I admit being skeptical about this signing and knowing very little about him, but wow everything that has been said and written about him since the signing is very encouraging. Really great platoon guy to have
That’s my point though… if TMo has a negative effect on him, it should be fine. He could lose .200 points off his OPS and still be well above league average
That’s exactly what was said about those other three. They were all basically guaranteed to be good acquisitions because even if they took a step back it was still an upgrade. Time will tell.
You guys can downvote this all you want, or you could go read the articles about those acquisitions. Downvotes aren’t going to change the past, and the articles and comments are still sitting right there for you to read whether you like it or not.
None of them had that level of lopsidedness to their splits. Refsnyder was the second best player in all of baseball, behind only Judge, against left handed pitchers last year
Winker had a serious neck injury that killed his career, Garver was a fine platoon bat, Solano was misused but ultimately fine with reverse splits (because Wilson had no idea what he was doing and played Tellez way too much because he was fat).
As long as he’s healthy Rob should be fine as a bench platoon bat.
It smells of AJ Pollock. Mid 30's guy with insane platoon splits on paper, pay him around 7 million for one year to play the corners, front office brags about it like its a "steal" because they know the off-season is done. It plays out with him struggling early, loses his line-up spot for an IL stint, never returns to the lineup, DFAd by July. Tommy LaStella, Solano, Pollock; the list goes on for this contract and scenario.
It’d be cool to have another Russell Branyan type story. (I know they’re different players, but older vet getting an opportunity and showing some success).
Around the batting cage at Yankee Stadium, the superstars talked hitting while the kid tried to keep up. Alex Rodriguez described the way he split the plate in half. Carlos Beltran explained a similar tactic. Brian McCann, too, had a method of picking his battles and maximizing damage.
Rob Refsnyder, fresh from Triple A, nodded along while a bunch of All-Stars described an approach that ran counter to everything Refsnyder tried to do at the plate. Refsnyder covered every pitch. He was hard to strike out. He was ready for anything. He considered it his greatest strength.
Split the plate in half?
“I kinda understood what that meant,” Refsnyder said.
A decade later, Refsnyder gets it, and it’s made all the difference.
On Monday, four months before his 35th birthday, Refsnyder signed a $6.5-million deal with the Seattle Mariners. It is, by far, the largest contract of his life, and it’s come in the twilight of his career. Refsnyder has never made more than $2.1 million in a season, and he’s spent much of his career playing on minor league deals or else earning the big league minimum.
But at an age when so many others are fading from relevance, Refsnyder has only now established himself as a player worth such a commitment.
He is, perhaps, less complete than he used to be, but he’s unmistakably more productive. Since 2022, among players with at least 900 plate appearances, Refsnyder ranks 40th in OPS, just ahead of Fernando Tatis Jr., Alex Bregman and Trea Turner. Almost all of his damage has come with a platoon advantage, but in an era when left-handed pitching is better than ever, Refsnyder has crushed lefties at an elite level.
OPS leaders vs. LHP since 2022 (400 PA)
Aaron Judge 586 1160
Yordan Alvarez 613 986
Paul Goldschmidt 642 973
Yandy Díaz 604 956
Jose Altuve 569 940
Ketel Marte 744 927
Rob Refsnyder 501 924
J.D. Martinez 411 920
Mookie Betts 707 919
“My swing-and-miss is probably up a good amount from earlier in my career,” Refsnyder said. “But for me to do anything, you have to make these educated guesses.”
He has to split the plate.
Refsnyder’s unusual career arc is about more than a single player’s rise to a late-30s payday. His transformation helps explain an entire industry’s shift in offensive approach. Refsnyder didn’t arrive in the big leagues overmatched so much as outdated. To adapt, he had to make more than mechanical adjustments. He had to overhaul his mindset and embrace his limitations.
In the middle of last season, Refsnyder stood in front of the home dugout at Fenway Park and drew pictures in the dirt. He used the handle of his bat to show pitch locations around a facsimile of home plate.
