The Case for the Moose: Matt Wallner Deserves More Respect

Editor's Note: This is the second piece in a three-part series to close out this week, examining the Twins' corner outfield situation looking toward 2026 with a particular emphasis on the slugging Wallner. In this installment, Cody Pirkl makes a case for Wallner to be treated more as an indispensable piece of the team's core.

Doubt has followed Matt Wallner since his debut in 2022. During that season, his swing-and-miss rates in St. Paul made him a questionable candidate to carry his dominance over to the major leagues. Both the fan base and the Twins themselves have maintained a fair amount of skepticism all these years. While Wallner is far from a perfect player, he deserves much more credit than he’s given.

Wallner’s path has been winding to this point, with periods of complete helplessness at the plate that have resulted in demotions when the swing-and-miss has gotten out of control. It’s a profile Twins fans are sick of watching, after several seasons slipped away as the lineup swung for the fences and missed. 

Even the Twins have shied away from this player profile, after targeting it so heavily in years past. Although we have yet to see a significant payoff, the organization has increasingly emphasized athleticism and speed (at least rhetorically), and the team's strikeout rate has declined year over year as they’ve targeted fewer “all-or-nothing” hitters. Wallner is the only player with this approach left on the roster.

The years of doubt in Wallner’s abilities appear to have peaked in 2025, as the team (and the lineup, in particular) has crossed into complete disaster territory. Wallner’s down year has been at least part of the problem with the Twins’ offense, but adding context shows that lumping his struggles this season with the rest of the team is unfair.

Wallner’s slash line of .215/.323/.507 invokes Twins’ fans' primal urge to point and yell “Miguel Sanó!” It’s hard to argue that Wallner’s 2025 season doesn’t bear a resemblance. In Wallner’s worst season, however, hiss slash line is still over 25% better than that of an average hitter. In comparison to the rest of the Twins’ lineup, it becomes even more ridiculous to complain about.

Wallner’s .830 OPS trails only Byron Buxton among starters on the team, as does his tally of 20 home runs. His unsightly batting average is a result of a batting average on balls in play that is below average for the first time in his professional career. We now know that BABIP is not purely a luck-based metric (see Max Kepler), and that Wallner’s consistently elite exit velocities should lead to a bounceback in this department, with all things being equal. Meanwhile, he’s still walked over 10% of the time this season and has a sub-30% strikeout rate for the first time in his MLB career. This year looks like the low end of the spectrum of outcomes you can expect to see from a player with this profile, and Wallner is still one of the Twins’ better hitters.

Fans being frustrated with this profile is to be expected, but the Twins themselves appear to have shifted their view on Wallner. More often, he has hit at the bottom of the lineup, with players who are having genuinely poor offensive seasons, such as Royce Lewis and Edouard Julien. This move down the lineup has made Wallner’s strengths much less impactful, as many of his homers have come with the bases empty, and he often has nobody to hit him in when he takes his walks.

Meanwhile, Trevor Larnach has consistently batted as high as second in the order, despite a below-average offensive season, and Kody Clemens has continued to slot into the heart of the order despite his production being in the tank for months now. The Twins are clearly signaling a lack of faith in Wallner, and it could make things interesting heading into 2026 as they look to shake up this disappointing core.

For more on the contrast between Larnach and Wallner, specifically, see the first article in this series, from Eric Blonigen.

Since the season Wallner was promoted, the Twins have had their doubts about him. In 2022, they kept him in St. Paul for far too long as Jake Cave and Mark Contreras roamed the outfield deep into a lost season. There were rumors of them considering trading him away as recently as the 2024 trade deadline. All he’s done is post an .853 OPS in almost 900 plate appearances in his career. 

It’s an odd dynamic, as you’d think an organization that has done such a poor job of drafting and developing offensive players would be quick to celebrate Wallner, who is arguably the best offensive player they’ve drafted in this regime’s history. He has his flaws, but for him to seemingly be grouped with some of the lineup's worst performers down the stretch seems a bit extreme.

Wallner has had a down season in 2025, but it’s easy to see that his standards are much different than the rest of the lineup. Not only are fans down on his performance, but it appears the Twins are, as well. The numbers speak for themselves, however.