Astros have a Rodgers decision date approaching.
Brendan Rodgers hit his first HR for the Astros on Tuesday in Milwaukee. That in itself might justify an article on Rodgers. Moreover, an approaching contract deadline could make the topic even more timely.
The Athletic’s recent article on Rodgers provides some context for the contract decision. Athletics reporter Chandler Rome writes:
Before he made Houston’s roster, Rodgers signed an advanced consent clause, which allows the Astros to either option him to the minor leagues or terminate his contract within 45 days of Opening Day. Saturday is the 45th day of the season, so a decision on his future is imminent, perhaps as early as Friday.
Rodgers is another instance of an Astros’ hitter whose actual batting results are worse than his Statcast “expected” batting results.
2025 Actual BA .235 / SLG .324 / wOBA .289
2025 x-BA .257 / x- SLG .413 / xwOBA .329
The x-stats indicate that Rodgers’ batting numbers should be higher if luck factors are stripped away. This juxtaposition of actual and expected stats suggest that his future batting stats this year should improve with more neutral luck on his batted balls.
Rodgers has hit the ball hard this year. He leads the team in hard hit rate (51%), EV50, and number of barrels per batted balls. As shown on Savant’s percentile page, Rodgers is in the upper third of MLB batters in quality of contact measures. Rodgers also has the 4th highest increase in the MLB for bat speed between 2024 and 2025 .
Baseball Savant
As shown above, Rodgers is in the top 10% for Launch Angle/Sweet Spot and in the top 20% for Barrel % and Hard hit %. On the down side, Rodgers’ percentile ranking is poor for K% and whiff rate.
When the Astros signed Rodgers, they indicated that his normally high ground ball rate could be improved. And, so far, he has done that. His current ground ball rate is the lowest of his career, by a large margin (39.4% vs. 53% career average) . His average launch angle is also the highest of his career. On a negative note, current K rate (33%) is higher than his recent prior seasons, although it may be offset somewhat by the highest BB rate (9.1%) of his career. It’s hard to know how much improvement he could see in K rate in the future. But it’s possible that it may improve as Rodgers gets more at ease with the changes he has made to his batting stance.
Based on Rome’s article, Rodgers is still attempting to get used to modifications in his batting mechanics. According to the Athletic article, Astros batting coach Troy Snitker has worked with Rodgers on modifying his batting stance:
“Getting into stronger positions to rotate better. Rotate faster. Rotate cleaner. Take the hands out of it a little bit, that’s been the goal,” hitting coach Troy Snitker said. “Just to be more connected. He’s super athletic, super twitchy. Let the bigger muscles work at the beginning, get the bat a little more connected and faster.”
Given the positive signs of contact quality, fewer ground balls, and continued work on batting improvements, my view is that the Astros should retain Rodgers and perhaps increase his playing time at second base. Rodgers and Dubon have effectively shared second base this season, and both enhance the infield defense compared to last season when Jose Altuve held the position. However, Rodgers has more potential upside on offense compared to Dubon.
I doubt that the Astros will exercise their option to terminate Rodgers’ contract, but if they did, I would view the rationale as purely based on saving a small amount of money. The Astros really don’t have better options at second base waiting in the wings. The Astros may have hoped that prospect Brice Matthews would be ready for promotion when they executed the contract option. But Matthews’ performance in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League (.209 BA, .676 OPS) do not suggest that he is ready to start in the majors.