“For a sweeper or slider to end up right here in the middle of the plate,” he said, “it has to start, like, here.”
Refsnyder drew a spot in the dirt three or four feet in front of the plate and behind where a right-handed batter would stand. It was a pitch that would start, as Refsnyder put it, “behind my ass,” and cross the plate as if the shortstop threw it.
Refsnyder can drive that pitch to left-center, but gearing it up, he explained, requires that he lay off any pitch on the outer half, which leaves him vulnerable to an inside sinker that could drill him in the hip if he doesn’t recognize it early enough.
“If I pick a side of the plate here,” he said, drawing another spot on the outside, “then I want the sinker to come back and end up here.”
He put a dot on the outer half of the plate. Again, it was a pitch Refsnyder can drive, but when he looks for it, he gives up the inside slider and risks becoming Pitching Ninja punchline if he’s fooled by a sweeper.
“You’re looking at this window right here,” he said, drawing a line that’s unbearably precise, leaving most of the plate uncovered. That line is the loss of youthful innocence. It’s the vulnerability Refsnyder has learned to embrace in order to hit modern big league pitching.
“When I was younger and in the minor leagues, you could sit more middle and be in between a couple of different pitches,” he said. “Because the velocity was a little bit lower, and you could cover a couple of different things and be OK. Now, if you’re facing, like, (Bryan) Woo from Seattle, you’re going to look like an a— at some point in your three at-bats. His stuff is too explosive in, and for you to be on time for 97 to 99, you can’t cover 85 and below. It’s, like, impossible.”
Refsnyder has come to realize that he got to the big leagues trying to do the impossible. A fifth-round pick out of the University of Arizona, he rose through minor leagues with modest power and limited speed. His greatest strength was a balanced, all-fields approach, and Refsnyder took pride his ability to work an at-bat, draw some walks, and make contact on absolutely anything.
He made his debut with the New York Yankees in 2015, and seven years later, he was a career .224 hitter with six home runs, nine stolen bases, and one full season’s worth of at-bats. Refsnyder was quality depth and little more as he bounced from New York to Toronto, Tampa Bay, Texas, Minnesota and eventually to Boston. Through all those organizations, multiple hitting coaches, and a variety of teammates, Refsnyder not only tweaked his swing, he also began to embrace a new way of thinking about his at-bats.
When Alex Rodriguez talked hitting, Refsnyder listened.
Sure, he could draw some walks, but Refsnyder didn’t have the speed to steal bases, and a passive approach was hindering his ability to take aggressive, impactful swing. He had a knack for making contact, but without a commitment to specific pitch types and locations, Refsnyder was generating weak flyballs and pointless groundballs.
By preparing for anything, he was doing damage against nothing, and it was wasting his career. He was 31 years old and on his way out of the game.
“As an industry we value hitting the ball hard and damage,” Refsnyder said. “So, if I’m not going to steal bases, and I’m not hitting the ball hard, I’m at home. That’s just the way it is.”
Refsnyder’s old approach might have worked wonders in a different era, but it made him easy prey in an age of widespread velocity and lab-created breaking balls.
“I think you see older-generation hitters seeing really bad swing and misses now, and they just think you’re swinging out of your ass,” Refsnyder said.
There was a time when Refsnyder might have agreed, but conversation after conversation forced him to think differently.
When he was with the Twins in 2021, Nelson Cruz told Refsnyder that he looked only for pitches he could crush, and if Cruz didn’t get one of those pitches, he made an out. Cruz was fine with that. Part of Refsnyder thought such an approach was nuts — why accept such vulnerability? — but Cruz was an MVP candidate with 400-plus home runs, while Refsnyder was a bench player trying to avoid the waiver wire.
Eventually, he came to see it this way: Some hitters are so absurdly gifted, they can hit anything at any time, but the mere mortals have to embrace their limitations and accept being exposed.
“Strikeouts are up because they have to be up,” Refsnyder said. “It’s so hard to take an aggressive swing and not lay off other pitches.”
