An Extreme Approach Has Caught Up to Trevor Larnach in Ugly Fashion

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of Ken Blaze-Imagn Images

Hitting, in 2026, is all about conviction. Conviction, in turn, is about confidence. Sometimes, it even needs to be about arrogance. Trevor Larnach has always been a hitter defined by extremes, and taking hitting to extremes means walking that tightrope of braided confidence and arrogance across the abyss of self-doubt and overthinking. It means getting from the batter's box to second base without looking down. He's never struck that balance better than he did for the first four months of this season, but suddenly, he's caught a toe, turned his head, and finds himself freefalling.

If all that sounds a bit grandiose, well, that's life in the big leagues—and life, especially, in the heat of an unexpected push toward the playoffs. Larnach was not supposed to be a key cog in a Twins offense charting its course for October, but here we are. He entered the season as a platoon bat on whom the organization had gone lukewarm, if not quite cold; Derek Shelton named Matt Wallner as the left-hitting corner outfielder who would play even against lefties. Larnach would have to earn his keep.

Earn it he did, though. Wallner has spent the last 100-plus days in St. Paul, while Larnach emerged over the first half as a fixture at the top of Shelton's lineup card against right-handed starters. He weathered the lefty-heavy early stretch of the season by drawing oodles of walks, but as April's frost yielded to May's mere chill, Larnach warmed up faster than the weather. By July 1, he was batting .284/.376/.428. You want more power than that from your lumbering left fielder, but you can't argue with those numbers. Then, a funny thing happened: he got even hotter. In his first 60 plate appearances of July, he hit .333/.400/.574, with seven extra-base hits. There was the power. His star turn was underway.

There are two ways to explain what's happened since—which is, in a word, calamity. In the last four weeks, over 68 plate appearances, Larnach is batting .127/.191/.222. One way to explain that is that he got greedy. Fueled by that July surge and home runs on back-to-back days even to begin August, he got big. He got pull-happy. He got a little "dig me" in him, as big-leaguers say, and that loss of focus pulled him out of the narrow groove in which he found all that success in the first place.

The other explanation is sadder—or maybe the two explanations are equally sad, but this one casts Larnach as a more sympathetic figure. Right around the time that he plunged into the abyss we talked about a minute ago, the Twins agreed to trade him to the Astros in a deal that would have netted them reliever Bryan Abreu. Houston owner Jim Crane, whose Batman villain name would be The Meddler, stepped in and scuppered the deal, and the Twins pivoted. They found their high-leverage reliever in Toronto, instead, and gave up prospects for Jeff Hoffman, electing to keep Larnach. It's not clear that that choice was all that active, though. Two league sources said the team talked to the Padres about Larnach on deadline day, so the team remained open to moving him in certain deals. That the nixed Larnach-Abreu swap went so widely public and became such hard evidence of the team's willingness to give up on him, though, has to have been difficult. In this second reading of the moment when he toppled off the tightrope, it was a crisis of confidence that did it—and his own team is guilty of having caused that crisis.

Which of those two explanations you favor might depend on your generosity of spirit, or your mood, or what you think you know about ballplayers and their egos. The hard evidence tells a clear story about what's happened, but why is a much more muddled question. Let's tackle the 'what,' briefly; I'll leave the 'why' to you.

Larnach has always been an extreme fastball hitter. When he came to the majors, he obliterated fastballs—but he was exceptionally vulnerable to anything else. He whiffed on breaking and offspeed stuff at such untenable rates that he often looked doomed to Quadruple-A status; he sold out for the heater. He also had, back then, an exceptionally steep swing. His plan was to hit line drives and fly balls by sitting on and finding fastballs; his conviction stemmed from his confidence that he could do that consistently enough to overcome his shortcomings elsewhere.

Eventually, the league proved to him that that wasn't going to happen. You can count on one hand the number of players in each generation who tallywhack fastballs with such reliability and precision that they can be lousy against spin and changes of speed and still survive in the majors; Larnach learned that he isn't one of those sunkissed few. Instead, he moderated his swing, and his approach. Since the beginning of 2024, we've seen him reduce his whiff rates on non-fastballs, and since the start of 2025, he's been a flatter swinger, a change aimed at being more modular—more adaptable. Not all of that has happened consciously; Larnach is a very feel-oriented hitter. But that's what's happened.

