It was easy to dismiss Aaron Zavala’s brief period of success in 2020. A fluke. A statistical anomaly. A random bout of luck.
But Zavala proved any doubters wrong in 2021, and then some.
He built off his surge in 2020 — when he posted a batting line of .418/.493/.491 — to soar to even further heights in 2021. He put up a monster .398/.538/.613 line in the regular season as well as setting multiple Oregon offensive records, en route to becoming a semifinalist for the Dick Howser Trophy and winning Pac-12 Player of the Year.
Zavala hit the ground running in 2021 and never looked back. In the Ducks’ first game of the season, he reached base all five times, setting the tone for the season he wound up having. He reached base in 15 consecutive games to start the season, picking up right where he left off in 2020.
On March 26 came a rarity for Zavala: he didn’t get on base. His average plummeted from .440 to .407 that day. But that would be the only game of the year in which he wouldn’t reach base. Zavala reached base in the final 35 games of the year, as well as 50 of their 51 total games. His monster campaign helped lead the Ducks to a 37-14 record and a second-place finish in the Pac-12.
He also ended the year with an 11-game hitting streak, and never went more than two consecutive games without a hit. And in the rare times he wasn’t hitting, he was always walking. He set the Ducks’ single-season walks record, breaking Mitchell Tolman’s mark of 44, with 49 in 2021.
Zavala put up a .538 on-base percentage for the season, meaning he got on the base more often than he made outs.
But it wasn’t just a knack for getting on base that made Zavala’s 2021 season so dominant. He added some power to his game, without sacrificing the on-base skills that raised a few eyebrows in 2020. In the shortened 2020 season, he batted .418, but with just a .491 slugging percentage. That’s an isolated power (ISO, slugging minus batting average) of only .073. If the 2020 season had gone on and his average had regressed, his overall numbers could have gotten ugly quickly.
But he calmed those doubts with authority in 2021, boosting his slugging percentage all the way up to .613, which with his .398 average gave him a well-above-average .215 ISO — almost three times the amount of power he hit for in 2020.
As well as the walks record, Zavala also set the Oregon single-season runs record with 58. Because it turns out, when you get on base a lot and you’re hitting in the same lineup as guys like Kenyon Yovan and Gabe Matthews, you end up scoring a lot of runs.
Another remarkable aspect of Zavala’s season was his strikeout rate, especially when comparing it to how often he walked. He struck out 27 times, for a strikeout rate of 11.4%. Contrast that to his 49 walks and 20.8% walk rate, and you have a strikeout-to-walk ratio of .55. Anything under 1.00 is great. Zavala demolished that mark.
Zavala is now a semifinalist for the Dick Howser Trophy, which is awarded to the best overall player in college baseball every year. And on Thursday, he was named the Pac-12 Player of the Year, the first Duck in the modern era to take home the award. It’s an incredible accomplishment for a player who came into the year overshadowed by Yovan and Matthews — each of whom still put up great seasons in their own right. The finalists for the award will be announced on June 10.
But on June 10, Zavala and the Ducks hope to have more important things on their mind. They look to still be playing baseball then, as they head into their first regional postseason game on Friday, June 5 against Central Connecticut at 2 p.m. Oregon has been waiting for this moment for the past two years, ever since head coach Mark Wasikowski took over the helm at head coach.
And with Zavala leading the offense, the Ducks are in good hands.
