The Wallner-Gallo Problem: A Case Against the Lineup Value of Matt Wallner

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images

Editor's Note: Welcome to the final installment of a series meant to dig deeper into the most compelling enigma on the 2025 Twins: outfielder Matt Wallner. Check out Eric Blonigen's piece about Wallner and Trevor Larnach, and Cody Pirkl's on whether Wallner deserves more respect than he gets from either fans or his employers. Today, though, we'll take the conversation down a slightly different path.

This article started with an email. Almost two weeks ago, I got a note from Twins Daily co-founder John Bonnes. It came in the wake of the Twins' win over the Tigers on August 17—a good game, but one in which Matt Wallner went 0-3, with nothing but a walk after the game had long been decided. Specifically, in the bottom of the third, Wallner had come up with runners on the corners and one out, and he'd struck out. It got John thinking.

"I was reminded that his WPA this year is negative," John wrote. "And, in fact, he’s never had a positive WPA greater than 0.5. Which, I think is a big discrepancy from his WAR."

He was alluding to win probability added, of course. That stat apportions credit and blame to hitters and pitchers for the outcomes of games, using the expected runs and wins implied by the situations in which each plate appearance takes place and the effect of the outcome of each such battle on those expectations. Different sites measure these things very slightly differently, and I'll use Baseball Reference's framework for this piece; they did credit Wallner with 0.6 WPA in 2024. John was right, though, to note that Wallner is at -0.6 this year. Despite an OPS+ of 122 that suggests stoutly above-average production, he hasn't pushed the Twins toward wins this year. On balance, he's pushed them away from them.

Naturally, John was also right that that lack of value from a context-sensitive perspective stands in stark contrast with the inputs for his WAR value at Baseball Reference, and elsewhere. The best way to view this, perhaps, is to compare his batting runs (Rbat, the number of runs the site's model estimates he's been worth relative to a league-average batter) with his RE24 (the runs he's added based on the expected runs when he came up, after accounting for the 24 possible base-out states). This doesn't account for fluctuations in game leverage, but it adjusts from measuring raw outcomes to baking in the runners on base and the number of outs each time Wallner came to bat. His Rbat this year is 10. His RE24 is just 2.4.

 

When you hear that, surely, you think the same thing everyone else does: well, sure. That extreme high-strikeout, power-over-hit profile leads to homers and walks and pretty individual numbers, but it can't win games.

 

"So I just looked at Joey Gallo’s stats page and found something very similar," John continued. "Gallo had a few years where his WAR was four. Overall, for his career, his WPA was negative. Even in those years that he posted a high WAR, WPA was barely positive."

 

It's true. Gallo had -4.2 WPA for his career, though he rated as an above-average hitter before adjusting for situations. Gallo, like Wallner, had a patient approach and light-tower power, but ran a strikeout rate near the upper limit of what the league will accept. Thus, John posed the question:

 

"Is it possible this type of player Fs with the correlation that we have between WAR and winning games? Like, if you are a player whose OPS is heavily dependent on SLG, does WPA tend to have a negative discrepancy compared to WAR? In short, are the cranks on all-or-nothing hitters right?"

 

It's a fair question. In fact, if we want to properly value one of the presumptive core pieces of the team's medium-term future, it's one we'd better find a good answer to. So I decided to try.

 

Offense is made up, mostly, of four components: the ability to avoid strikeouts, the ability to draw walks, the ability to get hits on balls in play, and the ability to hit for power. Strikeout rate, walk rate, BABIP and isolated power (ISO, which is just slugging average minus batting average) are the big four for a first-level analysis of any player. Here's what I did:

 

• Assembled a list of all players with at least 100 plate appearances this year (n=471)
• Listed their rOBA, Baseball Reference's context-neutral rate stat for offensive output; strikeout and walk rates; BABIP and ISO; and WPA/PA, which is just their win probability added divided by their number of plate appearances, to make WPA a rate stat, too.
• Found the correlations between (first) rOBA and (next) WPA/PA for BABIP, ISO, K% and BB%

If we're onto something here—if how you generate value at the plate influences how much you contribute situationally—we should see a different relationship between those correlations for rOBA than for WPA/PA. Here's the data.

