The Good, Bad, and Ugly Numbers on Twins' Early-Season Strikeout Trouble

There’s no question about it: the Twins lineup is striking out more often than anybody (except their opponents) would like. Through eight games, Twins hitters have struck out 80 times in just 305 plate appearances--and that rate was tamped down by fanning "only" seven times in a three-hit effort against the Dodgers Monday night.

Last season, the Twins lineup set the Major League record for strikeouts by an offense, with 1,654, leading to a 26.6% strikeout rate. Currently, they're very much in the same line, at 26.2% for the young campaign. That pace could lead to breaking their own record. Gulp.

Not all of these strikeouts have fallen completely on the Twins hitters. Most notably, in Saturday’s game against the Cleveland Guardians, home plate umpire Brennan Miller had a bizarrely wide strike zone, ringing up both Edouard Julien and Matt Wallner on called third strikes clearly outside the zone. 

But even these bad calls don’t excuse the higher number of strikeouts the Twins racked up over their two games (13 on Thursday, 15 on Saturday) against Cleveland. What are the worst outcomes of these strikeouts, and are there any silver linings for the Twins lineup and their strikeouts only one week in the season? Let’s break down the numbers for each of their 14 hitters.

Let's start with the (semi-? almost?) good news. Two hitters haven’t struck out at all: Royce Lewis and Austin Martin. Lewis, for the obvious reason of exiting Opening Day after two at-bats (but hey, he’s still batting 1.000), and Martin, who’s only had five plate appearances. Martin will strike out at some point, but his contact rates have been good throughout his professional career. If nothing else, he provides a different skill set and approach than the rest of the Twins roster.

The Ugly
Three Twins hitters have been striking out at an alarming rate, more than the rest of their hitters; Julien, Wallner, and Willi Castro. 

Castro is the team leader in strikeouts with 12 in 29 plate appearances (41.4% strikeout rate). He has an even split in how he is striking out: half the punchouts are swinging and the other half looking.

Last season, Castro had little trouble against the fastball, as he had a .378 batting average in the 110 plate appearances that ended on that pitch. He still struck out 31 times on fastballs in 2023 making for a 28.8% strikeout rate on the pitch, but he was productive. His efforts against sliders in 2023 weren’t as great as the fastball, but he still had a respectable .254 batting average in 78 plate appearances against that pitch. He struck out against sliders just 17 times, making for a 21.8% strikeout rate. This season, he already has five strikeouts on fastballs, and four on sliders. It's an alarming development, albeit one that still has plenty of time to turn around.

Wallner is a different story from Castro altogether. He has the worst strikeout rate on the Twins so far, striking out over half the time (9, in 17 plate appearances). He’s not just struggling with one or two types of pitches; it’s a bit of everything. Fastball, slider, curveball: You name it, Wallner can’t hit it.

These types of at-bats were to be expected from Wallner, as he had a 31.5% strikeout rate as a rookie in 2023. But even with a limited amount of playing time to start the season, striking out this often warrants concern.

Last among the Twins hitters with ugly strikeout results is Julien. Juilen’s worst attribute to start the season was one of the things he was praised for the most as a rookie: his strike zone judgment. But each umpire has their definition of the zone, and the majority of those behind the plate for Julien have had wider ones than he allows for himself.

That’s why seven of his nine strikeouts so far have been looking, and none were more crucial than his freeze-up with the bases loaded in the bottom of the second during Thursday’s home opener. The slider Julien watched slide by him was right at the bottom of the strike zone, and per Statcast, it would have been called a strike even if Julien could have challenged the pitch. 

While his strike zone judgment is still a strong aspect of his profile, as he has a 34.6% strikeout rate in this slump. Julien will have to widen his hitting zone a bit. Julien is more than a capable hitter when he swings and makes contact, but he’s barely been doing so to start 2024, and he will have to allow himself to become more of a free swinger, even if it makes him uncomfortable for a bit, to break out of this bad stretch. 

