Trevor Larnach is Avoiding Whiffs, At All Costs

[Cody Pirkl]

After a solid 2024 season, the young outfielder is off to a poor start this spring, and the underlying numbers suggest his struggles aren’t just bad luck. What’s changed for the Twins' left fielder?

Image courtesy of Jordan Johnson-USA TODAY Sports

Trevor Larnach made significant strides in 2024, particularly in his whiff rates and performance against non-fastballs. After slashing his strikeout rate to 22.3% last season, he’s striking out even less in 2025. He also has yet to barrel a single ball, and has contributed very little offensively. Could Larnach be leaning too far into his adjusted plate approach?

In 2024, we finally saw Larnach make good on his prospect pedigree. He posted career bests across the board, resulting in a 15-homer season with a .771 OPS despite playing through foot problems. He was 21% better than the league-average hitter, and looked to break through as a trustworthy piece of the Twins lineup while so many others struggled. He pulled the ball more, swung and missed less, and showed a balanced plate approach that should hold up consistently.

So far in 2025, Larnach has shown some concerning trends that have led to his struggles. Dropping his strikeout rate in 2024 was a welcome development. Dropping it even further in 2025 has led to some unintended consequences.

Larnach’s quality of contact has been extremely poor so far this season, and it’s easy to see why. While he’s still posting strong walk rates, his chase rate is above 30%, a mark he’s never come close to in his career. This hasn’t been reflected in his strikeout rate, because he’s making contact on these swings outside of the zone over half the time, but that's just leading to poor contact. It’s the same issue we saw from Jose Miranda before his demotion. The ability to make contact isn’t always valuable.

Despite Larnach’s suddenly free-swinging tendencies, he’s also become oddly passive in certain situations. He’s swung at just over 13% of first pitches in his at-bats, by far the lowest rate of his career. Perhaps on a related note, he’s swung at a career-low 60% of pitches in the heart of the plate. It makes sense, then, that he’s slashing just .143/.409/.214 when ahead in the count.

It’s impossible to succeed while swinging at so many pitches outside the zone and letting so many hittable pitches go by. When Larnach does make contact, he’s pulling the ball a career-low 34.9% of the time and using the opposite field a career-high 32.6% of the time. It’s tough to say what’s going through Larnach’s head when he’s at the plate, but it sure looks like he’s in survival mode, trying to fight off pitches and make sure he makes contact. He’s swinging and missing at a career-low rate so far, but it’s coming at the expense of any offensive production.

It’s possible that, after significantly reducing his strikeouts last season, Larnach is trying to take things a step further in 2025 and has taken his adjustments too far. Regardless of the reason, he’s entirely out of sorts at the plate, and the Twins are taking notice. He’s already been moved down in the order as the offense has continued to struggle, and top prospect Emmanuel Rodriguez could push for playing time at the MLB level sometime this season.

At 28 years old and in his fifth season at the MLB level, Larnach will have to show something relatively quickly, given his lack of track record. If the offense continues to struggle, the range of available options may widen in the Twins’ eyes as they look for any spark.

We’re watching the downside of avoiding strikeouts at all costs. After finding a winning formula last season, he hasn’t been able to repeat it in 2025. Can he adjust his plate approach before it’s too late?

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[Cory Engelhardt]

You mention Rodriguez, but I'd argue Keaschall could also be in line for LF play at some point too.

[Mike Sixel]

I mean, at what point do we look at the career so far, and say he's not good enough? I am shocked, but it might just be time to give him a change of scenery. 

[laloesch]

5 minutes ago, Cory Engelhardt said:

You mention Rodriguez, but I'd argue Keaschall could also be in line for LF play at some point too.

I'd take both at some point this season.  The OF hitters have been bad on offense, not nearly as bad as the infielders, but bad enough.  This season is shaping up to be an extended tryout for future retooled lineups, the sooner they get started the better.

[bean5302]

65 plate appearances, and pitchers are focusing on Larnach's most glaring Achilles Heel. The changeup. Larnach is seeing nearly a quarter of his pitches as changeups this year, but he's been doing some damage with them.

Historcially, Larnach destroys 4 seamers, and I expect he'll be back at it this year. Byron Buxton struggled for a couple months catching up to fastballs last year with a needed timing adjustment, and I suspect Larnach's timing is just off right now as well.

It takes consistent playing time to work through slumps. Baldelli doesn't recognize the value of consistent time, consistent positions, consistent routines, consistent pitch counts, consistent anything. It may be tough for Larnach to work through it.

[thelanges5]

Was really encouraged by his performance LY. Good college hitter that hasn’t figured out the MLB. Another of the many concerning starts for the hitting side in 2025. 

[tony&rodney]

I'm concerned by the weak performance but will wait until he passes 100 plate appearances. The Twins are as cold as the weather. The roster is all there is for now and patience will be the only option until mid May at the earliest.

[NYCTK]

Young? The median age for position players is something like 28. Trevor Larnach is 28. Is the median player young also? 

[NYCTK]

18 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

I mean, at what point do we look at the career so far, and say he's not good enough? I am shocked, but it might just be time to give him a change of scenery. 

This is the sad reality of the Twins. The front office hyped up middling prospects as saviors and the fans gave them the benefit of the doubt. 

Miranda. Martin. Larnach. Lee. Julien. Even Wallner. These are all those players with a C or D rating in potential in The Show. You can't build a team around them but you can hope one or two pops and becomes a regular. 

