How Kyle Farmer Explains (Almost) Everything - EXCLUSIVE

[Matthew Trueblood]

New Minnesota Twins shortstop Kyle Farmer is not a star. That fact is inescapable, and it’s made his acquisition—simultaneous with the trade of Gio Urshela to the Angels, and in the context of what fans hope will be an active and splashy offseason—a source of some confusion, and even frustration. View it through the right lens, though, and Farmer’s arrival not only makes sense, but reveals much about what the front office wants, what they value, and what they might do next.

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports

Farmer will cost the team between $5 million and $6 million via the arbitration process, and they had to give up pitching prospect Casey Legumina to get him. No front office–least of all the one run by Derek Falvey and Thad Levine–acquires a player at that price without a good reason. Here, in a nutshell, is that reason.

Batted Balls 88+ MPH, Pulled, Launch Angle 10-40 Degrees, as a Percentage of All Plate Appearances, 2022

Player	%	Rank (of 357)
Carlos Correa	7.3	134
Dansby Swanson	7.6	119
Kyle Farmer	7.9	106

Admittedly, that’s not the world’s most elucidating nutshell. Let’s crack the nut open and take a closer look, though. This statistic (let’s call it the Bomba Rate, for reasons we’ll get into shortly) tells us at what rate a hitter hits the ball somewhat hard in the air toward their pull field. (Why 88 miles per hour? You can read this blog post from sabermetrician Tom Tango for more detail, but in short, that exit velocity best reflects the point at which batted balls begin to rise in average value.)

That’s nice, you might say, (1) but surely Correa and Swanson hit their pulled flies harder than does Farmer, and anyway, (2) the differences in their rates are vanishingly small, and (3) it’s just one very small part of a hitter’s game. The first thing is true, but it turns out that it doesn’t matter that much. It’s nice to hit the ball much harder than 88 miles per hour, or to get the launch angles exactly right when pulling it, but meeting the criteria matters much more than excelling within them when you do.

The second thing is also true, to some extent, but it turns out that an individual’s Bomba Rate is very sticky from year to year. We’re taking outcomes out of the equation here. It’s all about how often you generate a certain kind of contact, and the denominator is all plate appearances, so the samples are of a good size, the number captures a skill and an approach pretty cleanly, and the leaderboards tend to look quite similar from one year to the next. 

In fact, Correa’s Bomba Rate actually rose considerably in 2022, from a below-average 6.0 in 2021. Swanson’s was exactly 7.6 in 2021, too. Farmer, meanwhile, had an even more impressive 8.7-percent Bomba Rate in 2021. (Remember that number. We’re going to revisit it.)

The third thing is superficially true, but as the rates we’ve already seen imply, it’s no smaller a share of a player’s game than walks. The league leaders hit Bombas over 10 percent of the time. The trailers do it barely 2 percent of the time. That gap matters, because Bombas have very high expected run values. In other words, while they might not be frequent, Bombas aren’t really a small part of offense. Their payoffs make them worth chasing.

This is all especially important when evaluating the Farmer addition, because if I had to sum up the Twins’ offensive philosophy in a single sentence, it would go like this: Hit the ball in the air, to your pull field. No viable approach could ever be quite that simple, of course, but theirs comes close. 

No other team in MLB emphasizes this quite as clearly. Knowing that this is what they’re always doing explains almost every individual move they make. Here’s the list of all 2022 Twins who came to the plate at least 200 times, with the same information given for the three shortstops above.

Bomba Rates, Minnesota Twins, 2022

Player	%	Rank (of 357)
Byron Buxton	11.0	7
Jorge Polanco	9.7	30
Jose Miranda	9.7	33
Nick Gordon	9.5	36
Luis Arraez	9.2	42
Gary Sanchez	7.9	103
Carlos Correa	7.3	134
Ryan Jeffers	7.2	139
Max Kepler	6.7	179
Gio Urshela	6.2	205
Gilberto Celestino	2.9	347

I won’t further inundate you with numbers, but name a homegrown Twins hitter from the last several seasons–Mitch Garver, Miguel Sano, Eddie Rosario–and they rank highly in Bomba Rate. Guys like Correa come through and see their Bomba Rates rise. The few free-agent hitters in whom the team invests (Marwin Gonzalez, Josh Donaldson) run high Bomba Rates. 