Correlation to:	BABIP	ISO	K%	BB%
rOBA	0.59	0.72	-0.18	0.38
WPA/PA	0.42	0.58	-0.18	0.29
Ratio	1.4	1.26	0.98	1.29

The correlations are (almost) all considerably stronger for rOBA than for WPA/PA, which makes sense. Adding things beyond the control of the hitter (the situation in which he comes to bat) adds noise to the whole system. Still, as you can see, there's something to the idea that different shapes of production matter more (or less) when you add the game state to the equation. There's evidence, here, that striking out more makes you less helpful to winning games than your simple stat line implies. On the other hand, power still appears to be pretty important. It's the ability to find holes when putting the ball in play (a noisy skill to begin with, as we know) that loses the most potency when we switch from a context-neutral to a context-dependent way of measuring batting value.

The "or-nothing" in all-or-nothing hitters seems to be the broad source of their problems producing as many wins as the runs they produce would be expected to create. But that's a bit of a problem for our narrative. Wallner is hitting for more power and walking just as much this year, but he's striking out markedly less than he did in 2024. It's still a lot, but he's less extreme than he used to be. The category in which he's suffered in 2025, as our previous examinations of him this week have already shown, is BABIP, which isn't supposed to be what makes or breaks a hitter's capacity to influence WPA as much as they increase raw scoring.

In Wallner's case, at least, the answer's simpler and less structural than that. Guys who depend on slug don't broadly tend to have a worse WPA than you'd expect; that's only true of certain individuals. Once we acknowledge that, we can look a bit closer.

Here are Wallner's 2025 (and career) numbers in low-leverage, medium-leverage, and high-leverage situations.

• Low Leverage: .289/.359/.726 (.284/.380/.631)
• Medium Leverage: .150/.267/.260 (.195/.315/.371)
• High Leverage: .125/.327/.350 (.205/.339/.425)

In the plate appearances that hardly matter at all, in terms of winning or losing, Wallner is a machine. When the stakes rise even modestly, though, he's pretty bad—and specifically, he becomes extremely dependent not on hitting for power, but on drawing walks to deliver any value. So, is Wallner simply un-clutch?

That can, of course, be part of the answer. For that matter, that can be extrapolated a bit to other hitters, too. Even if leaning on power and striking out a lot don't fundamentally lead to less win production than run production on their own, do they make one less likely to be able to hit the better pitchers who tend to pitch more important innings?

For that, perhaps, there's some evidence. If you've been trying to figure out why the Twins themselves also seem not to have much faith in Wallner, by the way, this is the time to start paying extra attention. What's one trait we can safely say most high-leverage pitchers have, to set them apart from those who work when the game is essentially decided? They throw harder. Here's the run value (per 100 pitches) for all Twins hitters on pitches at a velocity of at least 96 mph, among those who have seen at least 100 such pitches this year.

• Willi Castro: 0.048
• Brooks Lee: -0.497
• Harrison Bader: -0.855
• Byron Buxton: -0.934
• Carlos Correa: -1.128
• Kody Clemens: -1.680
• Wallner: -1.682
• Royce Lewis: -1.762
• Ryan Jeffers: -1.826
• Trevor Larnach: -1.900
• Ty France: -1.909
• Christian Vázquez: -2.472

That might not look so bad—no one on the Twins has hit heaters that hot all that well this year, and Wallner falls in the middle of the pack. Maybe it's simply too hard to hit upper-90s fastballs to expect anyone to regularly hit them hard. Alas, all this really turns out to mean is that the Twins are uniquely bad at handling those fastballs. Among 138 players who have seen at least 200 such heaters this year, almost half (65) have positive run value against them, and Wallner's rate ranks 120th of the cohort.

