Ryan Mountcastle is collapsing at the worst possible time

As Ryan Mountcastle goes, so go the Orioles. Or at least that’s what it has seemed like in the past few weeks. Baltimore entered the month of August tied with the Yankees for the division lead, and Mountcastle had just finished a solid, if slightly less powerful than usual, July. Since then, both the slugging first baseman and his team have been trying to reassert their dominance.

Over the first half of the season, Mountcastle established himself as a key piece of the Orioles’ lineup. He’s never been a world-beater, and his power pales in comparison to some of Baltimore’s bigger names. Still, the team could rely on Mountcastle to produce an OPS around .750 and 70-80 RBI in a given season. His steady glove provided added value where his bat lagged.

Since the All-Star break, though, Mountcastle has been mired in a slump and has recently fallen victim to an injury that could mar the remainder of his season. In the second half, he has posted a mere .643 OPS with a single home run. Mountcastle is producing little value and ranks as the worst first baseman in the American League since the All-Star break in wRC+, on-base percentage, and strikeout rate. Herein lies his problem.

Ryan Mountcastle’s lack of production has come at the worst time for the Orioles.

Mountcastle can’t stop chasing pitches. He has had a chase rate in the bottom 10th of the majors in every season of his career, but his plate discipline has degraded in recent weeks. Since the All-Star break, Mountcastle has swung at pitches outside of the strike zone 45.2 percent of the time. That’s the fifth-worst rate in the majors. 

The problem isn’t that he’s swinging and missing on pitches outside the zone. The problem is he’s not missing. Mountcastle has made contact on 60.7 percent of O-zone pitches since the break, and he’s being rewarded for this bad decision-making to a small extent. His poor contact on pitches outside the zone has yielded a .245 wOBA and a .238 batting average. In other words, he’s trading solid contact for lucky singles.

Mountcastle’s poor plate discipline could account for why his batting average has only dropped 21 points while his slugging percentage is down over 100 points. In that time, the Orioles have played .500 ball and have fallen 1.5 games behind the Yankees, as of August 26.

With several big-name prospects lining up behind Mountcastle at first base, his time with the O’s might be in jeopardy. His name floated around at the trade deadline, and with two more years of arbitration before free agency, Baltimore may seek to rid itself of his services if he can’t right himself before the season ends.