Trevor Larnach's struggles

[bighat]

With a single in yesterday's 1-0 win against Chicago, Trevor Larnach is now batting .300 in August.

Alas, that's the lone bright spot in what's been a horrendous past 2 months for the rookie. Larnach has completely lost his power stroke, with his last homer coming over a month ago on July 7. He's could very well get 450 at bats this season and finish with less than 10 homers. 

His July was awful. Overall he went 18-for-94 (.191) with just three extra base hits. Those extra base hits all came on or before July 7th. The rest of July he went 9-for-69 (.130), all nine hits were singles, and he struck out 33 times (47% strikeout rate). Woof. Now it's clear the front office is using this year to get the kid experience, and they're just going to run him out there every day come hell or high water. But what we are seeing isn't encouraging.

Are you disappointed in what you've seen from Trev Larnach? Or are you satisfied with these results and penciling him into the 2022 lineup? Has he earned a starting job in MLB next year? Or should he play a full season in AAA next year to work out what appear to be serious swing problems?

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

I'm not concerned about it. Both his OPS+ and wRC+ are 94 overall in just under 300 plate appearances as a 24 year old. His K rate is a mildly alarming 34% but we all knew that would be a problem going in and it's also just part of today's game. Inversely, his BB rate is 10% so he's doing quite well on that front.

Lately, it appears he's been going inside-out more often, almost surely to the detriment of power. In the short-term as an adjustment to how pitchers are pitching him, that's an encouraging sign that he has the ability to diversify and not be trapped into a single hitting style that leads to prolonged slumps and inescapable holes in his swing (Miguel Sano, anyone?).

He doesn't even have half a full season under his belt yet, the ride is bound to be a little bumpy for awhile.

His splits per month:

Months

Split	G	GS	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	TB	GDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB	ROE	BAbip	tOPS+	sOPS+
May	20	17	72	57	8	13	4	0	3	7	0	0	12	19	.228	.389	.456	.845	26	0	3	0	0	0	1	.286	145	138
June	23	21	92	82	11	21	4	0	2	6	0	0	6	28	.256	.326	.378	.704	31	2	3	0	1	0	0	.358	104	93
July	26	22	103	94	8	18	1	0	2	10	1	0	7	43	.191	.252	.266	.518	25	1	1	0	1	0	0	.320	51	42
August	8	7	26	20	2	6	3	0	0	4	0	0	5	10	.300	.462	.450	.912	9	0	1	0	0	0	0	.600	166	157

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/12/2021.

[Taildragger8791]

5 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I'm not concerned about it. Both his OPS+ and wRC+ are 94 overall in just under 300 plate appearances as a 24 year old. His K rate is a mildly alarming 34% but we all knew that would be a problem going in and it's also just part of today's game. Inversely, his BB rate is 10% so he's doing quite well on that front.

Lately, it appears he's been going inside-out more often, almost surely to the detriment of power. In the short-term as an adjustment to how pitchers are pitching him, that's an encouraging sign that he has the ability to diversify and not be trapped into a single hitting style that leads to prolonged slumps and inescapable holes in his swing (Miguel Sano, anyone?).

He doesn't even have half a full season under his belt yet, the ride is bound to be a little bumpy for awhile.

His splits per month:

Months

Split	G	GS	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	TB	GDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB	ROE	BAbip	tOPS+	sOPS+
May	20	17	72	57	8	13	4	0	3	7	0	0	12	19	.228	.389	.456	.845	26	0	3	0	0	0	1	.286	145	138
June	23	21	92	82	11	21	4	0	2	6	0	0	6	28	.256	.326	.378	.704	31	2	3	0	1	0	0	.358	104	93
July	26	22	103	94	8	18	1	0	2	10	1	0	7	43	.191	.252	.266	.518	25	1	1	0	1	0	0	.320	51	42
August	8	7	26	20	2	6	3	0	0	4	0	0	5	10	.300	.462	.450	.912	9	0	1	0	0	0	0	.600	166	157

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/12/2021.