Why, though? The defining characteristic of Wallner at the plate is his elite bat speed. We could understand France or Larnach or even Jeffers getting overwhelmed a bit by pitches approaching triple digits on the radar gun, but why Wallner? That's the next question, and one we probably can't completely or perfectly answer here. This is a durable problem, though, and one tied to the nature of his swing. Over a decade ago, before Statcast gave us any insights like these, I began to suppose that what great bat speed really does for hitters is allow extra time for the swing decision—facilitating power by letting a hitter spot the spin on a breaking pitch or the telltale change in arm action on a changeup, and still (after starting late) get the barrel out in front of them and hammer the ball.

Meanwhile, the hitters who handle velocity well might or might not have great bat speed, but what gets them to those high-octane heaters on time and on plane is the fact that they make early decisions. Wallner makes slightly late ones, and as good as bat speed is, the difference between someone who triggers their swing early and someone who can't is larger than that between someone with 76 mph bat speed and someone at 72. The problem with a very simple plan to start sooner, for someone with that 76-mph swing like Wallner (or Gallo), is that they might end up too early on breaking or offspeed stuff. 

Wallner is limited by his inability to hit good fastballs. He can do plenty of other things, but not being able to do that puts a low ceiling on his real, situational utility. That's why he bats lower in batting orders than you might otherwise guess, and it's why his raw numbers don't match his win probability metrics. When the game is on the line, teams know how to create a bad matchup for him. If he can eventually fix this—if some approach adjustment allows him to get started earlier, without ending up ahead of everything but the game's best fastballs—Wallner might well blossom into a truly lethal slugger. For now, though, the curmudgeons are at least partially right about him—even if not for the exact reasons John and I might have initially imagined.

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[Fatbat]

Wally is catastrophically killing rallies on a regular basis. He is looking more like the frustrating side of Gallo as his career develops. 3 guys in AAA are gunning for 2 OF spots so something needs to change. 

[Nshore]

One of the many things Baldelli does that I don't agree with is bat Wallner lead off. I guess it doesn't matter if you swing and miss as the first hitter or the fifth.  But batting as the lead off hitter IMO encourages a more passive "looking at a lot of pitches" approach which doesn't help Wallner at all.  Wallner is not a table setter, he's a heavy hitter.   But for some reason, the Twins never ask for my opinion.🙂

[tarheeltwinsfan]

Fascinating article. Thanks Matthew and John. 

[Jack207]

I can never understand how Rocco can bat Wallner or Larnich in the leadoff spot. Not only are they double play candidates in later innings to kill rallies, strike out candidates, but they also clog the bases

if they happen to single.

[Doug Y]

Maybe the subtitle of this article should be why OPS is not the new batting average. It’s a useful stat, but it favors high slugging over contact. We keep looking for the one perfect stat to define all hitters, but so far it doesn’t exist. 

[Bodie]

Can't run.

Bad instincts. 

Bad arm - strong, but incredibly slow to get going.

And to top it off a K-prone, one-dimenional unproductive hitter.

Gallo- like for a multitude of reasons...

[Linus]

Interesting insights. I just think it comes down to his swing. That huge leg kick makes complicated timing of the variability of speed on pitches. He has so much raw power that he could ditch the leg kick and still hit the ball really hard. 

[1985Fan]

This confirms what we see when watching the games; Twins hitters mostly fail in the clutch. I suspect the reason Wallner can’t produce against high velocity in clutch situations is his batting stance/swing mechanics. The wide open stance to start that then moves into the plate leaves him vulnerable to fastballs middle-in. He’ll never be able to catch up to those pitches with that swing. If he tries to compensate by starting a little early, he’s way out front on off speed or breaking pitches away. 

[Mike h]

I’ve noticed that Wallner perspires excessively, or at least more than an average hitter.  It seems like after every pitch he removes his helmet and wipes his brow.  Who else does that?  Anyway, it could be due to heat or due to nerves.  After reading how his numbers decrease in clutch situations I am inclined to think it’s nerves.  The more critical the situation the more nervous he gets.  So how do you fix that? 
Regardless, give him a sweatband to wear around his forehead.  It’s hard to see the ball with sweat in your eyes.