However, he's retained his extremity in one dimension. In fact, he's more pull-oriented than ever. Larnach's swing can sometimes produce slicing liners the other way, but those are accidents. Few batters anywhere in the majors get the bat head around the ball as much as Larnach does; his whole attack is centered on being early and directing his contact toward the pull field. As you can see, that hasn't become less true this year, but more so.

What does it mean to be a fastball hitter who's also a dead pull hitter? It means living on conviction. It means being so certain of the pitch you sit on each time the pitcher winds up that no part of your body or mind is elsewhere. It means visualizing hard contact, by knowing your swing and knowing the timing of the pitch you're about to get. It means the arrogance of believing you see the future, even though obviously, that's impossible. For a while, Larnach had that going. You can see how it trended up, as he claimed his place of prominence in the lineup over the season's first few weeks and then started seeing more right-handed pitchers. You can see how it spiked when he got so red-hot for most of July. And then, you can see what's happened since. It's all written in the curvature of his ideal attack angle rate, which basically tells us how often Larnach was on time with his swing over any given period. 'On time,' here, means that his bat was working uphill at the angle he wants, which means that he met the ball where he meant to. For many other hitters, being as oriented to the pull field as Larnach always is would leave them feeling early, but you can see multiple periods this year during which that was not an issue for Larnach.

By no coincidence, Larnach's actual production maps pretty neatly to the chart above. Here's his rolling average for weighted on-base average. He found enough value by drawing walks and avoiding strikeouts early (and then took long enough to tap into his power, in the middle third of the season) to avoid such a sharp rise and fall, but the gist is the same: good, then great, then ughhhhh.

What happens to a hitter when they lose their conviction? What becomes of the extreme beats when they're tamed by their own self-doubt? You've heard that answer a hundred times, over the years: guys get caught 'in-between'. For Larnach, that's meant being 'on time' for the fastball as much as ever, by Statcast's swing timing reckoning—but for him, that means he's really been late more often. As you can see on the right, below, he's also been underneath the heater much too much of late.

You could start to see that lostness creep into swings against breaking stuff, too. It's one thing to be a little late and underneath the fastball; it's another to end up underneath a breaking pitch, on which you're also radically early. That's what happened here:

And here:

Those aren't the misses of a guy who was sitting fastball. They're the misses of a guy who was sitting on the fastball's speed, but trying to cover the breaking ball's shape, and ended up doing nothing right at all. Those are the swings of a hitter caught in-between—of a hitter who's lost conviction.

Again, there are multiple valid theories about why this has happened, and I don't propose a definitive answer either way. I can only say for certain what has gone wrong, but that feels like enough. Could Larnach rediscover that conviction, and reestablish his first-half swagger? Yes, it's possible. But the Twins are running out of time, and he's been a black hole in their lineup for too long already. They need to make other arrangements.

Shelton has already arrived at this conclusion. He benched Larnach Sunday, despite Walker Buehler starting for the Padres. That's just one game, but it's the start of something. Minnesota should strongly consider calling up Walker Jenkins to meet the team Tuesday in West Sacramento. Jenkins doesn't have to take Luke Keaschall's playing time in right field, and he doesn't have to play any more in center than is made absolutely necessary by Byron Buxton's balky hip. He can and should play left field, at the expense of the exposed Larnach. Maybe the Twins broke Larnach. Maybe he was going to break on his own. Either way, he's fallen into a funk from which hitters like him struggle to recover, and the team doesn't have time to hope he proves to be that exceptional case this time. Jenkins is ready, and all the possible hurdles are out of the way. It's time to give him the left-field job, lest the team itself end up caught in-between.

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[Eris]

The challenge with one dimensional hitters is that there are people (and now perhaps computers) who work long hours trying to figure out how to get hitters out. Once they find a weakness it is up to hitter to compensate. Daniel Murphy likely had an oversized impact on the Twins hitting philosophy. What is overlooked is that like Brian Dozier, Daniel Murphy’s success was short-lived. I look on in disbelief every time Buxton or Lewis take an outside pitch and ground it to the third baseman. 

[mikelink45]

In a push for the playoffs the patience with Larnach and refusal to call up Walker makes no sense. 

[Whitey333]

Interesting article.  Perhaps over done.  The Larnach haters have been around for quite sometime.  Where were they when he was doing well?  Now they, including the writer of the article, again are coming out of the perverbial woodwork.  Couldn't the same issues be raised for Buxton for the past 2 months?  What about Clemens?  He was barely over the .100 average for a few weeks until improving just recently.  These over-analyzed articles ignore the fact that all players slump at some point during the season.  Most rebound at some point.  Yes we need Larnach back to his productive self for the team to have a chance.  Ditto for Buxton, joe Ryan, kody Clemens etal.