Sadly the Twins are just filled with them while their premier prospects presented severe health issues. 

Window is closed. This organization should sell everything they can and play for 2027. 

[Guest]

Hey, not to worry.  It's still Spring Training for about 2/3 of these guys....

[Cory Engelhardt]

2 minutes ago, Minderbinder said:

Hey, not to worry.  It's still Spring Training for about 2/3 of these guys....

That's what is so disappointing. Other teams had spring training at the same time as Minnesota, right? I didn't miss where the Twins started spring training 3 weeks later than everyone else did? :)

[nicksaviking]

Miranda, Julien, Buxton, Lewis, Jeffers. The drastic year-to-year strikeout increase/decrease and the drastic year-to-year offensive production increase/decrease is NOT isolated to just Larnach; this seems to be systematic.

I applaud the team for seeing an issue and trying to remedy the situation. But they are TERRIBLE at it. They clearly do not have the remedy.

[mickster]

1 hour ago, NYCTK said:

This is the sad reality of the Twins. The front office hyped up middling prospects as saviors and the fans gave them the benefit of the doubt. 

Miranda. Martin. Larnach. Lee. Julien. Even Wallner. These are all those players with a C or D rating in potential in The Show. You can't build a team around them but you can hope one or two pops and becomes a regular. 

Sadly the Twins are just filled with them while their premier prospects presented severe health issues. 

Window is closed. This organization should sell everything they can and play for 2027. 

I don't agree that the window is closed.  I do think that the Twins hold onto prospects way too long and could have used some of those at the MLB level and those coming in the pipeline to trade for need.  This means selling high on some, and yes seeing some do well with another club.   I would take that risk versus holding onto all of them and they never reach their ceiling at the MLB level 

[Doctor Gast]

1 hour ago, NYCTK said:

 

Twins are playing the Mets. Who are you rooting for?

[NYCTK]

4 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

Twins are playing the Mets. Who are you rooting for?

Prior to the trade deadline 2024, this was a tough question. But that week made the direction and management of each franchise clear and I haven't been even slightly torn in rooting interest in their two series since. 

This Twins team is bad. Not quite as bad as their record, but bad nonetheless. And they were bad last year too. Always like to remind people they were 70-79 against teams that weren't the worst team in major league history. And that record is now 73-90 including this season. 

Time to blow it up. Striving for mediocrity isn't working, and they've officially lost the fans meaning it's time to do something bold. 

[Twinss]

Larnach has had a 1000+ plate appearances in the MLB with less than average stats.

Batting.234, Slug is .393.

not good enough. Off ya go!

[Doctor Gast]

It sounded great this spring training when they announced that they were practicing situational hitting. I'm all in favor of that, cutting down on SOs & such. But now I'm wondering how they were taught, because they should be having better contact not worse. IMO, they shouldn't have made it mandatory for everyone just players like Julien. Because it seems to me that it could have screwed up many hitters swings.

[jkcarew]

These guys were all (90%+ of all mlb) developed from early youth baseball right through the amateur and minor league years to hit with one approach…wait for a pitch that you can drive and hit it in the air…preferably to your pull side.

To make them ‘contact’, ‘situational’, or any other kind of hitter at the major league level is an exercise in futility.

If you want to change the approach, you need to scout, acquire, and develop with that approach in mind.

Anyone whose job was running a baseball team would realize this….right?

[Sjoski]

Ship him off the the A's...he'll find his stroke there.

30+ homers a year...All-Star game.

$60+ million contract. 

$10 million signing bonus. 

[USAFChief]

This article has nothing to do with strikeouts. 

It has to do with swinging at pitches outside the zone. It has to do with not swinging at pitches IN the zone, and/or not hitting pitches in the zone hard.

The author seems to be implying more strikeouts would improve Larnach's performance  

Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Not swinging at balls, and punishing strikes, would improve his output.

[jkcarew]

1 hour ago, Sjoski said:

Ship him off the the A's...he'll find his stroke there.

30+ homers a year...All-Star game.

$60+ million contract. 

$10 million signing bonus. 

You forgot…

Top 10 MVP votes

Silver slugger

[Mike Sixel]

1 hour ago, Sjoski said:

Ship him off the the A's...he'll find his stroke there.

30+ homers a year...All-Star game.

$60+ million contract. 

$10 million signing bonus. 

He'd have to be DFA, then every team pass on him, then only get his chance due to injury

[Sjoski]

1 hour ago, jkcarew said:

You forgot…

Top 10 MVP votes

Silver slugger

Nice catch.

Rooker was also honored with:

American League Player of the Week:

April 29 – May 5, 2024: .

April 24 – April 30, 2023: .

[bean5302]

4 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

He'd have to be DFA, then every team pass on him, then only get his chance due to injury

Yeah... if Larnach only had 200 PA at the MLB level before the Twins wrote him off.

[LambchoP]

Long term I think Larnach should be traded. He won't hit as much as Wallner and we have Buxton, Rodriguez, Keaschal and Mccusker long term. Not to mention possibilities in Gonzalez, Rosario or outside additions. Short term I think he could benefit from a AAA trip like Wallner last year. Problem is, who replaces him? Martin was doing great, but of course he's hurt now. Mccusker? Do they risk putting Keaschal in the OF? Smarter move would probably be let Keaschal play second base, if his arm is ready, and have Castro play LF. I don't think Em Rodriguez is quite ready for the MLB just yet. Let him prove himself at AAA first.