At the beginning of the season, the Twins were one of the league’s oldest teams, led by 41-year-old Nelson Cruz. They expected to contend for a third straight AL Central title and spent the offseason filling in gaps with veteran free agents, leading to 13 of the 26 players on the Opening Day roster being 30 or older. To say that plan went poorly would be an understatement.
Advertisement
Many of their veterans struggled, with the free-agent signings of J.A. Happ (38 years old), Matt Shoemaker (34) and Alexander Colomé (32) especially dragging the team down. Never-ending injuries forced the Twins to dip into the minors for help, calling up several top prospects well ahead of schedule. They weren’t able to get back on track, eventually trading away a handful of key veterans.
And suddenly the Twins are no longer very old. They’re also not very good, but there’s a big difference between losing with one of the league’s oldest teams and taking your lumps with a rookie-filled roster gaining on-the-job experience, at least in terms of attempting to find some silver linings, and future value, within the losses. If you’re going to be bad, at least be young.
With that in mind, here are six Twins rookies with something to prove over the final two months and which storylines to keep an eye on to track their progress.
Trevor Larnach: Ability to adjust
Larnach, the Twins’ preseason No. 3 prospect, made his debut at least a few months earlier than planned because of a steady stream of injuries to the big-league lineup. He got off to a strong start by hitting .267/.380/.431 in his first 37 games, showing impressive raw power and plate discipline for a rookie, but opposing pitchers have basically stopped throwing Larnach fastballs and he’s in a prolonged slump.
He’s hit .185 with 51 strikeouts in his past 33 games, dropping his OPS from .811 on June 20 to .676 today. On a related note: Larnach has seen the third-fewest fastballs in baseball, ahead of only noted fastball destroyers Jorge Soler and Shohei Ohtani. When he does get a rare fastball, he’s hit .301 with a .531 slugging percentage. When he doesn’t get a fastball, he’s hit .156.
LARNACH LAUNCH PAD 🚀@Twins | #MNTwins pic.twitter.com/RjLdQNG6Dp
— Bally Sports North (@BallySportsNOR) July 7, 2021
It’s becoming increasingly common for young hitters to see an avalanche of breaking balls and changeups, as veteran pitchers waste no time putting them to the test in a way minor-league pitchers aren’t always capable of doing. This isn’t unique to Larnach — it was true of Alex Kirilloff before his season-ending wrist injury — but certainly he’s seeing even fewer fastballs than most rookies.
Advertisement
The good news is there are a couple of surefire ways to get pitchers to throw more fastballs. The bad news is they’re both a lot easier said than done. Larnach can start hitting off-speed pitches much better, in which case pitchers will dial back on them. Or he can start laying off more borderline off-speed pitches, forcing pitchers into fastball counts. That’s the challenge he faces down the stretch.
Brent Rooker: Power and playing time
While still technically a prospect because he has fewer than 130 career at-bats in the majors, Rooker is 26 years old and has shown repeatedly that he can beat up on Triple-A pitching. What he hasn’t shown, mostly because he hasn’t gotten the opportunity yet, is that he can be a productive regular in the major leagues. That figures to change after Cruz’s trade to Tampa Bay.
Rooker was recalled from Triple A to replace Cruz on the roster and has been the Twins’ primary designated hitter since, also seeing some action in left field. He’s already hit three mammoth homers since rejoining the team, but Rooker’s raw power has never really been in question. He has 38 homers in 530 at-bats between Triple A and the majors, most of them absolutely crushed.
TRIPLE DECKER 😲@Brent_Rooker19 | #MNTwins pic.twitter.com/WJaqsrkMuB
— Bally Sports North (@BallySportsNOR) July 27, 2021
What threatens to hold Rooker back are his high strikeout rates, low batting averages and limited defensive aptitude. He’s a career .260 hitter at Triple A, including .239 this season, striking out 175 times in 126 total games. And the bar for Rooker’s offensive production is higher than most because he’s a poor corner outfielder and a mediocre first baseman best suited for the designated-hitter role.
This season across the league, the average DH has hit .243/.320/.447 with 25 homers per 500 at-bats. That’s the baseline for Rooker warranting an everyday job. He’s hit .260/.380/.540 at Triple A, which certainly suggests he’s capable of at least matching those leaguewide numbers, but unless he gets the chance to prove it the Twins will never know for sure. He should get the chance now.
Advertisement
Bailey Ober: Off-speed pitches
For a team in desperate need of future rotation help, Ober’s emergence has been one of the few pitching bright spots of 2021. He worked behind the scenes in 2020 to get into better shape and add velocity to his fastball, and the results have been undeniably encouraging. He now throws 91-93 mph instead of 88-90, and the 6-foot-9 right-hander now looks like a building block.
When he was posting video-game-like numbers in the minors despite the “soft tosser” label attached, Ober pounded the strike zone and relied heavily on off-speed pitches. It’s been a different story with the Twins so far. His control has been good but not great, with 2.7 walks per nine innings and a league-average strike rate, and Ober’s non-fastballs have gotten clobbered.
