What's Wrong with the Minnesota Twins' Approach at the Plate?

[Eric Blonigen]

This 2025 Twins team isn’t swinging for the fences, and they're avoiding strikeouts. That doesn’t mean their approach at the plate will work, though.

Image courtesy of © Tim Vizer-Imagn Images

I know, I know: you hate strikeouts. When they come in bunches, they can be frustrating. Swords? Forget about it. Ugly. A strikeout looking with a runner on? Brutal.

What if all the strikeouts aren’t the problem, though? Through five games, the 2025 Twins have taken a measured, old-school approach, emphasizing putting the ball in play. The result? Eight runs scored across their first four games, and just one rally to salvage the game in the latest one.

Even after Tuesday's miniature slump-buster, the Twins have the fourth-lowest batting average in the majors, at .174. Their slugging is also fourth-worst, at .267. Even more predictive metrics like hard-hit rate, launch angle, and barrels are all middle of the pack. This is despite being the beneficiaries of the fourth-highest meatball rate in baseball. With the current Twins approach, they might as well just swing away and take the K, ‘cuz this is no way to live.

Before you tell me “hold on, the Twins have just faced some great pitchers. It’ll be ok,” let’s be real: They have faced a diminished Sonny Gray; the solid but unspectacular duo of Erick Fedde and Andre Pallante; and the husk of Martín Pérez. When they got a look at a rookie who has proved nothing, it was they (rather than he) who looked outmatched.

So what’s behind this frigid start at the plate? A main culprit is that the Twins have hit the ball on the ground nearly 48% of the time, and topped over 35% of the balls they make contact with. In fact, they have the lowest launch angle sweet spot rate in baseball, 10 percentage points worse than the average team. When they're not over the ball, they're under it; no team has hit fewer line drives this year.

They also aren’t walking even a little bit (aside from Matt Wallner, who seems to be picking up right where he left off in 2024). In fact, before Tuesday’s game, the Twins had just 10 2-0 counts to start a plate appearance, by far the lowest in baseball. Making up for lost time, they reached five 2-0 counts Tuesday and drew six walks—and they still have the fewest hitter-friendly counts in baseball so far.

I want to reiterate: that’s no way to live. All of this has led to a .520 team OPS. For perspective, last year, the league hit a collective .222/.280/.337 from the ninth spot in the order. The worst hitter in your average lineup last season was about 100 points ahead of the Twins in OPS.

Common baseball wisdom suggests that hitters typically see one pitch per plate appearance they can crush. Their job is to make sure the at-bat is still alive when they get it, and to take advantage when they do. What we have seen throughout the first handful of games is not dissimilar from what we saw in the collapse down the stretch last season: a lot of mediocre swings at non-competitive pitches. This has led to a lot of weak choppers and lazy pop-ups that are gobbled up for outs. But why is this happening?

A fair amount of this can be attributed to a combination of aggression on non-competitive pitches, passivity on good pitches, and perhaps even a hint of desperation to avoid strikeouts. Let’s look at this theory through two separate plate appearance case studies. Neither of these instances were moments in which the game was on the line, per se, but each could have led to runs with a different approach and outcome. For both of these examples, there have been several others I also could have chosen. So, there’s a theme, for sure.

Aggression on Non-Competitive Pitches
In Sunday’s finale against the Cardinals, Byron Buxton was up with two on and one out, facing Pallante. He struck out on six pitches. The kicker? Not one was in the zone. To be fair, Buxton is a free-swinger and strikeouts are a big part of his game. However, this is extreme even for him. Is it a case of trying to do too much, to jumpstart the sluggish offense? We saw that down the stretch last year, and it seems to be continuing.

Passivity on Good Pitches
Here, in Monday’s game against the White Sox, José Miranda came to the plate in the top of the fourth inning. Facing Martín Pérez, there were two outs and runners on first and second. Now, the game was well out of hand, with the Twins down 9-0. But, there was an opportunity to put a run on the board. In his first pitch, he guessed fastball middle-middle, the bottom dropped out, and he had a swinging strike. With the third pitch, Miranda fouled off a pitch that he didn’t need to swing at, as it was in no way crushable and could have missed the zone entirely. Then, in the sixth pitch of the at-bat, Miranda watched a cutter that was over the heart of the plate go by without a swing. That was his pitch, and he could have pulled it hard.

Carlos Correa’s Timing
Ok. This one deserves a category of its own.

