After putting up dreadful offensive numbers for three months, Mullins became one of the Birds’ best hitters down the stretch and in the postseason.
In sports, we’ve all seen the kind of player whose individual performance seems to rise and fall along with their team. It’s a tale as old as time. When that player gets hot, so does the team. When that player isn’t performing, the team doesn’t win.
And then there’s Cedric Mullins, whose 2024 season was exactly the reverse.
In the first half of the season, as the Orioles surged to a 58-38 record and first place in the AL East, Mullins was a mess at the plate. He batted a mere .214/.256/.373 before the All-Star break, playing no meaningful role in the Birds’ success.
Yet when the second half rolled around, Mullins caught fire — just as the Orioles flat-lined. After the break, Mullins slashed .266/.374/.457 and was significantly more patient at the plate, drawing 13 more walks than in the first half despite playing 27 fewer games. The Birds staggered to just a .500 record over that stretch, though. Imagine how much worse it could have been if not for Cedric’s ascension.
The up-and-down nature of Mullins’ offensive campaign is nothing new for him. In 2023, he had similarly stark splits in the two halves of the season, except the other way around. That year, he was perfectly productive in the first half with a .774 OPS before struggling to a .635 mark in the second. In the end, his full-season numbers in 2023 and 2024 were eerily similar; his .234 average was one point above last year’s mark, and his .305 OBP was identical. He had a higher OPS last year (.721 to .710) but a better OPS+ this season (107 to 101) due to the overall weaker state of MLB offenses in 2024.
Mullins entered this season as the Orioles’ primary center fielder, as he’s been for the last half-decade. But his early struggles, combined with last year’s post-break falloff, had some fans concerned that he was no longer suited to be an everyday player, or even a major league player at all.
There was a time about three months into the season when it seemed possible the Orioles could option Mullins to the minor leagues for a reset, something they last did with him in 2019. On June 8, after going 0-for-2 to extend a drought of 24 consecutive hitless at-bats, Cedric’s batting average bottomed out at .170 and his OPS at .522. At the plate, he was a wreck. He was regularly benched against lefties and was starting to lose playing time against righties, too.
A look at Mullins’ Baseball Savant page reveals much of the problem. He simply didn’t square up the ball or hit it hard. His barrel percentage, hard-hit percentage, and average exit velocity all ranked in the 20th percentile of MLB. All were down from the year before. The only thing he was above average at, offensively, was not striking out.
The Orioles, though, stuck with their veteran, hoping he’d find his swing. And he certainly did. He broke his 0-for-24 slump with a two-hit day on June 9, one of eight multi-hit performances in his next 14 games, which helped him get his head above water. He saved his best month for last, posting an .857 OPS in September. That included a .368 OBP, his highest of any month, and five home runs, his most since April. By the season’s final weeks, Mullins, who’d been languishing at the bottom of the order for most of the year, moved up to the #2 spot. In a lineup full of struggling Orioles, Mullins was keeping the offense afloat.
He’s also the only O’s hitter who bothered to show up for the club’s two-and-out postseason farce. Mullins went 3-for-7 in the Wild Card Series against the Royals, and his fifth-inning solo homer in Game 2 accounted for the Birds’ only run in the series.
Cedric’s second-half turnaround proved he can still be a valuable player, though manager Brandon Hyde was judicious in how he used Mullins. Hyde limited the lefty swinger’s at-bats against southpaws, and for good reason: Mullins batted just .196/.228/.278 against lefties this year, as opposed to .245/.325/.441 against right-handers. Seventeen of his 18 dingers came off righties.
On defense, Mullins remained capable of superhuman feats with the leather, like this out-of-nowhere diving catch at Fenway, and this sprint-and-leap to rob Manny Machado, and perhaps his best play ever, an otherworldly over-the-shoulder sprawl to steal a run from the Twins in April.
Advanced metrics, however, were not as kind as the eye test. Cedric’s Defensive Runs Saved mark was -5, per FanGraphs, a severe drop from +7 in 2023. His Outs Above Average of 3 was the lowest full-season mark of his career. Granted, one-year samples of advanced defensive metrics aren’t always the most reliable, and Mullins appeared to be anything but a drag on the Orioles’ defense.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Cedric’s other standout attribute: his baserunning. With a 75th-percentile sprint speed of 28.3 ft/sec, Mullins racked up a team-leading 32 stolen bases in 38 attempts. It marked his third season of 30 or more steals, making him just the fourth Oriole in history — along with Brady Anderson, Al Bumbry, and Brian Roberts — to do so thrice.
Mullins is now in his final year of arbitration and set to become a free agent after the 2025 season. MLB Trade Rumors projects him to earn $8.7 million next year. I would expect the Orioles to bring him back at that price, though they’ve certainly surprised me already this offseason (see: declining Danny Coulombe’s option). Though Cedric’s roller coaster of a season wasn’t always pretty, in the end he rated as the Orioles’ sixth-most valuable player by Baseball Reference (2.6 WAR) and seventh-most by FanGraphs (2.3 WAR).
For a guy who’s a strong fielder, a capable hitter, a great baserunner, and a veteran leader — who would become the Orioles’ longest tenured player if Anthony Santander departs — tendering a contract to Mullins should be an easy call. And if 2025 ends up being Cedric’s final year in Baltimore, it’s been a heck of a lot of fun to watch him play.
Previous 2024 player reviews: Keegan Akin, Cionel Pérez, Cole Irvin, Ryan O’Hearn, Craig Kimbrel, Cade Povich, midseason position player acquisitions, Jackson Holliday, injured starting pitchers, James McCann, midseason pitching acquisitions, Jorge Mateo, Yennier Cano, Dean Kremer, Albert Suárez, Ryan Mountcastle, Anthony Santander, Jacob Webb, Grayson Rodriguez, Ramón Urías, Danny Coulombe, Adley Rutschman, Zach Eflin
Monday: Colton Cowser