 

[In My La Z boy]

Do you think our coaches know this? How are we not hitting fastballs? Nice to see Brooks Lee on top of the list. Fans have given him an undeserved beating lately. He's going to be a gamer 100%. On Wallner, we've missed our peak value window on him for making a trade, so we'll probably trade him this winter after picking up 2 more left-handed hitting corner OF'ers at the trade deadline. What is Falvey's obsession with left-handed hitting corner OF'ers??? How many does one team need???

[Riverbrian]

I like his progress. K Rate Down... Walk Rate Up... Home Run Rate Up. Exit Velo still in the upper echelon of MLB despite a drop in hard hit percentage. 

His BABIP has always been high and it was going to come down. This year his BABIP is really really low and it's going to come up. 

Wallner isn't Gallo. Wallner isn't eligible for Arbitration until 2027. He will cost us the minimum next year and he can still work on things, while Gallo cost us 11 million dollars and he wasn't going to be back. 

Stick with Wallner.  

 

[Old Twins Cap]

1 hour ago, Bodie said:

Can't run.

Bad instincts. 

Bad arm - strong, but incredibly slow to get going.

And to top it off a K-prone, one-dimenional unproductive hitter.

Gallo- like for a multitude of reasons...

Gallo was at least a pretty good defensive player.

[Woof Bronzer]

Matthew, I hate to break it to you, but according to the last couple Wallner articles, if you criticize Wallner you don't know anything about baseball.  Sorry bud.  

Seriously - good piece, you took a cold scientific approach to this and let the results shape your opinion, rather than start with an opinion and cherry pick stats to support it (and belittle fans who dare to feel differently).  Thanks for this!

[Jeff K]

14 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

I like his progress. K Rate Down... Walk Rate Up... Home Run Rate Up. Exit Velo still in the upper echelon of MLB despite a drop in hard hit percentage. 

His BABIP has always been high and it was going to come down. This year his BABIP is really really low and it's going to come up. 

Wallner isn't Gallo. Wallner isn't eligible for Arbitration until 2027. He will cost us the minimum next year and he can still work on things, while Gallo cost us 11 million dollars and he wasn't going to be back. 

Stick with Wallner.  

 

Preferably at first base.

[LambchoP]

I think Wallner COULD be a viable middle of the order bat if he improves upon a few things. He needs to cut down on the K's and make more contact. Right now he is a true 3 outcome hitter. It's HR, walk, or nothing. I think we should see if he can play first base. DH would be best for him but it would hurt his value. Maybe it's best to DH him regularly and have him play RF only on a part time basis. Next year will be important for him to put a good season together because a lot of younger options are coming up soon. Guys like Fedko, Rodriguez, Gonzalez, Rosario, and eventually Jenkins. I think guys like Larnach, Outman and Roden should be long gone.

[David Maro]

His problem is the same as the list of players on this roster. They get to 2 strikes and still swing for the fences. When ducks are on the pond get the ball in play. Watching a team like the Brewers or the Padres they will move runners into scoring position with sac bunts and use the sac flies. When you rely on the long ball you are the team out of the playoffs.

[rv78]

I can understand the reason for the Gallo comparison but In 2023 and 2024 Wallner was a much better hitter than Gallo. Those 2 seasons he averaged a .250 BA and a .370 OBP. In fact, he looked to be better or at least equal to the guy (Kepler) he was replacing. Yes, this season he has fallen in those 2 catagories which is disturbing but maybe it's just an off "year" for him. Everyone has them. As far as I'm concerned Gallo had an off "career", when it came to making contact. I'll never understand anyone being enamored with a home run hitter that can't hit above the mendoza line. So far in his 4 year career Wallner has gotten about 1.5 seasons worth of at bats. Hardly enough time to make fair comparisons to anybody. The most disturbing thing you have shown is his failure at being clutch in medium to high situations. This could be attributed to many factors, such as the number of those being a small sample size or just his confidence level in those situations. Sometimes players, especially young ones, just try too hard in high leverage situations instead of staying relaxed and within themselves. As for Rocco batting Wallner in the leadoff spot, it isn't any brighter than having Buxton there. Sometimes you just have to close your eyes and not watch the stupidity.

