The Biggest Cedric Mullins Yet

The worst part of a long rebuild is about a third of the way through, when the teardown is nearly finished and the daunting enormousness of the task starts to sink in. At that point, the old guard is gone but the core of the next good team is still in the minors at best — sometimes, the next superstar is still in ninth grade.

But someone has to go out there and log some minutes for the tanking ballclub. And in every rebuild — sometimes because of keen scouting or inspired development, but often as not just through sheer volume — one or two of those random unfortunates breaks out and survives into the next competitive window.

I’ve long been fascinated by players in this situation, because they fall into one of two categories. First, there’s the Rhys Hoskins class. Hoskins was an uninspiring college first base prospect who exploded into the one bright spot on some late-2010s Phillies teams that I cannot describe accurately on a family website.

There are few “the cavalry is here” moments that stuck with me as much as watching Hoskins hit cleanup between Nick Williams and Aaron Altherr on Opening Day 2018, then seeing him hit cleanup between J.T. Realmuto and Bryce Harper one year later.

Unfortunately, it took the Phillies a few more years to round into their final form, and by the time they did, they’d outgrown their old homegrown hero. Harper, once one of the reinforcements, became Hoskins’ replacement.

On the other hand, there’s Jose Altuve, and to a certain extent Anthony Rizzo. These players not only remained at the core of their lineups throughout their championship window, they actually outlasted many of the top prospects and expensive free agents who got the team over the top. Altuve remains in Houston, even though George Springer, Dallas Keuchel, Carlos Correa, Kyle Tucker, Alex Bregman, and Justin Verlander (twice) have gone.

Rizzo did eventually leave the Cubs in 2021, but by the time he did, Ben Zobrist, Jon Lester, John Lackey, and Kyle Schwarber had gone. Jake Arrieta had gone and come back. Javier Báez and Kris Bryant were out the door one day later.

The guy I’ve had my eye on for a couple years now as the next Hoskins, or the next Altuve, is Cedric Mullins. Mullins was nowhere near the Gunnar Henderson–Adley Rutschman–Jackson Holliday tier of prospect. He was an undersized 13th-round pick out of a (really good, to be fair) mid-major program. (The Campbell Fighting Camels, for those of you who love alliteration and assonance in the same phrase.)

You’ll remember that in 2021, Mullins posted a 30-30 season that was good for 6.0 WAR. He finished ninth in AL MVP voting that year for a team that went 52-110. In the three ensuing years, Mullins posted batting averages in the low-to-mid-.200s and home run totals in the mid-teens, so he’s merely been a pretty good everyday center fielder rather than a star. But the Orioles have brought up so many position player prospects in that time that they don’t need any more from Mullins, who batted sixth or lower in 109 of his 121 starts last year.

Now, Mullins is 30 years old and will be a free agent at season’s end. The Orioles under Mike Elias have either been unable or unwilling to explore the pre-arbitration extension lifestyle. Here’s a fun, if somewhat jarring, bit of trivia: Baltimore has one player in its entire organization with a guaranteed contract for 2026. The Orioles have just $17.5 million in payroll commitments for next year — the lowest in baseball — and $34 million total on the books between the end of this season and the end of human civilization. If Tyler O’Neill opts out of his contract after this year, which is his right, the Orioles’ only payroll commitment for 2026 will be a $1 million buyout of Andrew Kittredge’s club option.

Mostly, that’s just interesting trivia. The point is Anthony Santander didn’t get an extension, John Means didn’t get an extension, and neither has Mullins. Given the Orioles’ characteristic tightfistedness and Mullins’ age, I suspect he’ll be wearing different colors a year from now. (Unless he signs with the Giants, who also wear orange and black.)

If Mullins put up another .240/.310/.410 campaign with about 15 home runs, 30 steals, and average center field defense, I bet there would be plenty of interest. He’s been a great complementary player for the Orioles, and legit center fielders who can hit even a little are hard to find.

But that’s not what he’s doing. In his first 21 games of 2025, Mullins has hit .290/.443/.623, with six home runs. Hey, that’s a 44-home run pace, which would match Santander’s total from his walk year.

Obviously I don’t think Mullins is going to keep slugging .600 all year, nor do I expect him to basically triple his customary home run total. If that happens, I promise, I will write a post later in the season expressing my heartfelt remorse for doubting him.

But those six home runs were pretty legit. None of them came off the bat at 110 mph or went even 400 feet — that kind of power has never been in Mullins’ bag — but the shortest, and softest-hit, went 345 feet and cleared the 26-foot fence in right field at Camden Yards. These haven’t been cheapies.

We’re coming up on a month’s worth of information here, which is enough to know that Mullins is actually doing something different in 2025.

I’ve been a big fan of Mullins’ ever since his breakout, mostly because I like any short, fast guy with a little pop, but also because of the way he’s developed. Because of his size (or lack thereof) and speed, Mullins came out of college as a slap-and-run switch-hitter. He hit .340 in his draft year, but with just four home runs and 14 walks in 56 games.

Mullins is still only 5-foot-8, but the big developmental steps he’s made have come from adopting a bigger man’s game. In his first three years in the majors, Mullins posted a 48.7% groundball rate and a 27.5% hard-hit rate. Across those three partial seasons, Mullins hit a fairly empty .225 in 115 games.

In 2021, Mullins stopped switch-hitting, and for the first time in his career, he hit more fly balls than grounders. His hard-hit rate jumped to a career-high 39.1%, and you already know how things went that year. Even as his results have backed up from 2022 to 2024, Mullins has decreased his GB/FB ratio every season since:

This year, it’s all the way down to 0.48 through Tuesday’s games. That’s the fifth-lowest out of 172 qualified hitters. That’s elevate-and-celebrate stuff. Baseball Savant now posts in-air pull rate on its player pages, which saved me oodles of time looking it up on my own. This year, 30.2% of Mullins’ batted balls have been pulled in the air, which is almost five percentage points better than his previous career high and nearly double the league average.

Getting the ball in the air and to the pull side is how Mullins was able to clear that huge wall for a home run on a ball with an exit velo of just 93.3 mph. (“Just” is a bit harsh; he hit the ball hard, just “double in the gap hard or warning track fly out” hard.)

As you can see, getting the ball in the air and to the pull side has been an ongoing process for Mullins; this didn’t happen overnight. And as far as repeatability goes, the null hypothesis is always strong in April. Maybe he’s seeing the ball well at the moment, or playing with confidence, or enjoying the benefits of an uncharacteristically robust gut biome. (Kimchi is not only tasty, it’s good for you.)

Or, Mullins’ game has gotten one size bigger this year:

Oh yeah, bro, that’s a 19.3% walk rate. That’s also the lowest chase rate of Mullins’ career, and the lowest overall swing rate since his 45-game rookie season. So he’s not just hitting the ball in the right places, he’s making better swing decisions as well.

That change could be sticky enough to last the whole year, maybe more. In which case, Mullins would be in line for a massive contract from any one of a wide variety of teams. Rather than the rebuild outgrowing him, he could outgrow the rebuild.