 

[thelanges5]

Hopefully Larnach can figure out the “why” and get back on track. Although, like the author states, he/they are running out of time. Trevor’s future as a ________, depends on it. (Twins, trade candidate, choose your own descriptor)

[offensive_loons_fan]

The notion that he might have had a crisis of confidence in finding out the team was so ready to get rid of him reminds me of why front offices play their cards closer to the vest than we as fans might like.

It's easy for us to hop online and say "why doesn't the team demote X player," "why can't they see we have a hole in Y position," "why can't they see Z player isn't working?"

Likely, they are seeing all of those things, but the work of maintaining morale requires that they never engage us on these things, and for my part I try to avoid dragging players through the mud even when they are plainly not playing well.

[bean5302]

I think this can be summed up with Larnach's timing being off a little. Larnach is also pressing. His swing rate is too high (back like it used to be). People forget Larnach was Wallner without power. 35% K rates and occasional home runs.

Buxton's been slumping. We should probably DFA him to make room for Jenkins.

Buxton's last 20 games
.147/.253/.176 OPS .430 wRC+ 24

TBH, I guess DFA'ing Larnach wouldn't be terrible if you think Jenkins is better. I don't see a good reason to bring Larnach back next year and it does clear up regular playing time for Jenkins.

[langerr]

As a former “fairly decent” coach of many sports, I’ve often been intrigued by the phrase that I call “team psych”which translates down to each individual “players psych”  put together.

  So in other words, it’s a deal where the sum of the total team parts are greater than each individual part added together ….

So specifically on Larnach, I think they should keep him …just wondering, do the Twins have a psychological coach &/or psychological dept?

    In my humble opinion, I think more emphasis should be placed on the locker room “atmosphere” versus all this over analytical numbers business ….

I do feel Shelton is better at communicating this than our previous manager Rocco was. 
 

   I’m still cautiously optimistic ….

[mluebker]

12 minutes ago, langerr said:

So specifically on Larnach, I think they should keep him …just wondering, do the Twins have a psychological coach &/or psychological dept?

    In my humble opinion, I think more emphasis should be placed on the locker room “atmosphere” versus all this over analytical numbers business ….

I do feel Shelton is better at communicating this than our previous manager Rocco was. 
 

   I’m still cautiously optimistic ….

Totally agree on the psych factor, but still want to see Jenkins in the lineup sooner, rather than later. 

[MeleMouth]

"What happens to a hitter when they lose their conviction? What becomes of the extreme beats when they're tamed by their own self-doubt? You've heard that answer a hundred times, over the years: guys get caught 'in-between'."

Being caught 'in-between' summarizes strategic planning for the entire team in a nutshell. "We're doing a fire sale! We're keeping our veterans! We're rebuilding and competing - at the same time! We're going big in free agency! We have to get rid of the expensive, disappointing free agents we signed! We're developing pitching! We're trading for pitching! We don't want to sign pitchers to expensive long-term contracts! This pitcher is a good member of the team, so we're going to sign him to an expensive long-term contract! We're collecting assets for the future! We're selling future assets for today! We were building for the future two weeks ago, but we're pivoting because it's a down year and mediocre teams have a 25% chance of backing into the playoffs!"

None of these strategies by themselves are wrong, but if you mix too many strategies, particularly close in time, and also if you poorly execute several of them, you end up repeating 75-85 forever, with occasional bottomings and short periods of contention in the weakest division in baseball.

[old nurse]

14 minutes ago, langerr said:

As a former “fairly decent” coach of many sports, I’ve often been intrigued by the phrase that I call “team psych”which translates down to each individual “players psych”  put together.

  So in other words, it’s a deal where the sum of the total team parts are greater than each individual part added together ….

So specifically on Larnach, I think they should keep him …just wondering, do the Twins have a psychological coach &/or psychological dept?

    In my humble opinion, I think more emphasis should be placed on the locker room “atmosphere” versus all this over analytical numbers business ….

I do feel Shelton is better at communicating this than our previous manager Rocco was. 
 

   I’m still cautiously optimistic ….

The front office staff directory lists 5 staff involved in sports psychology. Wether or not they are full time or consultants as needed is something I do not know

[Road trip]

I sometimes wonder if the Twins broke Wallner this spring by having him face so many lefties in April, while Larnach was protected.  Neither player has historically had much success against them.