Opponents have slugged above .650 on Ober’s slider, curveball and changeup, with eight of his 11 homers allowed coming on off-speed pitches. Meanwhile, his fastball, once a high-80s question mark, is now a low-90s weapon. Thrown about 60 percent of the time, at an average of 92 mph, his fastball misses more bats than expected and has rarely been hit hard.
In particular, Ober has been able to take advantage of the additional perceived velocity that comes with his height by working up in the zone with his fastball, where it seems to surprise hitters by how quickly it gets on them. He’s ridden his improved fastball to 51 strikeouts in 47 innings, but the next step for Ober will be rediscovering his off-speed effectiveness against big-league bats.
Ryan Jeffers: Arm and contact
Jeffers has shown two clearly above-average skills since debuting for the Twins last August: power hitting and pitch framing. He has 12 homers in 206 at-bats, most of them no-doubters, so it’s easy to see the 6-4, 240-pound catcher’s strength on display. He’s also done a very good job getting called strikes for his pitchers, ranking 13th among all catchers in pitch framing since last season.
Those two skills are more than enough to keep Jeffers in the majors for a long time, as catchers who can hit the ball over the fence at the plate and maximize called strikes behind it are in high demand. However, the rest of Jeffers’ game has been somewhat lacking so far, with two specific areas of improvement needed if he’s going to become an asset as the Twins’ long-term starter.
Jeffers crushin' lefties.#MNTwins pic.twitter.com/CcsvxVPh91
— Bally Sports North (@BallySportsNOR) July 9, 2021
Stolen bases are less of a factor than ever across baseball, but Jeffers’ throwing was enough of an issue early that some teams game-planned challenging him. When the Twins demoted Jeffers to the minors in late April, he’d thrown out 14 percent of steal attempts for his career. Throwing mechanics became a point of emphasis, and since returning in early June he’s thrown out 34 percent.
Advertisement
Jeffers also made adjustments to his approach at the plate while in the minors and the results have been noticeable, but he continues to strike out a lot. That’s part of the equation for a power hitter, of course, but he’s whiffed in 34 percent of his plate appearances and hasn’t drawn the walks required to balance those out. He hasn’t chased a ton but has swung through too many pitches in the zone.
Jorge Alcala: Matchups versus lefties
Alcala’s stuff is too good for his performance to be this bad. He has a high-90s fastball and a sharp, bat-missing slider, yet his ERA is 5.27 ERA and he’s been unreliable in anything other than low-leverage relief situations. His biggest problem is the same one that caused the Twins to give up on him as a starter and move him to the bullpen in late 2019: Alcala can’t get left-handed hitters out.
Lefties have hit .275 with a .571 slugging percentage off Alcala for his career, including six homers in 57 at-bats this season. He’s been great versus righties, holding them to .221/.258/.315 with the fastball-slider combo, but he lacks a dependable weapon versus lefties because Alcala’s changeup remains a work in progress at age 26.
At the urging of Twins coaches, Alcala has used his changeup more often of late, throwing it 16 percent of the time in June and July compared with just 8 percent in April and May. However, he’s yet to find consistency with the pitch, often forcing him to turn back to his fastball in key spots. That predictability is part of why he’s served up so many backbreaking homers.
It’s easy to see that Alcala should be an MLB-caliber reliever and perhaps even a late-inning asset. He throws very hard and has a breaking ball that generates swings and misses consistently against righties, but unless or until he can figure out a way to neutralize lefties at least somewhat, his upside will remain mostly theoretical. He has two months to work on his changeup.
Nick Gordon: Versatility
Several seasons filled with injuries and health problems, including a harrowing experience with COVID-19, nearly knocked Gordon off the prospect map, but the 2014 No. 5 pick fought his way back and reached the big leagues in May, seven years after the Twins drafted him. Now the question is whether or not he can convince the Twins he has the skill set required for a long-term bench role.
Gordon has batted .247/.295/.326 in 35 games for the Twins, underwhelming production in line with his .255/.304/.368 mark in 177 games at Triple A. He’s a skinny slap hitter, as shown by eight homers in 791 at-bats between Triple A and the majors, yet Gordon strikes out a lot and rarely walks. That combo isn’t a recipe for hitting success, which is why Gordon’s versatility and speed are keys.
Nick Gordon looked like a natural in center field last night. pic.twitter.com/JYcXMSVufM
— Matthew Taylor (@MatthewTaylorMN) June 11, 2021
Gordon was drafted as a shortstop, but by the time he got to Triple A in 2018, he was splitting reps at shortstop and second base. He’s yet to receive a start at shortstop with the Twins and the bulk of his action has come in center field, a position he’d never played before two months ago. There have been predictable growing pains, but for the most part, Gordon has looked passable in center.
Advertisement
Fielding flexibility is essential to Gordon’s odds of sticking in the majors, with the Twins or elsewhere. He’s a marginal hitter and stretched at shortstop, but if he can be a reasonable emergency option there in addition to being playable at second base and center field — and maybe third base and the outfield corners eventually — that would go a long way toward finding him a niche.
(Photo of Brent Rooker (left) and Trevor Larnach: Brace Hemmelgarn /