You say "24-year old" like that's not old for low-A? For a college player at that level I would be pretty concerned about a 34% K-rate. That's unlikely to hold steady or drop with 4 levels ahead of him yet. Especially when he clearly has an eye for pitches, suggesting his deficiency is pure bat-to-ball skills. The only MLB players who can approach that rate are immense power hitters. It'll be interesting to see what happens against less wild pitchers as he moves up.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Just now, Taildragger8791 said:

You say "24-year old" like that's not old for low-A? For a college player at that level I would be pretty concerned about a 34% K-rate. That's unlikely to hold steady or drop with 4 levels ahead of him yet. Especially when he clearly has an eye for pitches, suggesting his deficiency is pure bat-to-ball skills. The only MLB players who can approach that rate are immense power hitters. It'll be interesting to see what happens against less wild pitchers as he moves up.

Methinks you might be reading the wrong name in this thread title and may want to look again.

[stringer bell]

I'm mildly concerned. When he arrived with the Twins, Larnach seemed to have everything middle in covered, but a hole on the outside half of the plate. He pulled everything. Now, he is using all of the field, but, as noted, the power seems to have evaporated. Larnach has a nice swing and pretty good plate discipline. I think he'll come out of this snag eventually and will hit the ball hard more often. 

That Larnach and other young players can work through their bumps in the road is the silver lining of a lost season.

[Taildragger8791]

6 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Methinks you might be reading the wrong name in this thread title and may want to look again.

OOF. Wtf. ?

Too early in the morning. For some reason I had Sabato on my brain as I was reading. Age should have been a giveaway, but the numbers between the two guys have a familiar echo...

Time to go get some coffee.

I agree Larnach is not setting off alarm bells for me yet. He needs another season of back and forth adjustments before I'll get too concerned, assuming the K-rate can come down into the 20's.

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 minutes ago, Taildragger8791 said:

OOF. Wtf. ?

Too early in the morning. For some reason I had Sabato on my brain as I was reading. Age should have been a giveaway, but the numbers between the two guys have a familiar echo...

Time to go get some coffee.

I agree Larnach is not setting off alarm bells for me yet. He needs another season of back and forth adjustments before I'll get too concerned, assuming the K-rate can come down into the 20's.

Heh, I suspected you were thinking of Sabato but wasn't sure.

[wsnydes]

I'm not overly concerned.  As pitchers adjust, I'd expect the power numbers to dip.  The fact that he's bringing the BA back up is a good sign even if it is just slapping the ball the other way for singles.  He's making contact, which is key.  That shows that he's making adjustments to what pitchers are doing.  The power should come back as he gets more PAs.  Let him keep playing every day in MN.

[wsnydes]

5 minutes ago, Taildragger8791 said:

OOF. Wtf. ?

Too early in the morning. For some reason I had Sabato on my brain as I was reading. Age should have been a giveaway, but the numbers between the two guys have a familiar echo...

Time to go get some coffee.

I agree Larnach is not setting off alarm bells for me yet. He needs another season of back and forth adjustments before I'll get too concerned, assuming the K-rate can come down into the 20's.

I figured that was just a cheap shot regarding how poorly the Twins have played at times.

[4twinsJA]

Thought Twins should have sent Larnach down to AAA for a month or so to get straightened out in June/July. 

[roger]

In a normal year, Larnach would have stayed in AAA for at least half the season, if not until September.  So being thrown into the Twins every day lineup was a shock.  It surprised the heck out of me at how well he did the first month or so.  As we have seen with Rortvedt and Celestino, once back at AAA they are hitting very well.  Same would hold for Larnach, who I suspect is going to be a very good major league hitter, perhaps not as good as Kirilloff, but still very good.

[gunnarthor]

He's 24. It's time for him to be in the majors. Let him work it out over the rest of the season and the first two months of next season. If he's still struggling at that point, I'll be concerned. But he missed a year last year so it's not surprising he's struggling a bit.

 

[chpettit19]

Not concerned. He was an inside out, left center gap, Joe Mauer type hitter his whole amateur career. Pulling for power was an adjustment he worked on all of last year (according to reports). Not surprised that he came out with a pull heavy, power approach this year as that's what he'd been working on and was supposed to be in AAA balancing his approach to be able to do both. Instead he got the call because of injuries and ML pitchers are really good at attacking holes in a swing. Him starting to go the other way more now is encouraging. He also has the power to get the ball out to center and left center as we've seen. From everything I read and hear about him he's obsessive about hitting and I think that leads him to finding a balance and being a very solid 5 hole hitter for the Twins for the foreseeable future.