It's hard to believe, but Larnach has only 1 more PA this year against lefties than Wallner does, and Wallner hasn't been seen since mid-May!

When the post-mortem is done after the season, corner outfield production is going to be flagged as a big weakness in 2026.  Fielding, hitting, base-running... it is all subpar for the position, although at least Keaschall shows promise if he can figure out defense in a corner.

I hope whomever is occupying those spots puts in some good games to finish out the year, but at this point it is just a faint hope.

[nicksaviking]

1 hour ago, offensive_loons_fan said:

The notion that he might have had a crisis of confidence in finding out the team was so ready to get rid of him reminds me of why front offices play their cards closer to the vest than we as fans might like.

It's easy for us to hop online and say "why doesn't the team demote X player," "why can't they see we have a hole in Y position," "why can't they see Z player isn't working?"

Likely, they are seeing all of those things, but the work of maintaining morale requires that they never engage us on these things, and for my part I try to avoid dragging players through the mud even when they are plainly not playing well.

True, but in all sports I tend to think the athletes capable of coming up big in the post season tend to be the guys who wouldn't be rattled easily.

And no critique of any player in particular because I'd crumble like a sand castle if I was under the bright lights.

[DJL44]

“the Twins agreed to trade him to the Astros in a deal that would have netted them reliever Bryan Abreu. Houston owner Jim Crane, whose Batman villain name would be The Meddler, stepped in and scuppered the deal”

And now the Astros and their general manager have agreed to part ways….

[bean5302]

2 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

“the Twins agreed to trade him to the Astros in a deal that would have netted them reliever Bryan Abreu. Houston owner Jim Crane, whose Batman villain name would be The Meddler, stepped in and scuppered the deal”

And now the Astros and their general manager have agreed to part ways….

Crane has made some recklessly stupid decisions that didn't work out in the past as well. Luckily, the tank, rebuild and spend method has provided the Astros with a pretty excellent foundation. Not sure Crane won't mess it all up, but we'll see.

[MeleMouth]

1 hour ago, langerr said:

As a former “fairly decent” coach of many sports, I’ve often been intrigued by the phrase that I call “team psych”which translates down to each individual “players psych”  put together.

  So in other words, it’s a deal where the sum of the total team parts are greater than each individual part added together ….

So specifically on Larnach, I think they should keep him …just wondering, do the Twins have a psychological coach &/or psychological dept?

    In my humble opinion, I think more emphasis should be placed on the locker room “atmosphere” versus all this over analytical numbers business ….

I do feel Shelton is better at communicating this than our previous manager Rocco was. 
 

   I’m still cautiously optimistic ….

You can have the best locker room atmosphere possible, but it may not matter much if a player is stuck in his own head for whatever reason - injury, family issue, on-field struggles, or learning that the team tried to trade him.

[ashbury]

The rooster crows; therefore the sun rises.

Once a stretch of batted balls finding opposing fielders' gloves begins, there will be various explanations for why it was bound to be.  And unless injury is the explanation, when those batted balls do resume falling in, as they will for an experienced hitter with a track record, there will be new explanations for what he's doing differently.

[Parfigliano]

The fact is Larnach isn't a good MLB hitter.

[ashbury]

10 minutes ago, Parfigliano said:

The fact is Larnach isn't a good MLB hitter.

The fact is, against RHP he is.  He's maintained an above average OPS, .750 or higher, each of the last four seasons.  That's his bread and butter.  Yes he's a platoon bat, but on the important side of the platoon, and he's good at it.  Teams can find use for that.

[Patzky]

2 hours ago, thelanges5 said:

Hopefully Larnach can figure out the “why” and get back on track. Although, like the author states, he/they are running out of time. Trevor’s future as a ________, depends on it. (Twins, trade candidate, choose your own descriptor)

The playoff chase was the worst thing that happened to him; we'd be willing to ride it out and might not have even put him on the block if we didn't feel some urgency.

This is our thanks?

[Patzky]

41 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

True, but in all sports I tend to think the athletes capable of coming up big in the post season tend to be the guys who wouldn't be rattled easily.

And no critique of any player in particular because I'd crumble like a sand castle if I was under the bright lights.

I'd guess (but without playoffs we will never be able to prove) the guys you might find that come up big are Clemens, Keaschall, Lee; Kremer, Minter, Gomez,  We have more talented guys but they don't seem to perform when needed the most. I'd add Bell, Culpepper, and Ober to that list too. 

