Matt Wallner Has Resurfaced

As he did last year, Matt Wallner has made an adjustment and busted out of a slump with enough force to defy the laws of physics.

The Minnesota Twins called Wallner up on May 23 last year. He had struck out 15 times in his previous 25 Triple-A at-bats, but the Twins needed a corner outfielder, and Wallner was the next guy on the depth chart. Minnesota’s hitting coach, David Popkins, felt Wallner’s swing had become sweepy, so he told him to focus on hitting to left-center.

Wallner didn’t have a hit in his first 11 at-bats, but he hit .636/.714/1.000 from May 23 to 28 and finished the year .249/.370/.507 with 14 home runs. He got off to a slow start again this season, with only two hits in his first 33 plate appearances – a double and a home run (off a position player).

He didn’t play much better in St. Paul. Wallner hit .152/.204/.261 in his first 11 Triple-A games before the Saints coaches discovered he was leaning over the plate too much, blocking his powerful swing. Beginning in May, he started to produce again at the plate, hitting .282/.371/.606 from May 2 to July 4.

“I feel like I was stressing to get one hit a day,” Wallner told the Star Tribune in late July. “That’s not the player I am. I can go out there and get plenty of hits. It just seemed hard to get a hit every day. It was a struggle. Now, I’m like, OK, get a hit every at-bat. You’re not going to, but I feel like I can.”

You’ve probably heard he’s from Forest Lake. However, when he’s at his best, he plays like he emerged from deep within it. Wallner becomes a mythic creature who shrugs off 95 mph fastballs when they hit his cement bones. Baseballs that leave his bat threaten to break the sound barrier. He reaches above his head to catch balls like King Kong swatting at airplanes and throws them back into the infield at over 100 mph.

The Twins recalled Wallner on July 7, and he’s hit .321/.439/.697 with nine home runs. If he had enough at-bats to qualify, his 1.018 OPS would lead the team ahead of Carlos Correa (.896), Byron Buxton (.862), and José Miranda (.813). Like Wallner, Royce Lewis doesn’t have enough at-bats to qualify but is also below Wallner (.874).

Wallner has gone from hitting .080/.273/.240 when Minnesota sent him down on April 15 to hitting .272/.406/.612 on the year. His 2.1 WAR is higher than Carlos Santana, Pablo López, and Bailey Ober.

“He just needed the time early on in the year to find what he was looking for. [Wallner is] always an exceptional worker,” said Rocco Baldelli. “It's been a really good run for him. Coming off a year last year where he had a great second half with us, and then coming back this year and, again, showing that he can do this and taking it to…another level is another tremendous sign.”

Wallner said he went from hitting for an hour in the cage to around 15-20 minutes. “It may have been too much work in the beginning and counterproductive,” Wallner told the Star Tribune in June. “I love hitting, so it kind of runs into a problem there because I’ll do it all day. I think going forward, I don’t need to go down that rabbit hole anymore of just hitting too much. Just trying to keep it simple.”

The Twins like having a power hitter in their lineup. Miguel Sanó was that player from his rookie season in 2015 until Minnesota cut him in 2022. He was an All-Star in 2017, hit 34 home runs in 2019 and 30 in 2021. But they demoted him to Single-A after he hit below the Mendoza Line in 2018, and he led the league with 90 strikeouts in the COVID-shortened 2020 season.

Most power hitters are volatile, and the Twins have had trouble replacing Sanó. Last year, they signed Joey Gallo, who had hit 38 home runs and was an All-Star in 2021. However, he had hit .159/.291/.368 with the New York Yankees and .162/.277/.393 with the Los Angeles Dodgers before signing with Minnesota. Gallo hit .177/.301/.440 with 21 home runs last year, and the Twins didn’t re-sign him.

Minnesota can avoid gambling on players like Gallo if Wallner continues to rake. Wallner, 26, experiences slumps and surges like any power hitter. However, he’s entering his prime and is under team control until 2030. Wallner has proven capable of breaking out of a funk to become an impact player. Occasionally, he’ll sink deep underwater but always resurfaces as a monster.