Refsnyder signed his last minor league contract in December of 2021. The Red Sox called him up the following April, and he’s been in the big leagues ever since, proving himself year after year. Last season, at 34, Refsnyder had the highest hard-hit percentage of his career, and his wRC+ against lefties was, yet again, among the 10 best in the Majors.
“He knows he’s a good player,” Red Sox shortstop Trevor Story said. “And when he doesn’t do what he wants, you can see that it bothers him.”
The frustration comes with the territory, and Refsnyder doesn’t mind talking about it. In fact, he loves the conversation. Refsnyder talks hitting in the clubhouse, rehashes at-bats in the dugout, and draws pictures of pitches in the dirt. And every once in a while, one of those conversations will take him back to his early days at Yankee Stadium, when Refsnyder first got the big leagues and began the long process of understanding what it would take to stay there.
“You have to give up something to have good swings,” Refsnyder said. “That’s kind of what they were saying.”
I've heard this guy is super popular in clubhouses
I admit being skeptical about this signing and knowing very little about him, but wow everything that has been said and written about him since the signing is very encouraging. Really great platoon guy to have
Very much sounds like a future coach/manager we should help establish and then not let him go to the Guardians.
Embarrassing typo on Refsnyder. Forgive me Rob!
At least it wasn't Refsnyfer!
Red Sox fans seemed to love him so I’m hopeful for his addition to the vibes
Loved this read too. Seems like a good signing!
I remember Jesse Winker. I remember Mitch Garver. I remember Donovan Solano. I hope this one is different.
He’s a .959 OPS hitter against lefties for his career
Even if he takes a step back in Seattle and is like a .750-.800 OPS hitter against lefties here… he’d be an upgrade to what we have on our bench
Thats exactly what was said about Winker, Garver, Geno. It’s T-Mobile park, who knows what will happen
That’s my point though… if TMo has a negative effect on him, it should be fine. He could lose .200 points off his OPS and still be well above league average
That’s exactly what was said about those other three. They were all basically guaranteed to be good acquisitions because even if they took a step back it was still an upgrade. Time will tell.
You guys can downvote this all you want, or you could go read the articles about those acquisitions. Downvotes aren’t going to change the past, and the articles and comments are still sitting right there for you to read whether you like it or not.
What are you after here? Negative answers only, I guess
What’s wrong with observing that we’ve had bad luck with these types of signings and wishing for this one to work out?
That’s too negative? May god help you if you ever tune into a game thread around here lol.
Dude you have a Yankees flair, I agree with you but your intentions are sus.
My username is literally Dave Sims. And my flair is an image that says FUCK followed by text that says, "the Yankees."
I stand corrected, and am even more so on your corner now.
Nothing but Winker hits lefty. Garver and Geno not so much.
None of them had that level of lopsidedness to their splits. Refsnyder was the second best player in all of baseball, behind only Judge, against left handed pitchers last year
Here’s a direct quote from Justin Hollander about Jesse Winker right after we acquired him:
“Against right-handed pitching, if you just look at what he has done, sort the list, it’s roughly Bryce Harper, Juan Soto, Jesse Winker.”
Source: https://sports.mynorthwest.com/mlb/seattle-mariners/mariners-assistant-gm-jesse-winker-special-bat/1595849
Too many people with Stockholm syndrome in this sub.
Winker hits left handed. Bad comp. I do get your point about Garver and Geno though.
It's also what was said about Carlos Santana and he ended up being exactly what that team needed.
Winker had a serious neck injury that killed his career, Garver was a fine platoon bat, Solano was misused but ultimately fine with reverse splits (because Wilson had no idea what he was doing and played Tellez way too much because he was fat).
As long as he’s healthy Rob should be fine as a bench platoon bat.
It smells of AJ Pollock. Mid 30's guy with insane platoon splits on paper, pay him around 7 million for one year to play the corners, front office brags about it like its a "steal" because they know the off-season is done. It plays out with him struggling early, loses his line-up spot for an IL stint, never returns to the lineup, DFAd by July. Tommy LaStella, Solano, Pollock; the list goes on for this contract and scenario.