[GNess]

Great analysis and effort to characterize Wallner as a hitter. I, being more simplistic in my ability to quantify performance see it like this - Wallner strikes out too much in general and especially when it matters most.

[NYCTK]

1 hour ago, Riverbrian said:

Wallner isn't Gallo.

Correct. Gallo could play defense and was therefore a much more valuable player in his career. 

[LA Vikes Fan]

Interesting analysis. It does tend to go with the eye test of watching Wallner consistently be unable to handle the high strike fastball in critical situations. The elite pitchers have that pitch and can throw it for strikes at 96+ MPH; the average or lesser pitchers do not and cannot. Funny thing is, you can correlate this to his more prosaic, easy to follow stats - pitchers found this flaw this year and he's hitting .215, up from the .200 he was at instead of the .259 he hit last year. He hits .240-.260 he's a middle of the order bat; at .200-.230 he's a part time DH hitting 7th. I will say though that his stats against LH pitching are markedly improved this year so he may be able to play every day. 

Now I get to the part where I part company with both the "Wallner is the next star" and "Wallner is Joey Gallo, trade him while we still can" crowds.  The swing flaw is fixable and the guy has had only 765 MLB ABs. We can also hope that any nerves or similar issue will improve over time, Trading or releasing Wallner, as some would have us do, makes no sense to me. His trade value is in the prospects range, not in the valuable MLB piece range. If release him, he will get snapped up by a bottom feeder team, hit 35 HRs a year for a loser, and be in the All Star game - think Brent Rooker - and we will get nothing for an asset that has some value. Conversely, he's not a middle of the order bat now and may never become one. In fact, he may be Dave Kingman. We know that the continuum ranges from srikeout prone low leverage only slugger to All Star. We just don't know where he will land. 

I think the next month plus the 2026 season will tell the tale on Wallner. I'm frankly optimistic that he can become a lineup asset in spots 4-6 but then I'm an optimist by nature. He'll never be a defensive asset but he can be average(ish) in RF or at least not a negative and maybe can play 1B. I'd like to se them try him at 1B with our OF MiLB depth.  

By the way guys, thanks for this series. I found it very interesting. I'd love to see a similar analysis on Lee and Lewis, who I think are the keys to whether this can be a short rebuild along with Wallner and Keaschall. Let's be real, if those 4 plus Buxton aren't above average or better, we're screwed no matter how good the pitching is unless someone else comes us as Keaschall and comes up soon. Maybe Jenkins? Besides, this season is a complete disaster. This gives us something positive to talk about with this sad sack franchise. 

[AKTwinsFan]

Its because of his stance, it really restricts him getting to high or low pitches. But anything middle middle he clobbers. I would bet if he got traded the new organization would have him square up more and not have such a high leg kick. Allowing him to get to more pitches.

[jmlease1]

16 minutes ago, LA VIkes Fan said:

Now I get to the part where I part company with both the "Wallner is the next star" and "Wallner is Joey Gallo, trade him while we still can" crowds.

Here's the thing though: hardly anyone defending Wallner (hell, I dunno if you can find anyone around here at all) is saying he's the next star. People like me are saying "he's a good hitter! we need that!" in response to the seemingly increasing numbers of people who think he's trash.

Wallner's not a star. But he has been and can be a good starter and dangerous hitter. An interesting case has been made here for looking at why Wallner's production at the plate might not be the best judge of his true value...but even then I don't think Matthew is suggesting dumping Wallner.

[T.O.]

3 hours ago, Mike h said:

I’ve noticed that Wallner perspires excessively, or at least more than an average hitter.  It seems like after every pitch he removes his helmet and wipes his brow.  Who else does that?  Anyway, it could be due to heat or due to nerves.  After reading how his numbers decrease in clutch situations I am inclined to think it’s nerves.  The more critical the situation the more nervous he gets.  So how do you fix that? 
Regardless, give him a sweatband to wear around his forehead.  It’s hard to see the ball with sweat in your eyes.

