Breaking Down the Twins’ 2024 Offense: A Pitch Performance Analysis

I used a search query on Baseball Savant to find the four most frequent pitches Twins batters faced, and looked at a variety of stats you’ll see referenced throughout. For those unfamiliar with some of Savant’s more advanced stats, I wanted to provide some definitions from their site. Weight On-Base Average (wOBA) takes into account outcomes on contact, walks, and strikeouts. Run value is the run impact of an event based on runners on base, outs, and ball-and-strike count. Alright, let's get into it.

Fastball - 31.4% of pitches seen
The Twins were a good team against four-seam fastballs in 2024, ranking in the top 10 in batting average, slugging, and wOBA against the offering. Byron Buxton led the way with a run value of 12, a slugging percentage of .657, and a wOBA of .440, and finished second on the team with eight home runs – four behind Carlos Santana. Carlos Correa batted .338 on the pitch, 28th-best in all of baseball, while Buxton finished second on the team at .324. Kyle Farmer was the worst fastball hitter on the team, with a -9 run value and .189 batting average. He saw the pitch a team-leading 37.6% of the time. Pitchers had a scouting report on Farmer, and he wasn’t able to confound it.

Slider - 22.3% of pitches seen
The Twins actually performed better against sliders, ranking in the top seven in the following categories: run value, batting average, slugging percentage, and wOBA. Despite their success, opposing pitchers fed them sliders 22.3% of the time – good for 6th-most in all of baseball. Correa was the team leader in batting average (.386), slugging percentage (.579), wOBA (.438), and run value (12), and was one of the best hitters in all of baseball against the offering. Carlos Santana was the worst hitter, sporting a .158 batting average, a .263 slugging percentage, and -6 run value, despite seeing the 3rd-fewest sliders on the team and all those sliders breaking toward him, as a switch-hitter.

Sinker - 13.5% of pitches seen
The Twins' biggest weakness this year was handling the sinker, or two-seam fastball. Fortunately, they saw the offering the second-fewest times in all of baseball, as they ranked in the bottom nine teams in run value, batting average, slugging percentage, and wOBA. Interestingly enough, the team whiffed on just 14.1% of the sinkers they saw. Their lousy production, then, indicates poor contact. The team's limited success came from a variety of sources, with Trevor Larnach batting .395 and posting a .420 wOBA against the pitch; Royce Lewis slugging .590; and Correa accruing a run value of 7. Ryan Jeffers struggled mightily, posting a run value of -12--twice as damaging as the next-worst production of -6, by famed pinch-hitter Manuel Margot.

Changeup - 11.2% of pitches seen
The Twins finished in the middle third of teams against the changeup, with a .240 batting average (11th), .386 slugging percentage (19th), and .287 wOBA (13th), but did finish ninth with a run value of 14. Jeffers found the most success, with a team-leading .718 slugging percentage, a .443 wOBA, and a run value of 7, tied with Santana for the best on the roster. Manuel Margot led the way with a .333 batting average. Larnach had the most troubles when opposing pitchers pulled the string, with a .210 batting average, .242 slugging percentage, .209 wOBA, and a run value of -5. That said, Byron Buxton wasn't much better. He posted the worst batting average against cambios, at .175, and ranked toward the bottom of the team in all other categories.

Overall, the Twins finished with the 10th-highest batting run value in all of baseball. That, in addition to their relative success against 64.9% of the pitches they saw (four-seam, slider, and changeup), would suggest their offense wasn't bad. In fact, it was pretty darn good. Even against all other offerings, including ones not addressed in this article, they finished 12th in run value. There's still room for valid frustration with their lack of offensive consistency, as the Twins had the third-highest standard deviation of runs scored on a game-by-game basis. The old adage tells us that “hitting is contagious”, and that’s ultimately what defined the 2024 Minnesota Twins offense. In terms of talent, though, it's good to remember that there's lots of room for hope.