[Mike Sixel]

Not really worried about the bat. But the fielding....ouch. No idea how that gets better..... Do they bite the bullet and see if kiriloff can play left next year?

As for now? He should be playing every day in Minnesota..... Just like he mostly is.

[Brock Beauchamp]

19 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

From everything I read and hear about him he's obsessive about hitting and I think that leads him to finding a balance and being a very solid 5 hole hitter for the Twins for the foreseeable future.

A hitting-obsessed lefty with near daily access to Justin Morneau convinces me he'll be just fine in the long run.

And probably a lot better than fine.

[bean5302]

Too early to worry about Larnach. He's looking pretty rough right now, and while there's some room for debate on how "young" he is, people also need to consider the impact losing a full MiLB season has. It's also worth nothing Larnach essentially went from AA to taking a full year off to starting at MLB 1.5 years after his last plate appearance in AA. There was no AAA in the mix (3 games does not count).

[LA VIkes Fan]

I'm penciling him in for a starting OF position next year, probably LF. I was concerned in July and even suggested a AAA re-set but he's come out of it well in August. He was able to re-set himself at the MLB level and that says good things about him going forward. His defense? Not going to be his calling card, but I think it's good enough for LF. Particularly if Buxton is in CF to help cover the gap. I also think his defense will improve over time. it's not like he's Josh Willingham out there. 

I see next year's every day OF as  Buxton in center, Larnach in left and a Kepler/RH bat platoon in RF. Refsnyder is that RH bat based on results up to now but I'd love to see them audition Miranda for that role. He has been playing a little OF in St. Paul. Kepler as the back up CF with Celestino in AAA as an emergency guy. If Miranda can be the RH half of a platoon, Refsnyder or Cave as the 5th OF. 

[MinnInPa]

no doubt a concern...very easy K for MLB pitchers right now...cant hit any breaking ball...and cant catch up to any speed. all the upside i saw at the beginning of the year is gone..cant see him as any more than another very avg .250 hitter with a way too high K rate over 35%.. wouldnt expect to see him in the starting lineup next year....hope not or Twins are in trouble. But hopefully we say goodbye to the K Cave. Buxton, Kiriloff, Refsnyder, Kepler??? Arraez out there at times..

 

[Sousy]

5 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

A hitting-obsessed lefty with near daily access to Justin Morneau convinces me he'll be just fine in the long run.

And probably a lot better than fine.

Larnach is also adjusting to major league pitching - and as noted above he's showing the ability to change his game from pulling for power to hitting all over the field. His ability to adjust is showing a lot more than some other players on the roster.

[Rosterman]

Larnach made a pretty big jump in the pitching he is facing, considering he was half-a-season at AA ball back in 2019. 

to

Would I have loved to see him stay longer at AAA, or backstep to St. Paul when he was slumping? Of course. I keep thinking of another guy who was 24 and in dire straits (even after having a two-season jump on Larnach), named Justin Morneau. He had to be called into the manager's office before figuring it out.

 

Shades of Carlos Gomez who struck out 140+ times in 152 games, and also needed to be in the minors but learned on the job. Think how difficult it is when you are still holding onto ways that have been successful for you as you rose thru the minors and the adjustments you have to make when you are facing guys who don't belong in the minors anymore, coupled with people who watch every pitch you take on video and translates it into analytics.

 

My bigger concern is Kepler, who I felt was the hardest working outfielder the Twins had ever seen. What caused that downturn. The secure contract? Abilities fading sooner than later?

 

Garlick was the first. He went down, as did Kepler, and Buxton bigtime. Refsnyder has missed waaaay too many games. Celestino was no way ready and glad he is getting at bats at AAA (he would have been spending all this time at AA ball, remember that). The Twins have played Gordon, Arraez, Rooker, Lin and we want to forget Cave in the outfield. That Astudillo hasn't been out there  is beyond me.

 

There is little need to send him to AAA and add Broxton or Kerrigan or Contreras to the roster (okay, why is Cave still here?). They are only stats, and one would think this guy many of us was toting as second to Baddoo as a rookie-of-the-year awhile ago will be just fine when the Twins return to winning ways.

