Twins Video
Editor's Note: The below is, suddenly, part of a series amid what seems to be a very passionate ongoing conversation. We had a related piece submitted and a separate, third one proposed within the last week, so I'm creating an impromptu series on the subject of these two Twins outfielders—especially Wallner—and what makes the difference, actually and narratively, between a good-enough corner slugger and an insufficient one. Joing the discussion here, and know that there will be more analysis in this vein coming very soon.
A curious thing has happened across Twins Territory. For some reason, many people perceive Matt Wallner and Trevor Larnach to be carbon copies, nigh indistinguishable from each other. Eagle-eyed fans can see this reflected in comments to articles on Twins Daily, tweets (and skeets) from people who filled up on haterade before the game, and others who seem to have never actually visited FanGraphs or Baseball Reference (or, you know, even read the stat lines in their local paper). The most frequent thing I see is people calling for both of them to be designated for assignment or traded this offseason, because in many people’s minds, both are eminently replaceable and thoroughly mediocre. As it turns out, though, the two players have been on wildly different career trajectories, and one of them is pretty dang valuable to the Twins for the next several seasons.
On one hand, I sort of get the confusion. After all, it was really hard to watch Twins games in 2023, in a purely logistical sense. Then this year, of course, has been a lost season, and… you know what? No. There’s just no excuse for not understanding the difference between a player who’s likely to be non-tendered in his second year of arbitration, and one who has legitimately been a very good hitter in each season he has played. Anyway, let’s look at the similarities and differences, and you can see for yourself.
Let’s start with the similarities. I’m going to tackle this one in bullet point fashion for brevity’s sake. They are both:
- Left-handed
- Large humans
- Drafted by the Twins
- Mediocre-to-poor fielders who would be better served by being a true DH, all else equal
That’s about it. Truly. Now, let’s look at the ways they are different.
For starters, let’s look at career OPS, and wRC+. Larnach has a career 104 wRC+, where 100 is average. This is paired with his .725 OPS. For a can’t-field, can’t-run hitter, that’s just not special in any way. Wallner, on the other hand, has a career wRC+ of 138 and a career OPS of .853. Even for a DH, that’s perfectly solid. You know who wins out here. It’s Wallner.
Want to see some fancy Baseball Savant percentiles? Coming right up!
As you can see here, this season, Wallner has been worth 18 batting runs, which is in the 86th percentile in baseball. His elite bat speed and barrel rate reflect the fact that he can (and often does) clobber the ball, and he walks a ton, too. His baserunning has been neutral, but a tiny bit above average. His fielding has been a negative, worth -2 runs, which is 37th-percentile performance, but this has been buoyed a bit by his cannon arm, which is nearly off the charts. How about Larnach?
Yeah. Sort of average. Replacement-level, even. Advantage: Wallner.
Is WAR more of your thing? Cool! Let’s see what FanGraphs has to say on the subject. In nearly 1,600 career plate appearances across 419 games, Larnach has been worth 2.7 fWAR. That’s a rate of 0.17 per 100 plate appearances. Wallner, on the other hand, has been worth 5.3 fWAR in roughly 900 plate appearances across 255 games. That’s a rate of 0.58 per 100. That’s nearly 3.5 times the rate for Larnach. Advantage: Wallner.
Maybe the argument is they are similarly clutch (or un-clutch). How do they stack up by WPA? Let’s start with Wallner, this time. Across parts of four seasons, he has accumulated 0.25 WPA. Ok, sort of average. Surely, Larnach has outperformed that, right? Wrong. Larnach has been a rally killer. While the last two seasons have been better than his norm, he has been worth -2.08 WPA across parts of five seasons. Advantage: Wallner, once again.
Really, by any performance measure, Wallner is the better player—and it’s not remotely close.
Next, let’s look at this through the lens of value to the team, and specifically, to a team on a budget. Larnach is likely to make about $5 million in 2026. With built-in arbitration raises, in 2027, he’s set to make somewhere between $8-10 million, and it’s hard to envision a scenario where a team will see the value in that sort of contract. If anything, it is perhaps more likely that he will be signing a minor-league deal similar to the one Willi Castro signed when coming to the Twins. Wallner, on the other hand, will be making the league minimum in 2026, and there’s no reason to think he won’t mash. He will hit arbitration for the first time in 2027, where (almost without a doubt) he will be worth the $2-3 million he will be set to make. Wallner is controllable for four more seasons, and would have legitimate value on the trade market should the Twins want to move on for some reason. Advantage: Wallner. Again.
Okay. So to sum all that up, Wallner has consistently hit like a middle-of-the-order bat, is cheap, controllable, is a Minnesota native, has been more clutch, more valuable, and is literally better in every way than Larnach. After writing almost 1,000 words on the subject, if you still aren’t a Wallner fan, that’s completely ok. Maybe you hate strikeouts. Maybe the stretches where he looks lost at the plate for a few weeks frustrate you. Maybe you think the hat-smelling thing is weird. I’m not gonna yum your yuck. But, let’s stop confusing him for a different player who doesn't constitute an apt comparison. As long-suffering Twins fans, we have been conditioned to think that nothing is working and the future is dimly lit. It’s important that we can appreciate the bright spots when they are happening right in front of our faces, and Wallner is one of those bright spots.
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