The 5 Hardest-Hit Balls of the Twins 2023 Season

[Nick Nelson]

As we ring in a new year, let's a look back at 2023 and the most ringing contact that Twins hitters were able to produce.

Image courtesy of Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports

As a team, the Twins produced some of the noisiest contact in the league last year. They ranked fifth in the majors in average exit velocity (89.4 MPH), thanks to the American's League's top barrel rate (6.4%). This was very much by design for an offense that made a point out of selling out for power, setting the all-time strikeout record in the process.

Within that, there were some truly dazzling individual feats of bat-to-ball punishment. These were the five hardest-hit balls in play from Twins hitters in 2023, according to Statcast's exit velocity metric.

1. Ryan Jeffers, May 29th: 117.4 MPH (Home Run)
The hardest-hit ball of the 2023 Twins season happened to come in an absolutely crucial spot, making this rocket off the bat of Jeffers one of the more special moments in the entire campaign.

Opening a series against the Astros in Houston, the Twins blew an early lead by coughing up four runs in the seventh. They trailed by one in the ninth, when Royce Lewis (who'd hit a three-run homer earlier in the game) came through with a two-out RBI single. Jhoan Durán held the Astros scoreless in the bottom half, and up came Jeffers to lead off the 10th, with Max Kepler standing on second.

On the very first pitch, Houston reliever Bryan Abreu left a hanger over the heart of the plate, and Jeffers was ready. He destroyed the ball for a game-winning home run, on the hardest-hit ball by any Twins hitter during the Statcast era (dating back to 2015).

2. Byron Buxton, August 1st: 116.9 MPH (Double)
This one is kind of fun, for a couple reasons. I wrote recently about how Buxton's underlying metrics still showed the signs of an elite power hitter who can be a game-changer if he comes back with a healthier knee. Case in point: Buxton produced the second-highest exit velocity of any Twins hitter in 2023 – and the highest of his entire career – in the final game he played. In fact, it was his very last regular-season at-bat.

In the eighth inning of their game against the Cardinals, Buxton faced left-hander John King. On a 2-1 count, he got a 94-MPH fastball down in the zone and ripped it into the left-center gap for a double that reached the wall in approximately two seconds. Buck left us with a lot of question marks in the wake of his tumultuous 2023 campaign, but one thing is clear: he can still mash with the best of 'em.

3. Matt Wallner, September 24th: 116.4 MPH (Double)
The rookie wasted little time in showing off his premier power tool as a big-leaguer, producing more than a dozen drives that were clocked at 110+ MPH in a 76-game debut. His highest reading came on September 24th, against Angels reliever Jose Marte, a low-sailing line drive off an 0-1 changeup that whizzed past the right fielder and to the wall. 'Double' was a generous scoring choice here, but would you have wanted to be right fielder Jo Adell on this?

4. Ryan Jeffers, August 5th: 115.8 MPH (Home Run)
Jeffers shows up again, with another laser-beam home run that cleared the playing field (barely) in an awful hurry. The catcher reached down for one below the knees from D-backs lefty Tyler Gilbert and yanked it into the flower bed atop the left field wall. Hopefully, seeing him twice in the top four here is helping to affirm in your mind what an incredibly strong, powerful hitter Jeffers is – a tremendous asset at the catcher position.

5. Byron Buxton, May 15th: 115.1 MPH (Double)
Despite being limited to 85 games and exclusively DH duty by a bad knee that never really improved, Buxton delivered two of the five hardest hits from Twins players in the 2023 season. His raw power simply cannot be contained. Here, in the ninth inning of a mid-May thriller against the Dodgers, he lashed a game-tying RBI double back up the middle off Dodgers closer Evan Phillips.

Yes, I said double back up the middle. Buxton's low liner whizzed past the left of second base and never slowed down on its way to the wall, giving the center fielder no chance to prevent an extra base given Buxton's wheels. When he's merely healthy enough to step onto the field, Byron Buxton is (still) good y'all!

Do you have a favorite feat of batsman strength from the 2023 Twins? If it's not represented here, feel free to share yours in the comments. 

