ST. PAUL, Minn. – Emmanuel Rodriguez has always been a patient hitter. It’s been one of his calling cards since the very beginning of his professional baseball career.
But there’s patience, and there’s passivity. And the key for Rodriguez is making sure he’s on the right side of that line. So far this year at Triple-A St. Paul, he has been. That, combined with a welcome stretch of good health, has Rodriguez knocking on the door of the Major Leagues.
It’s probably not imminent. Even with Matt Wallner scuffling in right field for the Twins, it’s worth acknowledging that Rodriguez has work to do. He’s still just 23, still has barely 500 plate appearances in the high Minors, and still has weaknesses in his offensive game. He still has too much swing-and-miss, for one thing.
But it’s not hard to see the progress – not hard to see the tools and evolving skills that have made Rodriguez a Top 100 prospect since he was 19. His recent two-homer game garnered attention, but Rodriguez has been raking all season.
“I’m just trusting my eyes and trying to see those pitches better and be more aggressive in the zone,” Rodriguez said through teammate and interpreter Marco Raya. “Just keep that discipline of recognizing when pitches are good pitches to swing at and when they’re out of the zone, and not be chasing.”
COMPLETE TWINS PROSPECT COVERAGE
Entering Friday's game against Iowa, Rodriguez sported a .250/.419/.513 line with six homers, 22 walks and 31 strikeouts. He’s not setting the world on fire, but he has been highly productive. He’s also been staying in the lineup, which is always a big deal for a player with a checkered health history.
It follows a tremendous run in winter ball in the Dominican Republic and a strong spring in his first full, healthy big league camp, both of which are experiences he points to as having boosted his confidence.
“It was really good for me,” he said, “being around all those veteran guys and pitchers that execute a lot better than a lot of the guys in the lower Minor Leagues and are smarter and will attack those weak zones more consistently. As well, playing in the D.R., in my homeland, with that pressure, the amount of pressure that holds, I was able to control that and hold those at-bat to at-bat adjustments. That’s helped me gain confidence a lot more.”
As for attacking the zone, that’s coming along nicely. Entering play on Thursday, Rodriguez’s in-zone swing rate has climbed from 63.3% in 2025 to 69.6% in 2026. In case you don’t know offhand what normal in-zone swing rates look like, 69.6% would rank around the top 25 percent of qualified Major League hitters this year, while 63.3% would rank in the bottom half. So, while it may not sound like much, it’s a notable difference.
“That's been a work in progress for a while, a point of emphasis for a while,” general manager Jeremy Zoll said recently. “He's had some fits and starts from an injury perspective. That always can throw off that progress. To see him be able to fully put that into play here has been really exciting. … He's doing a ton of damage and putting stuff together really nicely here in this first month in Triple-A.”
Where he could still use improvement is in making contact. His 36.8% swing and miss rate entering Thursday's games is 15th highest among all Triple-A hitters with at least 150 swings, and that’s the kind of thing that big league pitchers would exploit. But again, Rodriguez is 23, and he still has a limited amount of experience above A-ball. It’s not that he can’t or won’t get there.
“There’s a lot of things that I can get better at,” he said. “In general, that’s the main thing I came into the season working on, being a little bit more disciplined at the plate and at the same time being a little bit more aggressive. Outside of that, just making day-to-day adjustments as the game goes and throughout the season.”