You can pitch to Dominic Canzone, but you best not miss.
One in five pitches a lefty batter sees is over an interior square of the strike zone that stretches from middle-middle to up-and-in. Here are the three best batters of 2025 by xwOBA on these pitches:
- Shohei Ohtani – .545
- Juan Soto – .520
- Dominic Canzone – .515
By actual wOBA, no batter was better in the region than Canzone. It didn’t matter if it was a fastball on his hands or a hanging slider at the belt, if it was there, he punished it. It’s an approach that made him massively productive in 2025. His
141 wRC+ was 15th among batters with at least 200 plate appearances.
On pitches that weren’t in that zone, however, Canzone was average or worse.
The Tigers and Blue Jays knew this. They attacked the holes in his swing to shut him down in the postseason. Most of his at bats ended on pitches low and/or away.
The postseason was unfortunate for Canzone. He was terrible. The strikeout in the ninth inning of ALCS Game 7 — on a fastball up and away — dropped his October OPS to .245. The momentum he’d built over four months as one of the league’s best hitters was all but gone; in its place a new round of questions about his future with the club.
That perception is “unfair,” Justin Hollander said recently in an interview with the Seattle Times. He cautioned against evaluating Canzone by his final 29 plate appearances and defended the notion the team is set on its right field platoon for next year. Few players have received more praise from Mariners’ brass in early offseason media appearances.
I agree that it’s not worth putting much stock in Canzone’s (or anyone’s) postseason stats. They’re a small sample of PAs against a small sample of pitchers. I don’t think he’s any more likely to repeat that performance than Ernie Clement is to hit .411. But if we’re talking sample size, Canzone’s 268 PAs from the regular season aren’t much to go on, either. He was much worse in similarly small samples in 2023 and 2024. His career 108 wRC+ in 638 PAs is about what he’s projected for in 2026, and that’s not enough to justify regular at bats with poor defense and base running.
Still, it’s not just that Canzone’s performance improved last year. His performance improved and he fundamentally changed his swing. He closed his stance and got wider in the box. He started swinging harder and catching the ball further out in front. And he ditched the long, looping swing in favor of a short, flat approach. None of those things are a eureka on their own, but a breakout performance is more believable when it lines up with a measurable overhaul.
The ceiling on Canzone’s bat has always been well regarded. Before the 2024 season, former Mariners’ hitting coach Jarret DeHart (now with the Yankees) got specific about what he liked in Canzone’s swing. DeHart talked about his mobility, his stability, and even the “range in his hips.”
“He is incredibly talented,” DeHart said. “Like, he’s one of the more skilled hitters I’ve been around. His ability to impact the baseball and his ability to make contact — it’s a unique skill set. Unique.”
That’s a strong statement, even by Spring Training standards. And it’s largely been confirmed: Canzone finished in the top 5% by quality of contact in 2025.
But the “ability to impact the baseball” isn’t really the question for Canzone. It’s the approach that’s always stood in the way. He swings at everything both in and out of the zone, and he doesn’t draw walks. That didn’t improve much in 2025.
What did improve, however, is the total amount of contact he made. Canzone cut his whiff rate 34.4% in 2024 to 26.4% in 2025. That would represent the largest drop in whiff rate in MLB last year… if the sample were large enough to qualify. This was especially noticeable when he fell behind: Canzone went from one of the 10 worst two-strike hitters in 2024 to one of the 10 best in 2025. With his new stance and new swing, he took on a hybrid slasher-slugger approach, with the ability to rip low liners the other way or turn on a hanger into the right field seats.
That’s all to say, I’m more bullish on Canzone in 2026 than I am on any player Steamer projects for less than 1.0 fWAR. I find myself convinced by his breakout, and few hitters appear to have a higher ceiling. Yes, there are holes in his swing and flaws in his approach. But just as pitchers may adapt to him, he may adapt to them. In fact, he already has.
