Major league pitchers are already exposing Mariners slugger Lazaro Montes

Lazaro Montes is one of the best position player prospects in the Mariners' system and depending on who you ask, he may even be at the very top of the list. He has played fewer than 20 games since making his debut and he has already established himself as one of the best young power hitters in the game.

His bat speed is on-par with the likes of Ronald Acuña Jr and his average exit velocity is just slightly higher than that of Pete Crow-Armstrong. His xSLG (Expected Slugging Percentage) of .535 would be sixth in the league, just behind Shohei Ohtani and Pete Alonso. He has already hit the longest home run at T-Mobile Park in the Statcast era and he's absolutely lived up to the hype behind his power tool.

But in order to fully live up to the Yordan Alvarez comparisons that have followed him for the past two years, Montes will have to round out the other aspects of his approach at the plate.

Apart from his power, Lázaro Montes is struggling to keep up with opposing pitchers

Though Montes is pummeling baseballs when he makes contact, he's not making as much contact as one would hope. His whiff (47.3%), zone contact (63.2%), and strikeout (45.2%) rate are comfortably in the first percentile of hitters. While many hitters are susceptible to being fooled by breaking and offspeed pitches, the recipe for success against Montes is far simpler: throw fastballs.

His whiff rate against four-seam fastballs is 47.1% which is simply non-competitive. He's somehow whiffing even more frequently against sinkers which traditionally have far lower whiff rates in favor of creating soft contact. Opposing pitchers have been aggressively attacking him with high heat which is generally effective against any hitter but is nigh untouchable against someone who already struggles as much with making contact as Montes.

To his credit, he's chasing pitches at a league-average rate and still has a 9.5% walk rate so laying off of bad pitches isn't his biggest issue. Instead, the bigger problem seems to be against velocity. He has yet to record a hit against a pitch 95 mph or faster and of his four homers, three came against pitches slower than 90 mph.

Fixing the contact is just one of the things he'll have to work on in the offseason. In addition to his whiff woes, he is 0-11 against left-handed pitching with a perfect .000 OPS. As a result, he has been mostly kept out of the lineup when a southpaw is on the mound but it's hard to be a core piece of the lineup if you're only a viable hitter for one half of the platoon.

Despite his weaknesses, Montes has given fans plenty to be excited about. As is the case with all young players, there are adjustments to make but like Kade Anderson, he has already showcased what he can do when things are clicking in the right way. It may be a few more seasons before he can single-handedly turn around this lackluster offense but his inclusion on next year's roster should at least be a step in the right direction.

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