[TwinsDr2021]

concerned? yes, absolutely, but still very optimistic on his future.  Was hoping he would force the Twins hand on starting on the big club next year, so far I am not sure he has done that.

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 hours ago, MinnInPa said:

no doubt a concern...very easy K for MLB pitchers right now...cant hit any breaking ball...and cant catch up to any speed. all the upside i saw at the beginning of the year is gone..cant see him as any more than another very avg .250 hitter with a way too high K rate over 35%.. wouldnt expect to see him in the starting lineup next year....hope not or Twins are in trouble. But hopefully we say goodbye to the K Cave. Buxton, Kiriloff, Refsnyder, Kepler??? Arraez out there at times..

This is a really harsh take on a guy through his first 300 plate appearances. Some comparison to others around that point in their careers:

Trevor Larnach: 293 PAs, 94 OPS+

Justin Morneau: 115 PAs, 73 OPS+

Michael Cuddyer: 257 PAs, 94 OPS+

Byron Buxton: 469 PAs, 80 OPS+

[yeahyabetcha]

I would think that he will be the starter in LF opening day next year.  Sure, he has struggled as a rookie, but so have a lot of others.  It is all about getting better now.  The Twins are doing the right thing by playing him regularly in the majors the rest of the year.

[Emjay]

I would say TL is a bit overrated.  he is below average speed in the field and on the bases below average fielder and not exactly showing a high Baseball IQ... he may start hitting again but those other things aren't necessarily going to change drastically, so that makes him a backup or AAA...

[bighat]

Larnach is indeed 24. But the: "He's young, just a kid" should be put into perspective with the list below:

Juan Soto is 22
Fernando Tatis Jr 22
Ronald Acuna 23
Luis Robert is 23
Vlad Guerrero Jr 22
Rafael Devers 24
Eloy Jimenez 24
Gleybar Torres 24
Ozzie Albies 24

The rookie numbers for all of the guys above were much better than what we're seeing from Larnach. Most of those guys already have All-Star berths under their belt and multiple years of very successful, eye-popping service time. I know players like this don't grow on trees, but they do seem to grow for some teams. They most noticeably also do not grow on the Minnesota Twins farm system.

"Larnach will be good because Justin Morneau's numbers were also bad at his age" seems to be a pretty flimsy supporting argument for TL's long-term. Why don't we all just admit that we're all just hoping better things will come from Larnach, but our faith is mostly based in the fact that admitting he's been a disappointment is just another tough pill to swallow in a disaster of a season.
 

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, bighat said:

Larnach is indeed 24. But the: "He's young, just a kid" should be put into perspective with the list below:

Juan Soto is 22
Fernando Tatis Jr 22
Ronald Acuna 23
Luis Robert is 23
Vlad Guerrero Jr 22
Rafael Devers 24
Eloy Jimenez 24
Gleybar Torres 24
Ozzie Albies 24

The rookie numbers for all of the guys above were much better than what we're seeing from Larnach. Most of those guys already have All-Star berths under their belt and multiple years of very successful, eye-popping service time. I know players like this don't grow on trees, but they do seem to grow for some teams. They most noticeably also do not grow on the Minnesota Twins farm system.

"Larnach will be good because Justin Morneau's numbers were also bad at his age" seems to be a pretty flimsy supporting argument for TL's long-term. Why don't we all just admit that we're all just hoping better things will come from Larnach, but our faith is mostly based in the fact that admitting he's been a disappointment is just another tough pill to swallow in a disaster of a season.
 

If your baseline for success is some of the best hitters of the league, you and I have *very* different outlooks for Trevor Larnach. He's not only considerably below the level of Vlad Jr and the like, he's not even the best young hitter in the Twins organization. That would go to Kirilloff and it's not particularly close, at least that's my opinion.

I don't recall seeing anyone say Larnach will be a success because Morneau was also bad but I have seen people - myself included - who don't write off the ceiling of a hitter based on fewer than 300 MLB plate appearances.

