Three of the key regulars in the Minnesota Twins’ lineup to start the season were 26-or-under left-handed hitters — Edouard Julien (25), Alex Kirilloff (26) and Matt Wallner (26) — who batted first, second and fifth in the team’s initial order against right-handed pitchers.
That trio accounted for three of the Twins’ six highest individual OPS totals last year, combining to bat .262/.367/.466 for a 131 OPS+ in 273 games. And they were being counted on to help carry the offense again in 2024. Instead, all three were demoted back to the minors before the 70-game mark of the season, and they’re now together in the Triple-A St. Paul lineup.
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Wallner was demoted first, getting sent down less than three weeks into the season after starting 2-for-25 with 17 strikeouts. Julien met the same fate on June 4 after hitting .207/.309/.367 in 58 games. And two weeks later they’ve been joined by Kirilloff, who hit just .165 in his last 50 games to all but force the Twins into Thursday’s demotion to St. Paul.
Luis Gil, Vicious 93mph Changeup. 👌 pic.twitter.com/S6aF1fzWoU
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 5, 2024
As a trio, they combined to bat .195/.289/.365 for an 87 OPS+ in 128 games this season, falling nearly 180 points short of last year’s collective OPS production and leaving the Twins’ lineup lacking in left-handed thump. To replace Kirilloff, the Twins called up right-handed hitter Austin Martin rather than turning back to Wallner, who has eight homers in his past 15 games for the Saints.
While all three left-handed hitters are in roughly the same age range, their experience levels — and, as a result, their overall situations — vary quite a bit. Julien and Wallner were rookies in 2023, so falling victim to sophomore slumps is somewhat expected and doesn’t necessarily have to meaningfully alter their place in the Twins’ plans.
Kirilloff is a different story. This is his fourth regular season in the majors and he debuted for the Twins way back in the 2020 playoffs, before Julien had even played a game in the minors and before Wallner had moved past Low-A competition. Kirilloff, who reached arbitration eligibility this season, has already experienced his version of a sophomore slump, and then some.
In fact, this is the fourth consecutive season in which Kirilloff has been sent back to the minors. He’s repeatedly shown he’s too good to be there, hitting .366/.468/.673 in various Triple-A stints, but rarely has that carried over to the majors. Kirilloff has hit .248/.309/.412 in 884 plate appearances with the Twins, posting a below-average OPS in three of his four big-league seasons.
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Injuries have been a big factor in that underwhelming production. Kirilloff got hurt in the second game of his rookie season and basically wasn’t fully healthy for the next three years, undergoing surgeries in 2021 (wrist), 2022 (wrist) and 2023 (shoulder). But by all accounts, he’s healthy now, which is what makes this year’s struggles so discouraging.
Kirilloff is one of the highest-profile hitting prospects in Twins history. He was a first-round pick out of high school in 2016, batted .348 in his first full season in the minors and ranked as a consensus top-50 prospect for three straight years, reaching as high as No. 15 on Baseball America’s list. From the moment he was drafted, Kirilloff was expected to become a star.
Kirilloff has shown some flashes of that potential despite constant physical setbacks, but unfortunately, most of his Twins career has been spent on the injured list, rehabbing from an injury or struggling to sustain consistent production at the plate while everyone questions if he’s injured. And now that he finally got a clear runway for takeoff, his flight is grounded.
KIRILLOFF FOR THE LEAD!!! 🚀#MNTWINS // #MLB pic.twitter.com/AZ3p9QWWRh
— Bally Sports North (@BallySportsNOR) May 25, 2024
At his healthy best, Kirilloff’s smooth, line-drive swing is capable of power from foul line to foul line. He can turn on inside pitches, pulling rockets into right field, and he can wait back on outside pitches, launching them into left field. And he hit for substantial power without racking up tons of strikeouts, suggesting he could become an all-around, middle-of-the-lineup force.
Injuries kept the Twins from seeing that impact hitter for more than brief stretches the past three seasons, and now it’s fair to wonder if that promise still exists or if years of significant health problems have lowered Kirilloff’s ceiling permanently. That’s a legitimate worry given the length and manner of Kirilloff’s struggles this season while hitting .201/.270/.384 in 57 games.
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Kirilloff is a below-average first baseman and corner outfielder defensively, and like most left-handed hitters, he’s performed poorly versus left-handed pitchers, batting .206/.285/.336 for his MLB career. He’s been a negative in the field and hasn’t hit lefties, which leaves feasting on favorable matchups against right-handers as the only way for Kirilloff to make a sizable impact.
He’s fallen well short of that high bar, hitting just .257/.315/.429 off righties, including .203/.272/.392 this year. In particular, his longstanding ability to do damage on fastballs from righties has been muted by opposing pitchers throwing him fewer and fewer of them, instead feeding Kirilloff a steady diet of off-speed pitches that he’s never consistently handled adequately.
Kirilloff has hit .296 with a .497 slugging percentage versus fastballs in his career, including slugging .447 this year even while floundering overall. But pitchers eventually learned they didn’t have to give Kirilloff many fastballs because he’s hit just .193 with a .316 slugging percentage against off-speed pitches and lacks the discipline to avoid chasing them below the zone.
Kirilloff saw just 49.9 percent fastballs before his demotion, down from 57.4 percent and 55.6 percent the previous two seasons. And recently, he fell into such an all-encompassing funk he even ceased punishing the rare fastballs he saw. He chased off-speed slop out of the zone, swung through fastballs in the zone and made weak contact when not whiffing, earning the demotion.
Midway through his age-26 season, Kirilloff has totaled just 0.3 WAR in 249 career games, replacement-level value. And that makes sense, since teams usually have little trouble finding a platoon 1B/LF/DH with a 101 OPS+ and a poor glove. That’s the middling all-around player Kirilloff has been so far, but it doesn’t mean that’s the player he’s forever destined to be.
How much longer will the Twins wait to see if a better version emerges? He has three years of team control remaining after this one, so there’s plenty of motivation to get Kirilloff on track, but this is the final season in which they can send him to the minors, he’ll turn 27 soon and he’s no longer minimum salaried. His window with the Twins certainly isn’t closed, but it’s closing.
Jose Miranda and Trevor Larnach moved ahead of Kirilloff in the current 1B/DH/LF pecking order thanks to strong recent production. Julien and Wallner are working their way back to the majors, now playing alongside Kirilloff in St. Paul. And another wave of young hitters, led by Brooks Lee and Emmanuel Rodriguez, is nearing the big leagues.
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There’s no reason to give up on Kirilloff yet, but time is running short. By the July 30 trade deadline, he needs to have at least shown in St. Paul that there’s still a quality bat beneath the injury wreckage, because his status with the Twins can no longer revolve around theoretical upside. They need a hitter in that role who will produce, whether it’s Kirilloff or someone else.
(Photo: Stephen Maturen / Getty Images)