Rob does not smell like 🐟! (Had to, let the downvotes rain upon me)!
It’d be cool to have another Russell Branyan type story. (I know they’re different players, but older vet getting an opportunity and showing some success).
Fuck the New York Times is there a link without the paywall?
Around the batting cage at Yankee Stadium, the superstars talked hitting while the kid tried to keep up. Alex Rodriguez described the way he split the plate in half. Carlos Beltran explained a similar tactic. Brian McCann, too, had a method of picking his battles and maximizing damage. Rob Refsnyder, fresh from Triple A, nodded along while a bunch of All-Stars described an approach that ran counter to everything Refsnyder tried to do at the plate. Refsnyder covered every pitch. He was hard to strike out. He was ready for anything. He considered it his greatest strength.
Split the plate in half? “I kinda understood what that meant,” Refsnyder said. A decade later, Refsnyder gets it, and it’s made all the difference. On Monday, four months before his 35th birthday, Refsnyder signed a $6.5-million deal with the Seattle Mariners. It is, by far, the largest contract of his life, and it’s come in the twilight of his career. Refsnyder has never made more than $2.1 million in a season, and he’s spent much of his career playing on minor league deals or else earning the big league minimum. But at an age when so many others are fading from relevance, Refsnyder has only now established himself as a player worth such a commitment. He is, perhaps, less complete than he used to be, but he’s unmistakably more productive. Since 2022, among players with at least 900 plate appearances, Refsnyder ranks 40th in OPS, just ahead of Fernando Tatis Jr., Alex Bregman and Trea Turner. Almost all of his damage has come with a platoon advantage, but in an era when left-handed pitching is better than ever, Refsnyder has crushed lefties at an elite level. OPS leaders vs. LHP since 2022 (400 PA)
Aaron Judge 586 1160 Yordan Alvarez 613 986 Paul Goldschmidt 642 973 Yandy Díaz 604 956 Jose Altuve 569 940 Ketel Marte 744 927 Rob Refsnyder 501 924 J.D. Martinez 411 920 Mookie Betts 707 919 “My swing-and-miss is probably up a good amount from earlier in my career,” Refsnyder said. “But for me to do anything, you have to make these educated guesses.” He has to split the plate. Refsnyder’s unusual career arc is about more than a single player’s rise to a late-30s payday. His transformation helps explain an entire industry’s shift in offensive approach. Refsnyder didn’t arrive in the big leagues overmatched so much as outdated. To adapt, he had to make more than mechanical adjustments. He had to overhaul his mindset and embrace his limitations.
In the middle of last season, Refsnyder stood in front of the home dugout at Fenway Park and drew pictures in the dirt. He used the handle of his bat to show pitch locations around a facsimile of home plate.
“For a sweeper or slider to end up right here in the middle of the plate,” he said, “it has to start, like, here.” Refsnyder drew a spot in the dirt three or four feet in front of the plate and behind where a right-handed batter would stand. It was a pitch that would start, as Refsnyder put it, “behind my ass,” and cross the plate as if the shortstop threw it.
Refsnyder can drive that pitch to left-center, but gearing it up, he explained, requires that he lay off any pitch on the outer half, which leaves him vulnerable to an inside sinker that could drill him in the hip if he doesn’t recognize it early enough. “If I pick a side of the plate here,” he said, drawing another spot on the outside, “then I want the sinker to come back and end up here.” He put a dot on the outer half of the plate. Again, it was a pitch Refsnyder can drive, but when he looks for it, he gives up the inside slider and risks becoming Pitching Ninja punchline if he’s fooled by a sweeper. “You’re looking at this window right here,” he said, drawing a line that’s unbearably precise, leaving most of the plate uncovered. That line is the loss of youthful innocence. It’s the vulnerability Refsnyder has learned to embrace in order to hit modern big league pitching. “When I was younger and in the minor leagues, you could sit more middle and be in between a couple of different pitches,” he said. “Because the velocity was a little bit lower, and you could cover a couple of different things and be OK. Now, if you’re facing, like, (Bryan) Woo from Seattle, you’re going to look like an a— at some point in your three at-bats. His stuff is too explosive in, and for you to be on time for 97 to 99, you can’t cover 85 and below. It’s, like, impossible.” Refsnyder has come to realize that he got to the big leagues trying to do the impossible. A fifth-round pick out of the University of Arizona, he rose through minor leagues with modest power and limited speed. His greatest strength was a balanced, all-fields approach, and Refsnyder took pride his ability to work an at-bat, draw some walks, and make contact on absolutely anything.
