Seattle Mariners star Julio Rodriguez is approaching the end of his fifth major league season.

And for the entirety of those five years, Rodriguez has been very good. He's shown flashes of being great, which is how he's ended up winning a Rookie of the Year Award in 2022 and twice finishing in the top six of the American League MVP voting.

But Mariners fans want to see Rodriguez be great all the time, and that consistency is something that he's struggled with.

Does the bad weather in April hold him back? Has playing in the World Baseball Classic twice set him back at the beginning of seasons? These are all things we've wondered about when it comes to Rodriguez, but the thing that I've landed on most often is questioning Rodriguez's approach.

Let's look at some very interesting data points, first and foremost.

Again, Rodriguez has always been impactful, but his numbers have fluctuated since his rookie year and we haven't really seen him jump off to the Hall of Fame track that many saw him getting on.

As a rookie in 2022, Rodriguez had an OPS of .853 and an OPS+ of 147.

In 2023, Rodriguez's OPS dropped to .818 and his OPS+ dropped to 130.

In 2024, Rodriguez's numbers fell again, to .734 and 115.

In 2025, they rebounded, but the OPS was still .798, and the OPS+ was 127, both lower than his sophomore season.

This season, Rodriguez has a .730 OPS and a 109 OPS+, which is the worst year of his career.

Again, across the board, the numbers are good, but they are not getting better than what he was as a rookie.

I've long thought that Rodriguez's biggest issue is that he's too willing to get himself out. This season, Rodriguez's chase rate is 39.3 percent, which is in the seventh percentile of the sport. While he absolutely still does damage, he seems far too willing to play into a pitchers hands.

In his rookie year? His chase rate was 33.5 percent. That's still high, and Rodriguez is probably never going to be a walk machine, but his chase rate is nearly six full percentage points higher now than it was then, despite all the experience that he has gained.

I spoke on a recent edition of the 'Refuse to Lose Territory' podcast with ESPN researcher Paul Hembekides, who got into some of the numbers on Rodriguez, as well as the philosophy of his approach, and how to (potentially) fix it. You can see a portion of that conversation below, and you can listen fully here.

The most recent edition of the 'Refuse to Lose Territory' podcast is out, talking about Kade Anderson's call-up and featuring a conversation with Mariners infielder Ryan Bliss. You can listen here, or you can watch in the YouTube player below.