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Every offseason, fans have somewhere between opined for and expected the Twins to add a platoon corner outfielder. A platoon left fielder complements their collection of lefty corner outfielders well, and they generally don’t cost much. But there’s another complementary player type that the Twins have preferred: a Byron Buxton backup.
Harrison Bader joins a short but growing list of high-end defensive center fielders to back up Buxton, standing beside Manuel Margot and Michael A. Taylor. It’s a sensible approach, given Buxton’s frequent trips to the injured list. If the team expects to have (at minimum) 50 games a year without Buxton roaming center field, there may as well be someone good there in his place.
They needed to make a choice. It’s probably the same choice they had to make the previous two offseasons: Backup for Buxton, or corner platoon hitter? It can be difficult to justify having both player types on a four-man big-league bench, unless the team is really confident about their infield (imagine if Brooks Lee, Royce Lewis and Carlos Correa had much better health histories), or one of those two bench outfielders can play a bit on the dirt (imagine if Willi Castro was a better outfield defender).
The Twins have tried to thread the needle, finding a competent (an adjective that may be underselling it) center fielder who can also hit lefties enough to stick him in the corner once or twice a week.
The outcomes of those decisions varied wildly in both context and results over the past two seasons. In 2022, the Twins traded for Taylor to fill the role, and he played the entire 2023 season as the team’s starting center fielder, as Buxton was never healthy enough to play the field. Taylor, who was initially pegged for a backup role in center and expected to see time in the corners against lefties, had a solid enough season and logged 388 plate appearances.
Margot, the 2024 solution to the same problem, played out entirely differently in his 336 trips to the plate. Buxton returned and played most of the team’s games in center field, which moved Margot to a more prominent role in the corners. Margot’s depleted fielding prowess might have pushed him there even if Buxton had been less healthy. He made a name (and tens of millions of dollars) based on his high-end outfield defense, but he couldn’t sustain it into his late 20s.
Neither Taylor nor Margot has been lauded for his offensive prowess; nor has Bader. They’re more akin to the types of bats that Cleveland has had patrolling their outfield in the 2020s. However, given that all three are righties, there’s (at minimum) an assumption that they can be useful against left-handed pitchers in addition to the value they provide on defense. Taylor did crush lefties in 2023, hitting about 40% better than the league average against them. Margot held his own against them, about league-average, despite his inability to get a hit as a pinch-hitter.
Bader has the worst career track record of the three against lefties, and he’s been inconsistent year-to-year, but he’s still been about 10% better than the league average against southpaws. That’s probably all it takes. I mean, Bader had a down year against lefties last year, and he still hit better against them than Trevor Larnach did. His was very close to Matt Wallner‘s line, too.
There’s a legitimate argument to be made that the best version of this team has Bader taking 400 plate appearances, with a third or more of those coming against lefties. That’s the role he played with the Mets last year, but it was the first time in his career that he’d done so. He’s often fallen between 350 and 450 plate appearances, but in the past, it was always because he got hurt, not because he was deployed strategically to maximize good matchups.
For his career, Bader has faced lefties in just 26.6% of his plate appearances, and he’s often been under 20%—the sign of a righty batter not being used for strategic offensive reasons at all, but rather, to keep his glove in the lineup. Ramón Laureano‘s career share of plate appearances with the platoon advantage is 29.9%. Randal Grichuk‘s is 32.8%; he even qualified for the batting title (538 PA) with the 2022 Rockies while facing lefties 33.5% of the time. Bader finally got that treatment in 2024, facing lefties 35% of the time, but maybe we shouldn’t be shocked that such a radical change of role threw him for a loop—and maybe he’ll bounce back with a big 2025 in the same role, as he becomes more familiar with it.
There will be time for him, both in the corners and in center. Obviously, Buxton will require days or weeks off (hopefully not months). Bader will get his time in center field. His sprint speed has decreased a bit (as happens to most 30-year-olds), and Sports Info Solutions’s Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) saw him as below-average in center last season, but Outs Above Average (OAA) graded him well. He shouldn’t hurt them out there, anyway.
But he can also play the corners. He hasn’t played anywhere but center field since 2018, but when you’re on Byron Buxton’s team, you’re probably expected to defer to him. And he should. He should play over Wallner and/or Larnach whenever a lefty takes the mound. Throw in Emmanuel Rodriguez, if he’s on the roster, too, I want Bader over him. I’m brave enough to say it.
Both Wallner and Larnach are good hitters. I like them. But they’ve struggled against lefties, like most lefties do. They’ll probably get slightly better with time. But that doesn’t mean the Twins should run both of them out against every lefty. Have them alternate in left while Bader plays right. That is totally fine with me.
Both big guys need days off. And Bader, even at just 10% above league average, has been a far better hitter against lefties than either of them. But beyond that, let’s revisit the beginning of this discussion. Bader is an asset defensively. Even if he might not be the big thumper you want in that spot, he should be a very good defender in right or left field. And if he’s even a mildly better hitter and a much better fielder than the other two, then play him. It’s not that hard. As sabermetrician and former President Ben Franklin once said, a run saved is a run earned.
Bader’s going to do that better than the other options. He’s a better defender than Austin Martin, even if you grant the assumption that Martin will hit better (and Martin is still in line for a big-league role, right now). You might argue that DaShawn Keirsey Jr. is a better defender, but we haven’t seen that yet, and he’s left-handed. We have no clue what Rodriguez is ready for right now.
Sure, there are some qualifiers. It’s probably not the best idea to go full Manny Magoo and pinch-hit Harrison Bader for Matt Wallner in the fourth inning (Bader was 0-10 last season as a pinch-hitter, by the way). I’m okay scaling that back. Pull him when a righty reliever comes in, too. He should also get some pinch-running opportunities, so maybe save him for later in the game.
Also, if he’s no longer the fielder he was, a lot of this goes out the window. Or if he’s now at the decrepit age of 30 and can’t hit at all, change course.
But Bader is in line for a real role. The Twins surprised a lot of people by offering him a contract that could surpass $8 million if he hits his incentives. He’s going to get run, and he should.
Maybe the real platoon bat is the runs we prevent along the way.
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