There’s more. Jake Cave had a Celestinish 4.0-percent Bomba Rate in 2022, and was waived immediately after the season. Kyle Garlick had a Buxtonian 10.5-percent rate, and the team re-signed him. The Twins kept both of their hitting coaches and promoted a third to their big-league team from within the organization this fall. Why did they do so, even after a frustrating finish to the season? Because those coaches got their guys to keep on Bomba-ing.

Highest Team Bomba Rates, MLB, 2022

Team	Bomba Rate
Dodgers	8.6 %
Braves	7.8
Twins	7.7
Cardinals	7;7
Mariners	7.6
Astros	7.5

Bombas are distinct from Barrels, the Statcast statistic pushed out by the league with which you might be familiar. Bombas are more specific, and they’re about process, not reverse-engineering from results. This is a distillation of what the Twins are encouraging hitters to do at almost all times. 

I dubbed it the Bomba Rate because, when Minnesota had an 8.3-percent rate in 2019, that figure not only led the league by a full percentage point, but was eight tenths of a point higher than any other team had managed in any of the previous four years of the Statcast Era. The Twins led the league in this statistic again in 2021, and as you can see, even a barrage of injuries only dragged them down to third in 2022.

You couldn’t, and wouldn’t want to, build your entire offensive identity around this skill, but focusing on this type of batted ball as the optimal outcome of every trip to the plate has positive knock-on effects, too. For instance, pulling your fly balls puts batted-ball spin on your side, instead of having it work against you. 

Also, an approach geared toward this kind of contact requires one to wait for a pitch on which this kind of contact is possible, or to find a different way to force pitchers to throw such a pitch. In addition, whiffing all the time dents your Bomba Rate just the way it dents other numbers, because you can’t hit the ball in the air to the pull field if you don’t hit it at all. Bomba Rate is a sound primary criterion around which to build an offense, and the Twins seem to use it as a firmer guide for their choices than any other team in the majors.

That doesn’t mean that they won’t bring back Correa, whose Bomba Rate is still strong for a shortstop, or that Farmer’s Bomba Rate was the only reason they targeted him. This could turn out to be a placeholder move, and Farmer could end up a mere role player. Unlike the moves that brought in Correa and Urshela last winter, though, the Twins proactively sought this one out. 

They might also think their organizational plan can help Farmer build upon what he did in Cincinnati. For one thing, he played in pain for part of the second half last season, after a Spencer Strider fastball traveling at 100 miles per hour hit him in the hand. He was lucky to avoid fractures, but before that moment, he was batting .280/.345/.411 for the season, with an 8.7-percent Bomba Rate–identical to the one he’d posted in 2021. 

After missing a few days, he returned to the lineup, but he batted just .235/.290/.366 the rest of the way, and his Bomba Rate fell to 7.3 percent. Even the latter figure isn’t bad, but given better health, he’s shown that he can exceed it, and the Twins would drool over the number he posted for a season and a half before the plunking.

Speaking of that plunking, there’s a little more to Farmer’s profile, too. One way that he generates so many authoritatively pulled fly balls is by crowding home plate and asserting control of the outer edge of the zone. 

It’s really one way for him to overcome profound struggles against right-handed pitchers, whom he’s never hit as hard as he hits lefties. Since the start of 2021, he’s batted .286/.350/.528 against southpaws, but just .250/.304/.358 against righties. His average exit velocity against lefties is 88.4 miles per hour, but against righties, it’s just 85.6. His average launch angle is 4.8 degrees higher against lefties, too. 

