Mel Rojas Jr.’s 2020 Season Could Become One of the Greats

In the third inning of ESPN’s broadcast of a tilt between the KT Wiz and the Kia Tigers on Wednesday, Karl Ravech and Eduardo Perez welcomed on former 10-year major leaguer Mel Rojas. The timing worked out well — the fourth batter of the inning was his son, Mel Rojas Jr. 로하스, who stepped to the plate with runners at second and third and one out in a 1-1 game.

“He’s smart,” Mel Sr. said. “He knows he’s not getting a good pitch to hit. He’s patient.” The son proved the father right, fouling off two strikes while taking three balls. With the count full, Perez asked the elder Mel what he would throw his son in this situation, with first base open and two outs. “Split,” he responded. “… I would not throw it for a strike.”

Indeed, he got the splitter from Tigers pitcher Min-woo Lee 이민우, but the pitch hung, crossing the plate at the knees. The younger Rojas flicked his bat effortlessly through the zone, slapping a base hit to center that plated two runs. On the broadcast, his father hardly budged. Two innings later — with his father now off-screen but presumably still watching — Rojas came through with a runner in scoring position again, hitting another two-out RBI single to help push the Wiz to a 7-4 victory.

No one in the KBO is more dependable than Rojas with men on base right now, because there is simply no one hitting better in general. He’s within striking distance of the standard triple crown (third in batting average, first in RBI, first in homers), as well as the triple slash crown (fourth in OBP, first in slugging). In fact, across the board, there is no one having kind of season at the plate that Rojas is.

The next-closest wRC+ to him is 167, 22 points behind, and the next-best slugging percentage is .624. In the opening weeks of the KBO season, there were multiple hitters who got off to fast starts, such as Jose Miguel Fernandez 페르난데스 of the Doosan Bears and Roberto Ramos 라모스 of the LG Twins. When the sample size is small and some statistics are particularly gaudy — Fernandez was batting over .400 for quite a while, for instance — it’s difficult to tell not only who is going to lose their pace, but also by how much. As the games and plate appearances have mounted, though, Rojas has only put more and more space between him and the pack.

It’s tough to say Rojas has sneaked up on anyone with this year’s performance. He first joined the Wiz about mid-way through the 2017 season, and immediately looked comfortable, hitting .301/.351/.560 with 18 homers in 83 games, good for a 125 wRC+. The following year, he came up just one home run short of the league lead, bashing 43 dingers and slashing .305/.388/.590 with a 139 wRC+. His raw totals took a hit as offense league-wide was brought back to earth last season, but his .322/.381/.530 line and 24 homers actually amounted to his best league-adjusted offensive season yet, clocking in with a 148 wRC+.

It’s an impressive run for a player who never got a shot to click in the majors while he was Stateside. After being drafted by the Pirates in the third round in 2010, he was sent straight to Low-A, where he walked a decent amount but showed no power. Pittsburgh continued to move him up methodically despite below-average offensive returns until 2014, when his offensive potential finally became apparent. As a 24-year-old, he hit .303/.379/.446 in 53 games at Double-A, then slashed .277/.363/.405 in 77 games at Triple-A that same year. The following year, however, he couldn’t recreate that same success, bouncing between Double-A and Triple-A again. He was picked up by Atlanta in 2016 and had another strong showing at Triple-A (.270/.349/.491 in 64 games), but still never got the call to join the big league squad.

It wasn’t much longer before the Wiz came calling, and Rojas hasn’t looked back since. Of all players who have had at least 1,000 plate appearances in the KBO from 2017-20, Rojas’ 146 wRC+ ranks sixth, and his .581 slugging percentage ranks second. And as evidenced by his offensive progress year-to-year, he’s only getting better, which is an awfully scary thought considering his current numbers already place him among the greatest KBO hitting seasons of all-time.

Since Rojas has played less than half as many games as anyone else on this list, however, the question now becomes whether he has the tools to continue playing at this level. He has a few things working against him. He doesn’t walk nearly as often as anyone else on this list, which is going to hurt his on-base numbers if his sky-high batting average ever comes down. That appears likely, given his strikeout rate (11th-highest in the KBO) and BABIP (.421, second-highest in the league), which leave him more vulnerable to future regression than the other players on this list — not that saying “Sorry, you might not have one of the 10 best KBO seasons of the 21st century” should take much away from how great he is.

The one thing Rojas has in his corner is power, which is the biggest surprise of all, considering it’s the one thing he always seemed to lack in the U.S. In the first six seasons of his pro career, he had an 8.5% walk rate and 20.4% strikeout rate — fairly decent plate discipline numbers. He also showed he could hit for a decent average at the upper levels. Before 2016, though, he had never posted an ISO better than .144, and had hit a total of just 28 homers in his first six pro seasons.

His size, listed at 6-foot-2, 225 pounds, certainly didn’t make it out of the question that he could hit the ball hard. He’d just never actually shown it. KBO pitchers wish that were still the case. Instead, Rojas’ current pace has him on track to bump right up against the 50-homer threshold, a mark that only ByungHo Park 박병호 (who did it twice) has reached since 2003.

Rojas has a long way to go toward accomplishing one of the great offensive seasons in the KBO’s history, but even if some of those vulnerabilities eventually catch up with him a bit, he could still have an opportunity to carry his team into the postseason. The Wiz currently sit in seventh place, but are just two and a half games back of fifth place, which gets the final playoff spot. They wouldn’t be so close without their lineup, which has scored 5.87 runs per game — third-most in the KBO — to offset a pitching staff that has allowed 5.67 runs per game, which is also third-most in the KBO. The precocious 20-year-old Baek-ho Kang 강백호 (.316/.394/.605, 152 wRC+), outfielder Jung-dae Bae 배정대 (.335/.397/.524), and veteran second baseman Kyung-su Park 박경수 (.301/.389/.481, 127 wRC+) provide a good amount of thump as well, but getting a bubble team like this into the playoffs could require a legitimate superstar effort. That’s exactly what Rojas is doing.