Twins’ Trevor Larnach found the best version of himself with ‘boring’ batting practices

FORT MYERS, FLA. – Not many major league players hit baseballs consistently as hard as Trevor Larnach, who ranked in the 90th percentile for exit velocity last season.

Just don’t expect to see fireworks or moonshots during batting practice.

“If you saw my BP last year, it was probably the most boring BP you could watch,” Larnach said. “But there was a point to it.”

The Twins are emphasizing hitting line drives in the opposite-field gaps, and that’s an approach Larnach carried last season. From the lefty batter’s box, he always started his on-field batting practice sessions with medium-strength line drives to left field.

It worked for him. Larnach produced the best season of his big-league career, batting .259 with 15 homers, 52 RBI and a .771 OPS in 112 games while playing through turf toe in his right foot for a couple of months.

After Larnach was frequently shuttled between the majors and Class AAA St. Paul over the previous three years, the 28-year-old is expected to serve as the Twins’ primary left fielder.

“He’s going to be in there likely hitting somewhere towards the top of the lineup,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He was someone that would put the ball in play when we needed him to. He does a little bit of everything. He hits the ball hard. He can put some balls in the seats, which is still something that you’re looking for from your team.”

Larnach, the Twins’ first-round pick in the 2018 MLB amateur draft out of Oregon State, said the results from last season validated “all the years of failures and being sent up and down.”

It wasn’t one tip that optimized his swing. He changed the way he trained in the offseason, taking teammate Royce Lewis up on his offer to hit in Texas with Torii Hunter and Matt Kemp. He switched agencies in a leap of faith, eager to join the agency’s training facility in Nashville.

“I spent the previous years being told, ‘Hit the ball as hard as you can for a homer pull side,’” Larnach said. “Pull this. Do this. Do that. Trying all these different things. …

“You have to go through that to know what doesn’t work. I’m just going to continue with the boring BP and ride that out as much as I can.”

The Twins have “pretty high aspirations” for Larnach this year, Baldelli said. He solved his turf toe when he shaved the spike underneath his big toe, and that should allow him to play in left field more often after starting 52 games as a designated hitter.

Larnach played through a hamstring injury in early September, and he felt a pop when he sprinted to beat out a throw in the last week of the season as the Twins fought for their playoff lives.

“A big thing is just not getting comfortable,” said Larnach, who lined a single off a third baseman’s glove for his first hit of the spring Thursday. “Yeah, that happened last year, but at the same time, this game is so unforgiving, you have to continue to push.”

There were signs of growth last season. Larnach cut his strikeout rate from 34% of his plate appearances in 2023 to 22.3%. He was a much better hitter against breaking balls.

“Another part is being in control of my body,” Larnach said. “As crazy as that sounds, in the past there were a lot of times where I was jumping forward. The BP of what I was practicing, my contact point was way too far out front.”

As much as Larnach plans to continue what he did last season, he hopes there will be more opportunities to capitalize. He was even better after the All-Star break, hitting .272 with an .811 OPS, and he was one of the club’s few hitters who put up solid numbers in September.

“That was just a product of me being solely focused on my process and what I wanted to do,” he said. “I know that sounds vanilla, but there is definitely a point to the simplicity in that.”