[LA Vikes Fan]

Larnach represents a real conundrum for the rest of 2026. I think it’s highly unlikely he is on the team in 2027. I hope that’s accomplished via trade and I think that’s what the Twins intend to do in the off-season. The problem is that the more he plays the more he tanks his trade value, but sitting him on the bench effectively accomplishes the same thing. I don’t really think that there’s a solution to this other than Larnach going on a hot streak and the odds of that don’t look very good.

I think at this point the rest of this year and the 2027 roster has to have a much higher priority than getting Larnach going to keep his trade value. I think you’ve got a demote Roden, call up Jenkins, and reduce Larnach’s playing time to two, maybe three games a week. Maybe he rebounds and Jenkins doesn’t hit, maybe Buxton has to go back on the IL, or maybe both Jenkins and Larnach both hit or don’t hit. You can deal with all of those situations. What’s hard to deal with is playing a guy 4 to 5 days a week who simply isn’t Performing. It would be so much better if we had a right handed hitting outfielder in AAA to bring up and be the right handed hitting side of a platoon, but we don’t. Bring up Jenkins, give him four days a week at the expense of Larnach and one day at the expense of  Buxton, see what you got, and hope Larnach comes around to make a contribution down the stretch. There’s nothing else that really makes any sense.

[HarmonK03]

17 minutes ago, LA Vikes Fan said:

Larnach represents a real conundrum for the rest of 2026. I think it’s highly unlikely he is on the team in 2027. I hope that’s accomplished via trade and I think that’s what the Twins intend to do in the off-season. The problem is that the more he plays the more he tanks his trade value, but sitting him on the bench effectively accomplishes the same thing. I don’t really think that there’s a solution to this other than Larnach going on a hot streak and the odds of that don’t look very good.

I think at this point the rest of this year and the 2027 roster has to have a much higher priority than getting Lorne going to keep his trade value. I think you’ve got a demote Roden, call up Jenkins, and reduce Larnach’s playing time to two, maybe three games a week. Maybe he rebounds and Jenkins doesn’t hit, maybe Buxton has to go back on the IL, or maybe both Jenkins and Larnach both hit or don’t hit. You can deal with all of those situations. What’s hard to deal with is playing a guy 4 to 5 days a week who simply isn’t Performing. It would be so much better if we had a right handed hitting outfielder in AAA to bring up and be the right handed hitting side of a platoon, but we don’t. Bring up Jenkins, give him four days a week at the expense of Larnach and one day at the expense of  Buxton, see what you got, and hope Larnach comes around to make a contribution down the stretch. There’s nothing else that really makes any sense.

He could just as easily be a non-tender candidate in the offseason.  I am not sure if you sign him to the numbers being thrown around that there would be as much interest for him.  It might be best to go the Rosario route and non-tender if you determine he is not part of the 27 team.

[KBJ1]

I'm all for bringing Jenkins up. Hopefully he is too young and enthusiastic for the coaching staff to screw him up.

Larnach, like Wallner, was never a complete all a round player or hitter.

Jenkins may be.

[LA Vikes Fan]

1 minute ago, HarmonK03 said:

He could just as easily be a non-tender candidate in the offseason.  I am not sure if you sign him to the numbers being thrown around that there would be as much interest for him.  It might be best to go the Rosario route and non-tender if you determine he is not part of the 27 team.

You may be right. You hate to see a guy who apparently was worth Abreu walk away for nothing, but that may be the verdict on his off season value. I would hope we could at least get a 40 or 45 prospect or two for him. I either event I agree with you that there's no place for him on the 2027 roster Same for Wallner. A new corner OF era is about to start.  

[saviking]

I've always liked Larnach but for as long as I've watched him he pretty much swings the exact same way like a rob. 

You watch Jefferson and he adapts with 2 strikes and hits the ball to right. Larnach doesn't seem to have any flexibility in his swing mechanics. Pretty much just swings hard. 

Has anyone else noticed how smug he looks up there. Kinda of void of emotion. (Mr Loboto)

I wonder what kind of trament he is in the dugout. 

[MMBoys93]

It’s not about what a player has done 

If a player has been struggling for weeks, you find a way to work other players into the starting lineup more often in hopes that they can get right

It shouldn’t be this difficult

The problem is that half their bench is catchers instead of 

Jenkins, Wallner, Sabato, Mendez…pick one