Who are the Luckiest and Unluckiest Twins Hitters This Season?

Underlying statistics, particularly batted ball metrics such as exit velocity and launch angle, are far more predictive of future performance than traditional stats like slugging percentage and OPS. These advanced metrics help us understand the quality of a player's contact and provide insight into whether their current performance is sustainable.

To determine which Twins hitters have been the luckiest and unluckiest this season, we’ll use two key metrics: Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA) and Expected Weighted On-Base Average (xwOBA). wOBA captures a hitter's overall offensive value, while xwOBA predicts what a player's wOBA should be based on the quality of their contact (exit velocity, launch angle, and batted ball type). The difference between these two metrics can indicate whether a player has been particularly fortunate or unfortunate.

Luckiest Twins Hitters
1. José Miranda
wOBA: .353
xwOBA: .328
Difference: 0.025

José Miranda is coming off one of the best months of his career in June, where he posted a .940 OPS across 25 games. On the season, Miranda is posting career-high numbers in just about every metric. However, the advanced metrics suggest a dip in his performance could be coming.

Miranda is currently hitting like a top-30 player in baseball with an OPS of .821, yet his barrel rates and hard-hit rates are only in the 50th percentile. While he has made significant improvements in his approach at the plate—lowering his K% and whiff%—his batted ball metrics still outpace his 2022 numbers. The reality is that the 2024 José Miranda likely sits somewhere between his 114 OPS+ in his rookie season in 2022 and his current 131 OPS+.

2. Willi Castro
wOBA: .353
xwOBA: .332
Difference: 0.021

Willi Castro's breakout season at the plate is one of the most surprising developments of the 2024 MLB season. While he has made strides at the plate, luck has played a significant role in his impressive numbers.

Castro currently sports an OPS of .804, ahead of the likes of Corey Seager, Austin Riley, and Matt Olson, despite having an average exit velocity in the 29th percentile and a barrel percentage in the 45th percentile. Castro’s luck is evident in his .356 BABIP, the fifth highest in baseball. Although BABIP isn't purely about luck, his career BABIP of .319 suggests a regression to the mean is likely in the second half of the season. Castro has certainly improved, but his underlying metrics indicate his numbers have been somewhat inflated by luck.

Unluckiest Twins Hitters
1. Manuel Margot
wOBA: .294
xwOBA: .344
Difference: -0.050

Manuel Margot had a nightmare start to the 2024 season. Through the month of May, Margot owned an OPS of .528 and caused many fans to petition for a DFA. The Minnesota Twins decided to stick with the struggling veteran, likely because they looked at his underlying metrics and saw that he was better than his numbers showed. Minnesota's patience with Margot has started to pay off as the right-hander has posted a .899 OPS since the start of June and is hitting like they expected him to when they acquired Margot this offseason.

Even with his hot month of June, Margot still ranks out as the unluckiest hitter on the Minnesota Twins this season, and one look at his Baseball Reference page makes it easy to see why. Despite hitting like a far-below average player over the course of the season, Margot has batted ball metrics, like average exit velocity and hard hit % near the 50th percentile, not dissimilar from the likes of José Miranda. Additionally, Margot is in the 87th percentile for K%, with a career-low strikeout rate of 15%.

Margot clearly won't hit like the .899 OPS that he showed in the month of June, but his underlying metrics certainly point to a guy with an OPS that starts with 7 rather than the OPS of .528 that we saw for the first couple of months of the season, and for a backup outfielder that's been solid on the base paths, that's a quality player to have on your team.

2. Trevor Larnach
wOBA: .323
xwOBA: .361
Difference: -0.038

Trevor Larnach hits the snot out of the ball. Larnach leads the Minnesota Twins in average exit velocity and barrels per plate appearance. He hits the ball hard (95+ MPH) 43.8% of the time and can hit tanks to all parts of the ballpark with no problem.

With a hitting profile like that, it's surprising to see that he only has a wOBA of .323 and a solid, but not excellent OPS of .746. Larnach has a career-low BABIP of .271, though everything in his profile points to him posting an OPS in the 800s. Larnach has a career-low K% and career-best plate discipline numbers, he's just unfortunately ripping balls to the wrong spots. Like the example below.

Did any of the discussed names surprise you? Do you think regression will hit all of the players listed? Leave a comment below and start the conversation!