The Bad
Six Twins hitters have found themselves in this category to start the 2024 season, with viable but non-optimal strikeout proclivities: Byron Buxton, Carlos Santana, Max Kepler, Ryan Jeffers, Manuel Margot, and Kyle Farmer. Their strikeout issues are not as alarming as the previous three mentioned, but making more contact is on the to-do list as they try to get untracked.

The two pitches Farmer has watched go by him for strike three this year were both fastballs. Like Margot, his plate appearances have been limited, with fewer platoon options to start him against lefties. He and Margot each got a start (alongside Jeffers, Santana, and Buxton) against Dodgers lefty James Paxton Monday night, and put together good plate appearances. Hopefully, they've just needed a week to get into the rhythm of the season and figure out what they need to attack. Margot's long home run off Paxton was an exemplar.

The other four hitters in this category have all had slower starts at the plate to begin the year. But the most encouraging case is Buxton's. 

All nine of Buxton's strikeouts have been swinging. That feels like a small hint as to how healthy he is this year. Last season, there were dozens of at-bats where he wouldn’t even swing on strike three, and his knee pain was a contributing factor. His strikeout rate of 27.5% is keeping his OPS well below the league average, at .636, but as the weather warms up and he keeps himself healthy, Buxton could have one of the better seasons we’ve seen from him since 2017. 

The strikeout rates for Santana (24.2% in 33 PAs), Kepler (28.5% in 21 PAs), and Jeffers (26.9% in 26 PAs) are not great, but their early-season performances show signs of being slow out of the gate more than anything else. The one outlier in this group, when it comes to making contact against a certain pitch, is Santana, who’s had half his eight strikeouts against sliders. 

As he’s aged, Santana has regressed in his ability to hit sliders, going from a .231 batting average against them in 76 plate appearances in 2021, to a .139 average in 90 plate appearances in 2023. This will likely be the one pitch often used to get him out in pivotal moments, and if it comes late in games, the Twins will have to pinch-hit for him if they cannot find a way to bring his average back above the Mendoza line against sliders. (Admittedly, though, it might be that only pitchers with tremendous confidence in their slider and its split neutrality are throwing that offering against Santana, a switch-hitter toward whom everyone's slider will be breaking.)

Nonetheless, Santana, Kepler, and Jeffers are all veteran hitters who have faced slow starts in their careers and will overcome these slow starts, even if they still pile up strikeouts in their at-bats.

The Good
The silver lining for the Twins lineup so far is made up of three hitters whose strikeout rates are no concern at all: Carlos Correa, Alex Kirilloff, and Christian Vázquez. These three each have five or fewer strikeouts across the Twins' first eight games, and all three have shown signs of improvement from their down year in 2023.

The most noticeable improvement among this group is Correa's. Though his power hasn't shown up yet, he's getting on base at a .471 clip. His strikeout rate is one of the lowest on the team, currently sitting at 14.7%. Between his hitting and fielding, the plantar fasciitis appears to be completely behind Correa, and he is becoming the heartbeat of the Twins' lineup, keeping the momentum alive for the guys hitting behind him. 

The man typically hitting in front of him has been Kirilloff, and he has been the Twins' best hitter in the season’s early going. He’s struck out the fewest times among the Twins who have played each game, only three times in 31 PAs, making for a strikeout rate of just under 10%. Kirilloff is the least concerning among the regulars, when it comes to his strikeout vulnerability.

Finally, there’s Vázquez, whose playing time has been limited to four starts behind the plate. While he’s only mustered two hits in those games and grounded into a double play with the bases loaded, he’s only struck out twice in 14 PAs. Vázquez will continue an every-other-day starting role at catcher with Jeffers as the month continues. His strikeout rate might rise from here, but his approach at the plate looks much healthier than it did a year ago. 

What’s next? 
Paxton's game isn't necessarily strikeout-centric, but those of both Tyler Glasnow and Bobby Miller (who start the next two games for the Dodgers) are. The Twins aren't going to get out of their contact rut by dint of weak opponents, at least this week. They'll have to pull themselves out on their own strength and flexibility.