How the Twins’ lineup took off by fixing 3 major first-half problems

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA - SEPTEMBER 9: Manager Rocco Baldelli of Minnesota Twins winks at a TV camera after the game against the New York Mets at Target Field on September 9, 2023 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Twins defeated the Mets 8-4. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
By Aaron Gleeman
Sep 22, 2023

While stumbling through a mediocre, uneven first half with a 45-46 record, the Minnesota Twins constantly wasted strong starting pitching performances with an inept offense, failing to provide any semblance of consistent run support. At the All-Star break, the Twins’ staff boasted the American League’s second-best ERA, but also led the league with 14 losses when allowing three runs or fewer.

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Despite a first-half OPS just 11 points under the league-wide mark, the Twins’ lineup ranked 24th in runs per game and scored two runs or fewer in 40 percent of their games. They clearly weren’t good, but they also scored even fewer runs than their overall stats suggested they should because they struggled so mightily in three key areas: facing left-handers, pinch hitting and bases loaded.

It’s been a much different story in the second half, with the Twins surging to a 36-26 record and a drama-free division title despite their pitching sliding to the middle of the pack. They’ve been carried by the much-maligned lineup, which has scored the AL’s second-most runs since the break. And it’s come via massive improvements in those same three key areas that plagued them in the first half.

Let’s take a deeper look at how the Twins’ lineup has pulled that off.

Facing left-handers

On paper, the Twins’ lineup looked strong against left-handed pitchers. Built around right-handed hitters Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton and Jose Miranda, and supplemented by right-handed-hitting role players Donovan Solano, Kyle Farmer, Ryan Jeffers and Michael A. Taylor, the lineup featured the personnel to make life difficult on lefty starters by stacking seven or eight righty bats.

But it just never came together as planned in the first half. Correa and Buxton weren’t their usual lefty-mashing selves. Miranda was so injured and ineffective that he got demoted to the minors on May 10. Solano, Farmer and Jeffers, who had made careers of knocking around lefties, simply weren’t producing enough in those hand-picked matchups.

Their lineup versus lefties went from a potential strength to a glaring weakness, as the Twins collectively hit just .218 with a .654 OPS off lefties in the first half to rank dead last out of 30 teams in batting average and OPS. They were so bad versus lefties that opponents would bring in any mediocre lefty reliever they had for a multi-inning stint, knowing the Twins were helpless to punish them.

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Throughout the first half, manager Rocco Baldelli was steadfast in his belief the Twins were using a smart platoon strategy and had the personnel to turn things around facing lefties, saying just before the All-Star break: “We’re going to play our righties against left-handed pitching. That fact is going to hold true. There is no way we’re going to sit our righties who have history against left-handers.”

And it worked.

Baldelli never wavered from platoon-based lineups, and largely kept trotting out the same core group of right-handed bats against left-handed pitchers, but their production has surged in the second half. Since the All-Star break, the lineup is hitting .266 with an .809 OPS versus lefties, a massive 155-point jump in OPS. They rank ninth in batting average and seventh in OPS out of 30 teams.

Correa’s first-half OPS against lefties was just .711, but his second-half OPS is .886, right in line with his .859 career mark. Solano, Farmer, Jeffers and Taylor combined for a .699 OPS versus lefties in the first half, well below expectations, but that quartet of right-handed role players has a .962 OPS versus lefties in the second half. Baldelli trusted the personnel and the track records, and it paid off.

Pinch hitting

After devoting the offseason to hoarding veteran depth, the front office handed Baldelli the best bench he’s ever had, by far. And he was damn sure going to use it, early and often, leading the league in total pinch hitters and pinch runners. As with lineups, Baldelli’s platoon-based strategy for pinch hitters looks to get them matched up against opposite-sided pitchers as often as possible.

However, it failed miserably in the first half, as the Twins’ pinch hitters batted just .173 with a .512 OPS while being used heavily. Fans understandably grew frustrated by the in-game juggling, particularly when young left-handed hitters were removed in favor of veteran right-handed hitters who rarely came through. Pinch hitter failures made things even worse for an already struggling lineup.

