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The Twins have two corner outfielders in Triple-A with nothing to prove. Trevor Larnach currently has a 140 wRC+ for St. Paul, and despite his struggles at the MLB level, the clock is ticking on the former 1st round pick. Matt Wallner may have passed him up, as his 132 wRC+ comes with a reduced strikeout rate and a recent red-hot stretch with the Twins.
The argument has been made for quite some time that these young bats deserve a look over struggling veterans Max Kepler and Joey Gallo. The opposing view is that they could wind up being even worse. As the Twins have surpassed the halfway point of the season and Kepler and Gallo have tanked so significantly, that argument should now be off the table. They have almost nothing to lose by turning a lineup spot over to a potential piece of the future. Which struggling veteran should be let go?
Joey Gallo
Gallo has been versatile and looked like a great acquisition to begin the season. Unfortunately, since May 1, Gallo owns a .167/.281/.368 slash line with a 43.7% strikeout rate. He's still taking his walks at 13.7%, but the whiffs have become untenable in a Twins lineup that's on pace to break the MLB strikeout record.
In addition, Gallo's days as a gold-glove-caliber defender are behind him at 29 years old. Being the massive athlete he is, age has led to a decline in sprint speed to below-average levels, and his cannon of an arm isn't put to use all that often in right field. In addition, he's had multiple soft tissue injuries leading to IL stints, making him unreliable to even remain on the field aside from his production when he is in the lineup. He looked fantastic defensively at first base at the beginning of the year, but Kirilloff's return has filled the left-handed first-base role, and first-base defense isn't a premium skill.
Gallo's immense struggles make parting ways with him a bit more complicated, as although the Dodgers traded a Double-A pitcher for him at last season's deadline, his struggles persisting through a second season suggests that he could be in a full-on decline. Even a Double-A pitcher seems like a longshot trade return on Joey Gallo.
Not being able to get a respectable return shouldn't keep him on the roster all season, but he is still capable of going on white-hot streaks of offensive damage, as we saw to begin the season. The Twins are likely considering that possibility as they ponder whether they want to gift him to another team for free. They could cut down on the strikeout problem by parting with Gallo, but do they want to risk missing out on the potential upside he showed to begin the season while likely paying the remainder of his $11m to not play for the Twins?
Max Kepler
Kepler was slashing .189/.261/.365 through June 18, when he went on a hot streak for four games, going 6-16 with three homers. He then went on an 0-11 stretch before heating up again, going 8-18 with two more homers. He finished the first half riding an 0-16 stretch into the break. Some say Kepler's two hot streaks may have saved his job, but that may give the Twins too much credit.
Since the beginning of 2021, Kepler has been slashing .216/.306/.387, good for an OPS around .50 points below a league-average right fielder offensively. His defense has been great (though he's had some questionable play lately), but he's declined to be part of the solution in center field and is now a glove-first corner outfield option on a team struggling offensively.
All of this was just as true coming into the season when the Twins declined trade offers for Kepler and dedicated $8.5m in payroll with several top prospects on their way that were deserving of the opportunity. The fact that the Twins may have been on the precipice of parting with Kepler before his hot stretch is likely wishful thinking, as it seems at this point that no level of offensive struggles will keep the Twins from admitting they made the wrong decision this winter.
In terms of keeping Kepler over Gallo, he has the defensive prowess he appears to have lost. His game also has less swing-and-miss, another potential tiebreaker for the Twins' whiff-happy lineup. He's also shown more offensively than Gallo recently, even though it came in tiny spurts surrounded by more of the same of what we've seen the last few years from Kepler.
Kepler also has a team option for 2024 attached to him, which can be viewed as either positive or negative. On the one hand, $10m would be a bargain if he can hit even league-average levels with his typical defense. That adds value if anyone believes Kepler can hold up that end of the deal. Conversely, teams won't pay for a league-average bat with two years of control. Given how long his offense has trended down, the asking price, even from last winter, will have dropped even further. The Twins may continue to overvalue him and not only hold onto him at the deadline but run it back in 2024 regardless of his output in hopes that Kepler somehow rebounds from three years of below-average production at age 31. It's now a well-known fact that nobody values Max Kepler as highly as the team he's burned repeatedly.
It's almost always good to have options on a Major League roster. Unfortunately, the Twins have multiple options for which underperforming players can be jettisoned from the roster to try to create a spark. There's no shot it would happen, but there's an argument to be made that they should move on from both Gallo and Kepler.
Operating under the assumption that there's one move to make, it likely comes down to Gallo vs. Kepler. Is there a wrong answer regarding who the Twins should move on from? Should they ride it out with both? Let us know below.
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