Throughout baseball's first century, the template for drawing up a lineup was pretty much gospel: Start with a fast guy who gets on base a lot, back him up with a bat-control artist who specializes in moving runners along, then plug in your sluggers to drive him in. The Twins followed that orthodoxy throughout their history, topping their lineups with speedsters such as Chuck Knoblauch, Luis Castillo, Denard Span.
Those days ended when spreadsheet-reading analysts and lineup-making managers made a collective realization, to wit: "It's never a bad thing," Twins bench coach Derek Shelton said, "to start a game [ahead] 1-0."
That new era at Target Field was inaugurated by Brian Dozier five years ago, and codified this season with perhaps the unlikeliest combination of leadoff hitters the Twins have ever utilized: Outfielder Max Kepler and catcher Mitch Garver. It's a tandem that produced plenty of doubts this spring (and yes, I'm raising my hand here), and has instead proved to be the embodiment of an inspired strategy.
"We had an idea that Max especially would fit really well there, that he would give the lineup some real teeth right from the start. You don't allow a pitcher to ease into the game with a hitter like Max up front," Shelton said of Kepler, who has indeed given the Twins a 1-0 first-inning lead six times this season. "And Mitch, same thing — he's just a real weapon for us wherever he hits."
It works, no doubt. Twins leadoff hitters have scored more runs than any other AL team's, and driven in more than any team's except Houston, where George Springer is having a season that will undoubtedly earn some down-ballot MVP votes.
And the speedy, base-stealing image of a leadoff hitter? Twins leadoff hitters have stolen exactly one base in 2019 (in six attempts), a meaningless sixth-inning swipe on May 23 in a game the Twins were leading 8-2.
"When you construct a lineup, you have to play to your own personnel, and we have tried to do that this year because of how this team scores runs," Shelton said. "Maybe you adjust from year to year, but that traditional thinking, of having a guy who's really fast and steals bases and all that, not many teams think that way anymore. And it's really not a fit for how we score runs."
He means, how they hit home runs, of course. On a team that already has broken baseball's single-season home run record, perhaps no position better illustrates the change than the Twins' leadoff hitters.
