ANALYSIS: What Exactly Makes Strong Rob Refsnyder Season Quite Likely for Mariners?

When he went up against a right-handed pitcher between 2022 and 2025, Red Sox outfielder Rob Refsnyder hit .235 with an on-base percentage of .315 and a slugging percentage of .355. Few people in baseball talk about those numbers, because that’s not why the Mariners paid him $6.25 million in December or why the rest of the league is waiting with baited breath to see what the 35-year-old has in store at T-Mobile Park.

Refsnyder’s slash line against lefties in those four years? .312/.407/.516. Against all pitchers, just four players have maintained a .924 OPS or better since 2022: Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Juan Soto, and Yordan Alvarez. Obviously, Refsnyder isn’t quite in their league (since he’s just doing this against left-handers), but that’s the whole point of a platoon. When it comes to splits versus lefties, Refsnyder’s last four years have been the seventh best among guys with 250 or more plate appearances spread among the past four years.

Diving deeper into the data, we can see even more evidence that Refsnyder sees the ball very well when he has the platoon advantage: he walks 12.8% of the time when a southpaw is on the mound, around the rate that Nick Kurtz drew free passes during the 2025 season. His .407 on-base percentage against left-handers is the third highest since 2022, only less than Judge and Paul Goldschmidt.