 

I've thought it looked like he sticks his nose into his helmet and smells it in between pitches. Or maybe reading his cheat sheet? Then has a weird way of starting with the back of the helmet and sliding it on his head. 
Maybe it is sweat that's distracting him. Regardless not a clutch hitter.

[LA Vikes Fan]

1 hour ago, jmlease1 said:

Here's the thing though: hardly anyone defending Wallner (hell, I dunno if you can find anyone around here at all) is saying he's the next star. People like me are saying "he's a good hitter! we need that!" in response to the seemingly increasing numbers of people who think he's trash.

Wallner's not a star. But he has been and can be a good starter and dangerous hitter. An interesting case has been made here for looking at why Wallner's production at the plate might not be the best judge of his true value...but even then I don't think Matthew is suggesting dumping Wallner.

I agree that he can be a good starter and a dangerous hitter. Who knows where his ceiling can be? He could be a .260/.370/.520 hitter with 35+ HRs and a 25% SO rate. Not likely, but within the realm of possibility. Not to parse words, but that kind of production would make him a star, at least for this team. 

There are people here and apparently on social media that think he should be traded or released, Now that may have been sad in the heat of the moment, but that's really where my opposition lies, To me, that would be a real mistake. 

[RpR]

3 hours ago, LambchoP said:

I think Wallner COULD be a viable middle of the order bat if he improves upon a few things. He needs to cut down on the K's and make more contact. Right now he is a true 3 outcome hitter. It's HR, walk, or nothing. I think we should see if he can play first base. DH would be best for him but it would hurt his value. Maybe it's best to DH him regularly and have him play RF only on a part time basis. Next year will be important for him to put a good season together because a lot of younger options are coming up soon. Guys like Fedko, Rodriguez, Gonzalez, Rosario, and eventually Jenkins. I think guys like Larnach, Outman and Roden should be long gone.

IF hse does this; If he does that; IF he does the other thing.

The world of IF, IF, IF....

[Hubie29]

4 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

I like his progress. K Rate Down... Walk Rate Up... Home Run Rate Up. Exit Velo still in the upper echelon of MLB despite a drop in hard hit percentage. 

His BABIP has always been high and it was going to come down. This year his BABIP is really really low and it's going to come up. 

Wallner isn't Gallo. Wallner isn't eligible for Arbitration until 2027. He will cost us the minimum next year and he can still work on things, while Gallo cost us 11 million dollars and he wasn't going to be back. 

Stick with Wallner.  

 

I would stick with Wallner over Gallo, yes. Prob even over my 2 Grandpas.

[Doctor Gast]

I like Wallner, IMO, he has improved both defensively & offensively. It's easy to get impatient with him, but I blame it more on the lack of development. 

Somebody claimed that those who don't like Wallner are those who think defense is everything. But I claim that those who love Wallner are those who think OPS is the true standard for how good a player is & ignore everything else. RF isn't a premium position, so defense is less of a factor (but still is a factor). I have always advocated the Brewers' way of playing baseball, which defense & clutch hitting are more important in winning games than hitting a bunch of HRs when you don't need them & striking out when you need a hit. 

I have no idea how they figure WPA, but most of the time they seem off, especially with - WPA. IMO, OPS or even WAR aren't a true indicator of value. Somehow they have to come up with a better stat that includes a better defensive stat with clutch hitting & baserunning to better gauge value. & how do you measure the intangibles? I'll still go with my eye.

[old nurse]

There was a guy playing for Texas named Joey Gallo  if Wallner turned into that guy I don’t think people would mind. Then there was the Joey Gallo who bounced around to different teams. I think teams thought they were getting their guy who played for Texas named Joey. 

[cheeseheadgophfan]

Spread out over 550 AB's this year, he hits 40 HR's.   He is what he is and will presumably continue to improve.  I don't know how you measure defense but I don't think he is terrible.  And anyone who thinks his arm isn't borderline elite isn't watching the same guy.

I do think one of he or Larnach should grab a 1B glove in the offseason and learn the position. The fact that we have no real first baseman is ridiculous.  Clemons isn't the long term answer.