While Larnach is physically older than other successful hitters, it's not his fault he lost an entire season to a pandemic. He has just 172 minor league games under his belt, barely over one season in total. Even an all-time college great like Teixeira had 93 MiLB games and he didn't face a pandemic in the middle of his development.

[LA VIkes Fan]

How would you guys rate Larnach compared to Rooker? I know there is a relatively small sample size for both but for some reason to me it just seems like Larnach has a pretty good chance to be a solid regular with a reasonably high ceiling whereas I am about ready to write Rooker off as a possible contributor over the next year or two. That strikes me as a little unfair to Rooker since he's only had about 120 MLB ABs, but he has looked pretty overmatched. I guess the fact that Larnach started out well, then slumped, and is now coming back gives me hope that he can adjust and be a productive MLB hitter where Rooker never really had that strong start and can't seem to adjust is influencing my opinion. Perhaps too much. What does everybody think of the comparison between the two? I am curious because I think the way next year's roster is likely to come out there is probably only room for one of them given their defensive shortcomings.

P.S. I completely agree with Brock that Kirilloff is far and away the best of the three. I think that assuming his wrist fully recovers, Kirilloff's likely floor is a .275/.340/.450 guy with 15-20 HRs, while his ceiling is that of a consistent >.850 plus OPS guy with 25+ homers a year who can actually play a respectable or better defensive 1B and an acceptable or better corner OF. 

[chpettit19]

4 hours ago, bighat said:

Larnach is indeed 24. But the: "He's young, just a kid" should be put into perspective with the list below:

Juan Soto is 22
Fernando Tatis Jr 22
Ronald Acuna 23
Luis Robert is 23
Vlad Guerrero Jr 22
Rafael Devers 24
Eloy Jimenez 24
Gleybar Torres 24
Ozzie Albies 24

The rookie numbers for all of the guys above were much better than what we're seeing from Larnach. Most of those guys already have All-Star berths under their belt and multiple years of very successful, eye-popping service time. I know players like this don't grow on trees, but they do seem to grow for some teams. They most noticeably also do not grow on the Minnesota Twins farm system.

"Larnach will be good because Justin Morneau's numbers were also bad at his age" seems to be a pretty flimsy supporting argument for TL's long-term. Why don't we all just admit that we're all just hoping better things will come from Larnach, but our faith is mostly based in the fact that admitting he's been a disappointment is just another tough pill to swallow in a disaster of a season.
 

Not sure that picking 4 potentially all-time-great hitters (Soto, Tatis, Acuna, Vlad Jr) and 5 other elite prospects is really useful perspective here. I've never seen anyone suggest Larnach is going to be a superstar. There's also a key difference between those 9 guys and Larnach...Larnach is American and the earliest he could have started getting professional coaching was at the age of 18.. Those other guys are international signings who spent their lives in baseball academies doing nothing but playing baseball and were signed at the ages of 16, 16, 16, 19, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16. The only one who wasn't getting minor league coaching in America by the age of 17 was playing in the Cuban professional leagues at the age of 16.

I don't see any useful comparison between those players and Larnach beyond pointing out that he isn't on a Hall of Fame trajectory in his early 20s.

[wabene]

17 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Not sure that picking 4 potentially all-time-great hitters (Soto, Tatis, Acuna, Vlad Jr) and 5 other elite prospects is really useful perspective here. I've never seen anyone suggest Larnach is going to be a superstar. There's also a key difference between those 9 guys and Larnach...Larnach is American and the earliest he could have started getting professional coaching was at the age of 18.. Those other guys are international signings who spent their lives in baseball academies doing nothing but playing baseball and were signed at the ages of 16, 16, 16, 19, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16. The only one who wasn't getting minor league coaching in America by the age of 16 was playing in the Cuban professional leagues at the age of 17.

I don't see any useful comparison between those players and Larnach beyond pointing out that he isn't on a Hall of Fame trajectory in his early 20s.

This is a very good point about Latin players vs US born players. Larnach played 4 years in college so he didn't get pero coaching until what 21? I think it was Jeffers who said his college team didn't even have a catching coach and he was on his own. The Latin players might have more limited economic opportunities and baseball is the only ticket for some. These different situations might produce different results, but of course I'm only speculating.

[Mike Sixel]

His D is awful. As seen again tonight. That should have been a double.