We know Carlos Correa is typically a slow starter. We know he had a rough spring at the plate. But did you know that Correa has averaged just 2.56 pitches per plate appearance? And did you know that the MLB average plate appearance length so far this season is 3.92 pitches? Well, Correa has jumped on the first pitch quite frequently so far, and as often as not, the approach hasn’t worked, even a little bit. For example, in Tuesday’s game facing White Sox Rule 5 pickup Shane Smith, Correa swung at the first pitch. He hit it hard, he hit it into the ground, he hit it 12 feet. Inning-ending double play.

Overall, Tuesday’s game showed a better approach. The hitters were a little more patient, but not passive. They waited for their pitches. Correa had two different lengthy at-bats. And the Twins put up eight runs, en route to their first victory of 2025. Will this showing reverse their early-season trend, or is this an outlier? One thing should be clear, based on roughly the past 40 games the Twins have played: New pitching coach Matt Borgschulte has his work cut out for him.

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[PuckettProtector]

Everything

[Linus]

How about this for a theory: the Twins don’t have many good hitters. 
 

I also think I see hitters with too much information swirling around in their heads. The net effect is they are guess hitters which used to be a pejorative term. 

[Fatbat]

We have more than sucked in the first 4.5 games.

[mikelink45]

If we hadn't stunk the end of last year, this start might have been one we could overlook and say it happens to the best of teams. But the reality is that we are all left with the 2024 season ending slump and hoped to not see it continue in 2025. So now let's hope that the team will face better pitching and have better at bats. For fans. All we could do is Hope

[Major League Ready]

I noticed a big difference between the Cardinals and the Twins.  The Cardinals hitters generally did not swing at “pitcher’s pitches” early in the count.  They took a lot of very close pitches early in the count.  Even if you make contact on those pitches the results are not good.  Several Twins hitters swung at the 1st pitch even when it was a very tough pitch to hit.  Same difference when ahead in the count.  Some of the Twins hitters seem to just make up their mind they are going to take a hack when they are ahead in the count as opposed to selecting a good pitch to hit.  I don’t have the data to substantiate this opinion so maybe my observation is biased but that’s what it looks like to me.

[Karbo]

They have been way to aggressive on the 1st pitch. I haven't been keeping count, but it sure seems to me they swing at that 1st pitch too often, They're not working counts much at all. These pitchers are getting out of innings throwing only 10-15 pitches.

[1991]

I just looked at an article on ESPN about their top 100 players in MLB.  While I don't take a ton of stock in these rankings, I honestly don't believe Correa belongs on the list anymore.  He was the only Twins player...

[Mike Sixel]

It's been four games? They have some mediocre hitters?

[Parfigliano]

1 hour ago, Linus said:

How about this for a theory: the Twins don’t have many good hitters. 
 

I also think I see hitters with too much information swirling around in their heads. The net effect is they are guess hitters which used to be a pejorative term. 

In the immortal words of Ty " be the ball "

[Parfigliano]

13 minutes ago, 1991 said:

I just looked at an article on ESPN about their top 100 players in MLB.  While I don't take a ton of stock in these rankings, I honestly don't believe Correa belongs on the list anymore.  He was the only Twins player...

Correa is the problem?  Only guy that has walked, talked, F ing done it 

[spanman2]

1 hour ago, mikelink45 said:

If we hadn't stunk the end of last year, this start might have been one we could overlook and say it happens to the best of teams. But the reality is that we are all left with the 2024 season ending slump and hoped to not see it continue in 2025. So now let's hope that the team will face better pitching and have better at bats. For fans. All we could do is Hope

Fair point

[Doctor Gast]

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

I noticed a big difference between the Cardinals and the Twins.  The Cardinals hitters generally did not swing at “pitcher’s pitches” early in the count.  They took a lot of very close pitches early in the count.  Even if you make contact on those pitches the results are not good.  Several Twins hitters swung at the 1st pitch even when it was a very tough pitch to hit.  Same difference when ahead in the count.  Some of the Twins hitters seem to just make up their mind they are going to take a hack when they are ahead in the count as opposed to selecting a good pitch to hit.  I don’t have the data to substantiate this opinion so maybe my observation is biased but that’s what it looks like to me.

That's what I noticed, too. The Twins were too aggressive, especially against Gray, when you knew his velo was down, he was going to throw you junk. I think they were trying to counter from being too passive last year,

 

[Fatbat]

Whatever we are doing, it isn’t all that bad. There are a dozen other teams as bad or worse… Braves are 0-6. 

[twinstalker]

Game theory.  Lack thereof.  The Twins seem horrible at it.

[Trov]

Can someone say small sample size.  Wow 5 games into a season and you already say they need to change how they are doing things.  Sure they were 4 very bad offensive games, and as point out just 1 good offensive inning, but lets give them some time before we declare their offense fully busted.