Upon being traded to the Seattle Mariners in the 2023 trade deadline deal that sent Paul Sewald to the Arizona Diamondbacks, outfielder Dominic Canzone had just 41 career plate appearances. Entering the 2025 season, he had racked up 326 trips to the plate for Seattle but hadn’t yet reached anything near his offensive ceiling.
That has changed in 2025. Canzone, who is rostered in just 14% of Fantrax leagues, is an excellent waiver wire pickup for fantasy managers in deep leagues. Here’s why…
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Believe in Dominic Canzone
Canzone’s Increased Playing Time
Because Victor Robles – who recently threw his bat at a minor league pitcher after being hit by a pitch – hit the injured list with a dislocated left shoulder in April, Canzone has seen plenty of playing time in right field for the Mariners.
Since June 9th, Canzone has taken 192 trips to the plate. He’s already set a single-season career high in that regard, and his performance against left-handed pitching has improved enough that he’s regularly in Dan Wilson’s starting lineup against southpaws.
While he had been used almost exclusively as a strong-side platoon bat in the past – he recorded just 13 at-bats against left-handers and 155 against right-handers last season – Canzone has made significant adjustments to his stance that have enabled him to perform well against left-handed pitching.
According to Baseball Savant, Canzone stood in the batter’s box with his feet roughly 22.8 inches apart in 2024. That distance has expanded to 30.3 inches this season. Perhaps most noticeable? The left-handed slugger closed off his batting stance this year by a significant margin. Last season, Canzone had an average stance angle of 20 degrees. This year, his feet form a straight line towards the pitcher at an angle of about seven degrees.
After an 11-9 win on Friday, manager Dan Wilson said the following about Canzone’s improved performance against left-handed pitching this season:
“Just getting his opportunities at different times and then delivering. And again tonight, staying in there on a lefty, getting a big base hit, RBI up the middle, and he continues to just swing it off the lefties.”
Said swing adjustments – namely, “staying in there” with a closed-off stance against left-handed pitching – are paying off this season for Canzone.
Fewer Strikeouts
Canzone has cut down significantly on strikeouts this season. Last season, the former eighth-round pick posted above-average barrel and hard-hit rates. But an extremely high strikeout rate (28.2%) limited his offensive output and led to an expected batting average of just .215.
This season, Canzone is slashing .289/.348/.456 with a .293 xBA. His success stems from a much-improved strikeout rate, which has plummeted to 20% in nearly 200 plate appearances this season.
Despite being simple ones, two adjustments explain the drop in Canzone’s strikeout rate from 2024 to 2025. The first? The left-handed hitter is whiffing with far less frequency. Canzone’s whiff rate is down across all three pitch type groups, including breaking pitches. In 2024, Canzone whiffed at 43% of breaking balls he saw and posted a .154 xBA. That was by far his worst whiff rate and xBA against any pitch type group.
The second reason for his much-improved strikeout rate? Canzone’s plate discipline has vastly improved as he’s seen more pitches in the big leagues. It’s easy to forget Canzone only has one full year’s worth of playing time under his belt, but his pitch recognition has improved significantly since debuting in 2023.
Canzone’s swing runs in the heart of the zone have increased significantly throughout his career, while his swing runs in the “chase zone” have stayed relatively steady. This means Canzone is doing damage on pitches he should be hitting without sacrificing plate discipline on pitches with little or no expected value.
Canzone’s Higher Batted-Ball Quality
In addition to playing more frequently and cutting down on strikeouts, Canzone is simply hitting the ball harder. A significant portion of that can be attributed to his plate discipline and pitch recognition improvements.
Since 2024, Canzone has seen a significant uptick in his hard-hit rate (+4.9%), average exit velocity (+2 MPH), and barrel rate (+1.8%). It’s no surprise that his superior batted ball metrics have correlated with success on the field.
Since June 9, the Mariners outfielder ranks eighth among qualified right fielders in wRC+ and sixth in batting average. Opportunity, much-improved plate discipline, stellar batted ball quality, and better pitch recognition have created the perfect storm for Dominic Canzone this season, making him an underrated addition to any deep points league fantasy baseball roster for the stretch run.
Images courtesy of Baseball Savant.
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