 

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[Rod Carews Birthday]

I find it pretty crazy that three of the top five hard hit balls wound up as doubles.  Wow!  Exciting to see!  If they hit the wall that hard, I'm surprised they weren't singles. 

[h2oface]

It amazes me that this is even a thing to be glorified. Big whoop. Sure, it is nice to hit the ball hard, but it doesn't really matter how the ball drops in, or out of the park. SMH. It is one thing to glorify the contact and distance of a rare home run, when the perfect angle and power meet in that amazing majestic blast that arcs so fine and goes so far, but just "hard hit", like the Buxton roller and the Wallner double that should have been stopped for a single? Exciting? To each their own.

[Twins_Fan_For_Life]

 

The right fielder on Wallner's line drive looked a lot like Charlie Brown.

[Karbo]

I still say most of the players should develop a 2 strike approach. Swing as hard as you want early and let it rip, but with 2 strikes, especially with someone on base, try to make contact. If they get a hanger, then let it rip. Otherwise, try to make contact.

[JD-TWINS]

8 hours ago, h2oface said:

It amazes me that this is even a thing to be glorified. Big whoop. Sure, it is nice to hit the ball hard, but it doesn't really matter how the ball drops in, or out of the park. SMH. It is one thing to glorify the contact and distance of a home run, when the perfect angle and power meet in that amazing majestic blast that arcs so fine and goes so far, but just "hard hit", like the Buxton roller and the Wallner double that should have been stopped for a single? Exciting? To each their own.

One leads to the other - is Solano slapping the ball in front of the right fielder exciting? If he drives in a run - sure it is. Hard hit balls show high promise to then hit the ball over the fence at some point - denotes a confidence the hitter is winning the battle.

[specialiststeve]

Always "sounds great" but as stated selling out and overswinging also caused this team to obliterate the strike out record... REALLY BAD. Getting back to quality baseball and learning "old school" fundamental baseball will take this team to a higher level.... otherwise we are stuck where we are in mediocre baseball and ugly baseball to watch. 

Learning to cut down with 2 strikes for the team has been a fundamental of good baseball for 100 years and throwing it out the window so once in 50 AB's you hit one to the moon is just bad baseball. Baldelli and the hitting coaches "should" know this by now.  

[mnfireman]

Agree about changing the two-strike approach of most, if not all, Twins batters - but that's a subject for a different discussion.

Hitting the ball hard generally leads to good things because the fielder can't react as quickly and a simple "gapper" like the Buxton example makes it to the wall for extra bases instead of being cut off for a single, or the fielder gets caught on the in-between hop and can't make the play like the Wallner example.

[Rod Carews Birthday]

10 hours ago, h2oface said:

It amazes me that this is even a thing to be glorified. Big whoop. Sure, it is nice to hit the ball hard, but it doesn't really matter how the ball drops in, or out of the park. SMH. It is one thing to glorify the contact and distance of a home run, when the perfect angle and power meet in that amazing majestic blast that arcs so fine and goes so far, but just "hard hit", like the Buxton roller and the Wallner double that should have been stopped for a single? Exciting? To each their own.

I think it's less about glorifying and more about excitement a ball like that can create.  Not all exciting moments are necessarily moments of beauty, but they sure make the game interesting.  If every player hit the ball the same, it wouldn't be as much fun to watch.  It would be very efficient, but not so much fun. 

[tborg]

11 hours ago, h2oface said:

It amazes me that this is even a thing to be glorified. Big whoop. Sure, it is nice to hit the ball hard, but it doesn't really matter how the ball drops in, or out of the park. SMH. It is one thing to glorify the contact and distance of a home run, when the perfect angle and power meet in that amazing majestic blast that arcs so fine and goes so far, but just "hard hit", like the Buxton roller and the Wallner double that should have been stopped for a single? Exciting? To each their own.

Umm... really?  It should absolutely be glorified because it leads to better outcomes.  If the last one on the list is hit at "only" 100 mph it results in either a double play or a single up the middle.  Instead, because it was hit so hard it resulted in a game tying double.  I also don't think the hard hit rate and the strikeout rate are necessarily related, because it doesn't look to me like the hitters are overswinging in any of these videos.  It would be interesting to see if there is a statistical relation between the two.