He made his debut with the New York Yankees in 2015, and seven years later, he was a career .224 hitter with six home runs, nine stolen bases, and one full season’s worth of at-bats. Refsnyder was quality depth and little more as he bounced from New York to Toronto, Tampa Bay, Texas, Minnesota and eventually to Boston. Through all those organizations, multiple hitting coaches, and a variety of teammates, Refsnyder not only tweaked his swing, he also began to embrace a new way of thinking about his at-bats. When Alex Rodriguez talked hitting, Refsnyder listened.
Sure, he could draw some walks, but Refsnyder didn’t have the speed to steal bases, and a passive approach was hindering his ability to take aggressive, impactful swing. He had a knack for making contact, but without a commitment to specific pitch types and locations, Refsnyder was generating weak flyballs and pointless groundballs. By preparing for anything, he was doing damage against nothing, and it was wasting his career. He was 31 years old and on his way out of the game. “As an industry we value hitting the ball hard and damage,” Refsnyder said. “So, if I’m not going to steal bases, and I’m not hitting the ball hard, I’m at home. That’s just the way it is.” Refsnyder’s old approach might have worked wonders in a different era, but it made him easy prey in an age of widespread velocity and lab-created breaking balls. “I think you see older-generation hitters seeing really bad swing and misses now, and they just think you’re swinging out of your ass,” Refsnyder said. There was a time when Refsnyder might have agreed, but conversation after conversation forced him to think differently. When he was with the Twins in 2021, Nelson Cruz told Refsnyder that he looked only for pitches he could crush, and if Cruz didn’t get one of those pitches, he made an out. Cruz was fine with that. Part of Refsnyder thought such an approach was nuts — why accept such vulnerability? — but Cruz was an MVP candidate with 400-plus home runs, while Refsnyder was a bench player trying to avoid the waiver wire.
Eventually, he came to see it this way: Some hitters are so absurdly gifted, they can hit anything at any time, but the mere mortals have to embrace their limitations and accept being exposed. “Strikeouts are up because they have to be up,” Refsnyder said. “It’s so hard to take an aggressive swing and not lay off other pitches.” Refsnyder signed his last minor league contract in December of 2021. The Red Sox called him up the following April, and he’s been in the big leagues ever since, proving himself year after year. Last season, at 34, Refsnyder had the highest hard-hit percentage of his career, and his wRC+ against lefties was, yet again, among the 10 best in the Majors. “He knows he’s a good player,” Red Sox shortstop Trevor Story said. “And when he doesn’t do what he wants, you can see that it bothers him.” The frustration comes with the territory, and Refsnyder doesn’t mind talking about it. In fact, he loves the conversation. Refsnyder talks hitting in the clubhouse, rehashes at-bats in the dugout, and draws pictures of pitches in the dirt. And every once in a while, one of those conversations will take him back to his early days at Yankee Stadium, when Refsnyder first got the big leagues and began the long process of understanding what it would take to stay there. “You have to give up something to have good swings,” Refsnyder said. “That’s kind of what they were saying.”
“Classic Mariner” doesn’t evoke positive feelings
I am not looking forward to having to learn how to pronounce this guy's name.
Great baseball name. It’s easy bro. Ref-Snyder. Nice alliteration with Rob.
Kim Jung-tae is pronounced:
Rob Reff-Snyder