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But rather than reacting to the rough first half by shying away from bulk pinch hitting, Baldelli has used them exactly as often per game in the second half. As with their platoon-based lineup constructions discussed above, Baldelli and the Twins trusted they had the correct personnel and approach, and trusted a larger sample would prove the strategy was sound.

And it worked.

Twins pinch hitters have been incredible in the second half, batting .310 with a 1.011 OPS in heavy usage to lead MLB in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, runs and RBIs off the bench. They’ve been so fantastic in the second half that the Twins now rank ninth in overall pinch hitting OPS for the season after placing 25th in the first half. And those are high-leverage spots.

Much like the lineup’s improvement versus left-handed pitching, the improved pinch hitting production has come largely from the same group of bats. Solano, Farmer, Willi Castro, Max Kepler and Edouard Julien accounted for 51 percent of the Twins’ pinch hitter usage in the first half, and that same quintet accounts for 52 percent in the second half.

Their biggest change to the post-break bench cast was claiming Jordan Luplow off waivers on Aug. 4. He filled a season-long roster hole as a right-handed bat able to play all three outfield spots. Baldelli turned to him off the bench a team-high 12 times in the second half, typically against a lefty reliever. Luplow came through with a 1.125 OPS, only to be designated for assignment on Sept. 20.

Bases loaded

Few things in sports are more frustrating than seeing a team repeatedly come up empty with the bases loaded, a situation in which batters across the league thrive every season. Not only were the Twins awful with the bases loaded in the first half, ranking dead last in MLB by hitting .161 with a .426 OPS, they were especially terrible in the bases-loaded, no-out situations teams dream about.

It was brutal to watch, and absolutely cost the Twins first-half wins. Instead of breaking games open, knocking out pitchers and giving their own staff a bit of breathing room, the lineup failed to even make contact so often with the bases loaded that Baldelli began using “hit the ball forward” as his go-to mantra/plea for batters to at least give themselves a chance by putting the ball in play.

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There’s only so much any team can do to change things with the bases loaded, because you can’t choose which lineup spot comes up in those situations. Teams can alter their bases-loaded approach by instructing batters to focus on contact or attacking early in counts. And the Twins did some of that, but their strikeout rate with the bases loaded is actually slightly higher in the second half.

And yet, it worked.

They’ve gone from worst to first with the bases loaded since the All-Star break, batting .333 with a 1.188 OPS that leads the majors by 100 points. It’s almost impossible to overstate the impact of that level of improvement with the bases loaded, where one extra hit can mean the difference between a win and a loss. And the Twins essentially doubled their batting average and tripled their OPS.

Patience, trusting track records and sticking to a strategy are the main themes of the Twins’ improved second-half production against lefties and from pinch hitters, but their vastly better performance with the bases loaded can mostly be traced to a far more straightforward and satisfying explanation: Royce Lewis.

Lewis was recovering from a torn ACL until late May and came to the plate just twice with the bases loaded in the first half, singling and striking out. But he’s found himself up with the bases loaded a team-leading 10 times since the All-Star break, delivering an astounding four grand slams — the Twins’ single-season record — and 19 RBIs while making only four outs.

If you remove his absurd numbers from the Twins’ totals, their batting average with the bases loaded in the second half drops from .333 to .288 and their OPS plummets from 1.188 to .820. With the bases loaded in the second half, Lewis accounts for literally half of the entire team’s total bases. It turns out, one simple way to fix a bases-loaded problem is to add a guy nicknamed Mr. Grand Slam.

(Top photo of manager Rocco Baldelli: Stephen Maturen / Getty Images)

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Aaron Gleeman

Aaron Gleeman is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Minnesota Twins. He was previously the editor-in-chief of Baseball Prospectus and a senior writer for NBC Sports. He was named the 2021 NSMA Minnesota Sportswriter of the Year and co-hosts the "Gleeman and The Geek" podcast. Follow Aaron on Twitter @AaronGleeman