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Every year from 2017 through 2024, Max Kepler was in right field for the Twins on Opening Day, a run of eight consecutive seasons. To find another example of a Twins player starting at the same spot on Opening Day that many times in a row, you have to go all the way back to first baseman Kent Hrbek from 1982 to 1991.
Matt Wallner is on track to be Minnesota's Opening Day starter in right field this year, relocating from last year's temporary stay in left. Will it be the start of his own streak? At age 27, coming off an outstanding season, Wallner is poised to make the position his own.
TWINS RIGHT FIELDERS AT A GLANCE
Starter: Matt Wallner
Backup: Harrison Bader
Depth: Willi Castro, Trevor Larnach, DaShawn Keirsey Jr.
Prospects: Walker Jenkins, Brandon Winokur, Gabriel Gonzalez
Twins fWAR Ranking Last Year: 13th out of 30
Twins fWAR Projection This Year: 10th out of 30
THE GOOD
Since the start of the 2023 season, Wallner's .381 wOBA ranks 12th-best among all major-leaguers with more than 500 plate appearances. The 11 names in front of him on that list represent a who's-who of All-Stars and MVP contenders. So far in his young career he's been one of the best overall hitters in baseball, and at an offense-oriented position like right field, that's what you want.
Yes, he's an imposing power hitter who produces some of the loudest contact and longest drives of any player in MLB. With a big swing and sky-high strikeout rates, he fits the traditional prototype for a right field slugger. But Wallner is also just a very effective hitter overall, with solid patience and a tendency for drawing HBPs helping him post a team-leading .371 on-base percentage over the past two seasons.
In recognition of his all-around offensive impact, Rocco Baldelli has been routinely batting Wallner in the leadoff spot this spring, an arrangement the manager seems open to sticking with in the regular season. On the surface Wallner is anything BUT the traditional prototype for the leadoff role, as a slow-running power threat who whiffs as much as anyone in the league. But it's hard to argue with setting up your best hitter to get the most plate appearances, and on paper, Wallner has been exactly that.
“He not only was our best hitter in the second half of the season, there was a long stretch where he was one of the five best hitters in the league," Baldelli told Phil Miller of the Star Tribune for a recent article.
The depth behind Wallner in right field is similar to left field, with a number of capable corner options ready to step in, including Harrison Bader, Willi Castro and DaShawn Keirsey Jr. But in contrast to nearly every other key player on the Twins, Wallner has a sturdy history of durability. Old "Cement Bones" manages to come away from every scary collision or HBP intact; he played 142 games between Triple-A and the majors last year, and 143 the year before.
THE BAD
The threat to Wallner's progression than an injury is another prolonged slump at the plate, or worse yet, a bunch of them. Last year he flailed away in spring and then stumbled out of the gates in the regular season, earning him a ticket to Triple-A for nearly three months. There's no doubt he'll have much more rope going forward, following an emphatic second-half statement, but Wallner is going to be susceptible to some ugly stretches, so strap in.
While few players have outproduced Wallner in the past two seasons, even fewer have struck out more often. The 27-year-old has demonstrated an ability to outpace his sky-high K rate with stellar output, thanks to his consistently premium contact quality and ancillary on-base skills, but it will be a constant battle to maintain at this level.
Last year Wallner's batting average on balls in play (BABIP) was .389, second-highest out of the 324 MLB players who made 250 or more plate appearances. That number is unsustainable, and it fueled a .259 batting average that is frankly higher than anyone should expect going forward. The strikeouts are going to come in bunches and sometimes the hits are not going to fall in, which will likely lead to multiple slumps akin to last year's season-opening 2-for-25.
How will the team react? How will he react? Navigating these production droughts will be an important focus for Wallner and the Twins. On his end, the right fielder needs to make sure he's paying them off with corresponding hot streaks and game-changing moments on a fairly regular basis. He's proven he can do it.
THE BOTTOM LINE
As the post-Kepler era gets underway for the Twins in right field, there's an excellent candidate in place ready to take the reins: a strong-armed slugger capable of posting upper-echelon production at the plate. Wallner needs to walk the tightrope of maintaining strong numbers while striking out in more than a third of his plate appearances, and preventing pitchers from capitalizing on holes in his high-intensity swing.
At this point he's shown enough that there isn't much reason to doubt him, even during times where those inevitable dry spells are underway. I'll try to keep that in mind while they're happening.
Share your thoughts on the outlook at right field below and check out the rest of our Position Analysis Series:
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