that’s an MLB player.

Given what we’ve seen in stretches this season – and with what should be a long runway in front of him – it’s fun to dream on Mayo delivering possibly much more than that again.

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