That might read like a platoon player, and it’s possible that’s exactly the role he will fill. However, Farmer’s proximity to the plate has led to 27 times being hit by pitches by righties over the last two years, which (in combination with his good contact rate) sets a higher floor for him than many marginal right-handed hitters have against same-handed hurlers. 

Those numbers also came while facing lefties just 25 percent of the time for the Reds. Urshela, Jeffers, and Buxton all saw lefties between 29 and 30 percent of the time in 2022, so that’s a fairer forecast of how often Farmer will have the platoon advantage within the Minnesota offense. 

There’s an entirely different article to be written about the various defensive and off-field considerations that went into the Twins’ pursuit of Farmer. In his offensive profile alone, though, there are several things that made him a good candidate to land with Minnesota, and seeing what they saw in him can help fans better understand what the team looks for and tries to instill in all hitters.

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[Karbo]

Interesting article! If as you say the Twins like to "focus" on the bomba rate, that may explain the number of higher strikeout guys they have had recently. IMHO, a team needs just as many guys with high OB% to complement HR swingers. 1 more need as I see it is a few guys that can run. Getting a guy on can only help. Blyleven used to say solo HR's wont win games, and I agree with him!

[tarheeltwinsfan]

Bomba Rankings : 1) Dodgers 2) Braves 3) Twins 4) St Louis 5) Mariners 6) Astros                                                                         Runs Scored Rankings: 1) Dodgers 3) Braves 6) St. Louis 9) Astros 16) Minnesota 17) Seattle                                                       ERA Rankings: 1) Dodgers 2) Astros 6) Braves 7) Seattle 10) St Louis 19) Twins

Wins in 2022: 1) Dodgers 2) Astros 4) Braves 7) St. Louis 9) Seattle 17) Twins                                                                                   My conclusion is murky, but maybe Bombas don't necessarily generate the most runs ( i.e. the Twins and Seattle). I contend good pitching (may be the most important) good fielding (contributes to good pitching) and good hitting (however that is measured, but good hitting must result ultimately in the most runs scored) ... all 3 combined, produce the most wins. The Dodgers, Astros and Braves had exceptional pitching and a ton of wins. The Twins were in the lower half of ERA and runs scored and were therefore in the lower half of wins. The Bomba rate was not a prediction of success (wins) for the Twins last year. In 2022 ERA more closely correlated with team wins. Throw the ball, hit the ball and catch the ball.  They go together like peas and carrots. 

[Parker Hageman]

Great write-up Matthew. 

[Squirrel]

Interesting. But ... I still am hoping that Farmer will not be our starting SS, as a placeholder or otherwise.

[peterukavina]

Brian Dozier

[Matthew Trueblood]

18 hours ago, Karbo said:

Interesting article! If as you say the Twins like to "focus" on the bomba rate, that may explain the number of higher strikeout guys they have had recently. IMHO, a team needs just as many guys with high OB% to complement HR swingers. 1 more need as I see it is a few guys that can run. Getting a guy on can only help. Blyleven used to say solo HR's wont win games, and I agree with him!

You’re not wrong to connect strikeouts with this approach on some level, but I would caution against exaggerating the correlation. Remember that because the denominator of the stat I concocted here is plate appearances, not batted balls, a high strikeout rate really dents your Bomba Rate. I think the Twins actually do have a strong preference for guys, like Farmer, who can sustain an above-average Bomba Rate for their position while making a lot of contact. It’s a salient conversation and a tricky balance though. Thanks for reading!  

[Matthew Trueblood]

22 hours ago, peterukavina said:

Brian Dozier

Dozier is the most familiar of several really good examples of early adapters of this concept, which actually dates back to the 1950s but came into vogue anew around 12 years ago. Well before any teams were willing to take the leap of centering their hitting plans around this skill, some hitters extended or even transformed their careers by doing so. Dozier. Jose Bautista was probably the preeminent one. You know who else owes his success to this plan? Mitch Haniger. I really do think the Twins will stay in on him until the end, one way or another.