Might Be Something There With This Former First-Round Pick

The Twins selected Aaron Sabato with the 27th pick in the 2020 MLB Draft, and the first baseman has had a rough go of it in the seven seasons since then. However, now might be the time to finally give him the call.

When you draft a player with the First Base Only tag, he has to hit. Sabato was the highest-drafted first baseman in 2020—a draft mired by the uncertainty of only having a few weeks of scouting for players whose seasons were shut down in March—mostly because Spencer Torkelson was drafted as a third baseman.

Unfortunately, Sabato’s minor league career is littered with not hitting. Or at least not hitting enough. He’s got a pretty standard first-base-only profile: a lot of strikeouts, a lot of homers, a low batting average, and enough walks to keep his on-base percentage above water. That batting average has, for the most part, been low enough to keep him from being taken seriously as a prospect. Across six minor league seasons, he’s mustered just a .230 average and has struck out over 30% of the time.

That type of hitter generally doesn’t have a long major league career, or one at all. But Sabato has managed to hang around in the Twins organization, and every season, he’ll have a few weeks in a row that lead fans to think he might finally be putting it together.

This season is as close as we’ve gotten to the fabled “putting it together.”

Sabato began the 2026 season—his age-27 season—with Triple-A St. Paul. He played sparingly, in just four of the team’s first 17 games, registering 14 plate appearances and striking out in seven of them.

Then he started getting opportunities. Starting with a three-hit night on April 16, he played nine of the team’s final 13 April games, slashing .310/.375/.621 (.996) with three doubles and two home runs across 32 plate appearances. And he really hasn’t looked back.

Since April 16th, when he started playing consistently, he’s hitting .293 with 47 extra-base hits (20 home runs) and an OPS of .961. Even factoring in those bad first handful of games, his OPS sits at .936. The International League is a high-offense league, so raw OPS can be deceiving, but he sits about 30% above league average by wRC+.

His .287 batting average at Triple-A in 2026 is the best mark at any level of his career, outside of his .305 average in 39 games at Double-A last season. His next-best year-end average in a sample of more than 50 games was .245 last season at Triple-A. His wRC+ has only been this high twice—in 39 games at Double-A last season and in 22 games at High-A in 2021.

This might be a fluke, or it might be a player in the prime of his career having found an approach that clicks. He’s managed to produce against fastballs, off-speed, and breaking pitches alike—though he’s absolutely feasted on fastballs, with a .326 average and .433 wOBA. He’s still swinging and missing plenty, but he’s cut his strikeout rate down to 24% this year (which will increase if he gets a call-up).

He’s cut down his walks over the last two years, but that has been a product of a more aggressive approach with pitches both inside and outside of the zone. Even with a reduced walk rate, the improvement in his batting average has given him a .356 OBP on the year, better than any season of his career outside of Single-A. And he’s pulling the ball more than he ever has, with a pull air percentage of 17%, which is merely on the higher side of average (72nd percentile), but the best mark of his career. 

And contextually, he’s a great fit for the Twins right now. Sabato has a staggering 1.243 OPS against lefties this season, slashing .364/.470/.773 against southpaws. The major league club, on the other hand, ranks in the bottom five in baseball against left-handed pitchers in batting average, OPS, wRC+, and wOBA. It’s dire, with only five Twins with more than 10 plate appearances who have been league-average or better performers against lefties (wRC+, where 100 is average, in parentheses): Ryan Jeffers (165), Austin Martin (124), Royce Lewis (117), Byron Buxton (104), Kody Clemens (103).

And it’s not even close after that. The next-best hitter is Josh Bell, who has a .667 OPS that’s 14% below league average. Right now, Victor Caratini is being trusted with first base against lefties, and he’s following close behind with a .607 OPS against southpaws this season, 21% below league average. The two have accounted for 64% of the team’s plate appearances against lefties at first base and designated hitter.

It would be foolish to sit here and say “Well Sabato couldn’t be worse!” because he absolutely could. If he’s walking less and his strikeout rate jumps in his transition to the majors, he can absolutely be worse. If MLB pitchers can attack him with offspeed and breaking pitches for strikes, they’ll take away his biggest strength, demolishing fastballs. And even when he gets fastballs, it’s unclear that he’ll be able to keep up with MLB velocity, as the average fastball he’s seen thus far this season is around 94 MPH.

But the bar for him to clear isn’t that high. If he were to muster just league-average offense against lefties, he would be a significant addition to this lineup. And there’s plenty of room for him.

Tristan Gray and Alex Jackson are currently on the big-league roster (or at least one of them is, pending Kaelen Culpepper's corresponding move), but they are rarely playing. Gray has started just three of nine games since replacing an injured Byron Buxton a week and a half ago. Jackson has started three games since Ryan Jeffers returned from injury on July 10th, two of which were at first base against a lefty (in very limited action versus lefties, Jackson has a .382 OPS across 24 plate appearances).

It’s rare that a team could reasonably have room for a first baseman who would strictly fill the short side of a platoon, but the Twins are in that position now. Even after Culpepper's promotion, or if Walker Jenkins were to be called up, there could still be room for someone like Sabato to try to keep the line moving against lefties, if they valued a platoon hitter and didn’t bite on one of several potential right-handed bats currently designated for assignment. Or perhaps he could be their September position player call-up when the roster expands by one hitter and one pitcher.

Sabato doesn’t have a high ceiling in the majors, and projection systems like ZiPS don’t forecast him being even an average hitter at a position you need to hit. But right now, what’s the risk in giving him a shot a few times a week against left-handed pitchers?

And it would be fun—if you dig big dudes who ding dongs, anyway.