Is Manuel Margot, Like, Allergic to Pinch-Hitting?

Manuel Margot effectively has one job: hitting lefty pitching. Manuel Margot has hit lefty pitching, but please don’t make him pinch-hit lefty (or any other kind of) pitching.

In a Rocco Baldelli offense, the lineup is malleable, all the way to the final out. Based on the matchup with the opposing pitcher, any player can play on any given day, in any inning. Baldelli is ready to empty the bench and play a matchup game if the other team brings in a lefty reliever.

Margot has been called on all year in those situations, and he has not delivered, beginning with his five-pinch-hitting appearances in the team’s first six games. His 29 pinch-hitting appearances, as of Jul. 25, are the most in baseball. His zero hits are, ah, tied for last in baseball. He has started 43 games, but came in as a pinch hitter for an additional 29. Forty percent of the games he’s played in have featured a pinch-hit appearance. For a role player, that’s enough to tank a season.

On the year, Margot has a .138 OPS pinch-hitting, because he’s taken four walks, but even those can’t save his 0-25 line. He’s having the worst season of his career overall, with a .628 OPS, about 20% below average. He’s never been a great hitter, but his career average is about 10% below average.

Yet somehow, outside of pinch-hitting, Margot has done his job at the plate. If you torture data long enough, it will confess to anything. Let’s dig in.

First, Margot was acquired to hit lefty pitching. The Twins have struggled for years getting production versus lefties from their corner outfield spots, mainly because their most prominent options there are lefties themselves. On the season, Margot has hit lefty pitchers very well, at .298 with a .789 OPS (24% above average). That actually matches his career averages against southpaws. He’s a bit inconsistent year-to-year, but overall, he’s got a 122 OPS+ against lefties for his career.

That .789 OPS includes his pinch-hitting appearances, by the way. If you exclude his pinch-hitting appearances, he has a .354 average and a .903 OPS (50% above average) in 86 plate appearances. Managers stomp their feet and make tugboat noises while their eyes become giant hearts and pop out of their sockets when they see a platoon hitter like that. In games he starts against lefties, he’s got an .898 OPS, and has typically batted leadoff.

The ugly side of this coin, of course, is that he’s doing almost nothing against righties, slashing a pitiful .183/.246/.248 overall. It’d be better to have Christian Vázquez at the plate than Margot. However, with the team the Twins have constructed, Margot shouldn’t be needed against righties, so it’s a bit beside the point.

However, if Margot can’t be trusted to do anything productive as a pinch-hitter, it slightly crimps Baldelli’s style. Margot has never been a good pinch-hitter, but this season has taken it to a new level. His pinch-hitting OPS had been .584 in previous years, about 40% below league average over 66 plate appearances. (Notice that he's had 66 pinch-hitting appearances in the eight years leading up to 2024, but 29 already this season.) That’s over 100 points of OPS below his career OPS of .694.

That’s not uncommon, as most players end up about 15% worse as pinch-hitters. It’s not an easy job. In 2024, the league OPS is .708, and the OPS among pinch-hitters is .625. His performance exists in the context of what came before him, but Margot’s performance this year has been comical.

One of the strangest bits of data for Margot this year has been his performance after pinch-hitting. He’s had some clutch hits in games he didn’t start, but they’ve all been after his first plate appearance. After his initial pinch-hitting appearances, he’s slashing .286/.318/.429 in 22 other plate appearances.

As I mentioned, the further we break down his season’s performance into things like “22 plate appearances after coming in as a pinch-hitter and getting additional plate appearances,” the less meaningful it gets, but this all paints a picture of an oddity who cannot, for the life of him, do this one very specific task.

In the past 10 years, the greatest number of plate appearances as a pinch-hitter without a single hit by the end of the season is 24 (Alec Burleson, 2023; Tucker Barnhart, 2019). Make it the last 50 years, and only 11 players have had more than 20 pinch-hit trips without a hit. The record belongs to Jonny Gomes, who had 34 plate appearances in the role without getting a hit in 2011. In any given year, it typically maxes out around 15. Maybe Margot gets one before the year ends, but his 29 is incredibly glaring right now. He's already second to Gomes in the last half-century.

Unfortunately, his role in a Rocco Baldelli offense requires production as a pinch-hitter. His offensive job (we don’t need to focus on his defense today, thankfully) this season is to hit lefties, either as a starter or off the bench. If he can only do one of those well, that hamstrings Baldelli--which may be a good thing, depending on your feelings about Baldelli’s management. For much of the year, there hasn’t been a great alternative for a bench bat, especially in games that Ryan Jeffers catches, as Kyle Farmer has often been the other platoon hitter.

Hopefully, as the season reaches its stretch run, Margot’s pinch-hitting duties will be redistributed to others, including Carlos Santana or José Miranda. The true sicko in me wants Margot to continue to be the most-used pinch hitter in MLB, but that’s probably not what’s best for the team. Even Matt Wallner and Trevor Larnach’s paltry hitting against lefties (.414 and .565 OPS, respectively) would far outpace Margot’s pinch-hitting this year, which is relevant because Wallner and Larnach are the hitters Margot would primarily hit for.

This is a lot of hand-wringing about 29 plate appearances, and there’s a lot of noise in isolating 10% of a player’s plate appearances for a season, but it’s gotten to the point it needs to be acknowledged. No, Margot’s true talent level probably isn’t a .143 OPS as a pinch hitter, but, man, there’s something goofy afoot.