Texas Rangers: Rougned Odor still searching for a spark in 2017

The Texas Rangers can be happy with Rougned Odor’s continued home run output – but not much else – in the first season of his new contract.

Despite a three-game losing streak, the Texas Rangers (64-66) are still just three games out of the American League’s second Wild Card spot. For a team that essentially waved the white flag by trading Yu Darvish on deadline day, that’s not a bad situation to be in. However, one player who the Rangers hoped would play a vital role this season is still trying to find his footing in 2017.

With September only days away, Rougned Odor‘s numbers are far from what he and his team imagined heading into the season. The second baseman owns an anemic .215/.255/.414 slash line through 130 games. The home run power is still there: Odor has clubbed 27 long balls, trailing only the Orioles’ Jonathan Schoop (28) among players at the keystone position. Odor set a career high in homers last year with 33, and has a chance to surpass that.

Unfortunately, aside from the pop there hasn’t been a whole lot to like about Odor’s performance. His 66 wRC+ ranks just 19th among second basemen; the only qualified second baseman with a worse mark is Jose Peraza of the Reds (64). Odor posted a 106 wRC+ last season and registered at 107 the year before that. Needless to say, this is a pronounced decline in offensive production for the fourth-year major leaguer.

The contract extension Odor signed in the offseason makes his lackluster showing all the more disappointing. He inked a six-year, $49.5 million deal (plus a couple horses, of course) in late March. The agreement also includes a team option worth $13.5 million that could keep Odor in Texas through 2023. This surely isn’t what Texas wanted to see in the first year of a long-term commitment to a player they envision as part of their core moving forward.

So what exactly has gone wrong for Odor in 2017? His .232 BABIP certainly doesn’t help: Odor experienced averages of .283 and .297 on balls in play the previous two seasons. That should improve in the long run, but the tide hasn’t exactly turned at any point in the current campaign.

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Looking at Odor’s batted ball profile, the most glaring difference from last year is that his infield fly ball rate has more than doubled from 8.2 percent to 16.7 percent. That has naturally taken some of the teeth out of the offensive prowess we saw a season ago.

While he’s still sending balls out of the park at a solid clip, there’s not much else going on. After collecting 33 doubles last year, Odor has managed only 16 so far with just over a month to go. He’s always been a low-walk, high-strikeout guy, and that hasn’t changed this season (3.9 percent BB rate; 23.8 percent K rate). Add it all together and the .215 average and .255 on-base percentage aren’t terribly surprising.

Defense has traditionally been a weakness for Odor. He’s committed 55 errors since the start of 2015, easily the most by a second baseman (Kolten Wong is next with 34). He also sports a -6.3 UZR/150 over that span, the lowest among 19 qualified second basemen. You can tolerate that if his bat is picking up the slack, which hasn’t been the case in 2017. What the Rangers have ended up with is a player worth below replacement level, per his -0.5 fWAR.

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If there’s one thing the Rangers can fall back on, it’s that Odor is still just 23 years old. That’s younger than some rookies in the league, let alone a guy playing in his fourth big league season. Odor still has plenty of time to right the ship and get back on the trajectory he appeared to be traveling a year ago. If he figures it out over the next month, perhaps he can help Texas to an unlikely playoff berth.

Statistics courtesy of Fangraphs.

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