Kyle Farmer’s first career at-bat was in the 11th inning of a late July game against the San Francisco Giants in 2017. Farmer was a catcher with the rival Los Angeles Dodgers at the time and pinch-hit in the bottom of the 11th with LA trailing 2-1. Corey Seager hit a leadoff double, and San Francisco intentionally walked Justin Turner to get to Farmer.
Farmer delivered, driving a low fastball into right field to score Seager and Turner.
However, the eighth-rounder from the University of Georgia had to wait six years to hit another one. On Saturday, he connected on a Ryne Stanek fastball to walk off the defending champion Houston Astros, 3-2. It was Farmer’s 1360th career at-bat, and a lot has changed since his last walk-off. He’s a utility man now, joining the Minnesota Twins in the offseason after two years with the Dodgers and four with the Cincinnati Reds.
Farmer has also established a reputation as a platoon hitter. He’s a right-handed hitter who has hit .286/.343/.487 against lefties and .244/.299/.358 against righties in his career. Therefore, it’s worth highlighting that Stanek is a right-handed reliever. Rocco Baldelli initially told Farmer he’d be using him in a platoon role at the beginning of the season, but that has already changed.
We know he can handle any situation. He has filled a lot of different roles in his career. He fills them all very well. He’s got a really good way about him. He has a good time at the ballpark. He’s always got a good face on, and he always knows the right thing to say and all of that. But when the game starts, he’s a very serious player. He goes out there and knows exactly what the hell he’s doing.
That said, we sat all of our guys down, especially our new players, to talk to them about their roles on the team. It’s funny, a lot of those roles that we talked about the day before Opening Day, they’ve already changed. That happens. So we talked to a couple of our guys about, early on, they’re going to get a lot of at-bats against left-handed pitching. The time is going to come. We don’t know when it’s going to come, but when you’re going to be in there regularly and getting everyday at-bats, that could shift back and forth as the season goes, depending on who’s available and who’s out there.
Baldelli says that Farmer was “ready for anything” and felt capable of playing a role where he’d face righties and lefties. He worked with hitting coach David Popkins to improve against right-handed pitchers. Popkins and the Twins staff put together film of his at-bats against righties. They noticed that his mechanics differed on swings where he got hits versus the ones where he didn’t. Popkins and Farmer focused on his strengths as they tried to improve his results against righties.
“I would say my strengths are probably hitting the fastball, and my weaknesses are the slider and the ball moving away from me,” Farmer said, stating a common issue right-handed hitters face against right-handed pitchers. “We worked on that a lot in Spring Training and focused on seeing where the ball starts. The slider’s got to start at me rather than down the middle because it’s gonna end up a ball.”
Baldelli said there isn’t anything he can pinpoint to identify why Farmer has been good against righties. But he’s been happy with what he’s seen so far.
I don’t know if there’s anything in particular that I can point to, but he has some kind of track record against left-handed pitching. But he has good, competitive at-bats no matter who he’s facing. He always gives himself a chance. He knows what he’s going up there intending to do. It never guarantees success, but we like to throw the label of ‘baseball player’ on certain guys because of the big things they do and the little things they do. I think you could say Kyle Farmer does everything, and he does it all the way you hope a guy would do it. He’s prepared for every situation, and he’s produced. He’s done a good job.
Farmer is the product of Minnesota’s connection to the Tampa Bay Rays. Rocco Baldelli coached in Tampa before the Twins hired him, and they want to emulate some of the best-run organizations. Instead of locking into one, they have added elements of the Rays, Oakland A’s, and Cleveland Guardians. Falvey previously worked in Cleveland, and Billy Beane and the A’s were the subjects of Moneyball. Minnesota’s proposition is if you take the team featured in Major League and two of the most innovative but cash-strapped teams and put some money behind it, you should get a winner.
The Rays believe in versatile players who can fill in various roles. Donovan Solano is also of this mold. Players like Solano and Farmer provide depth while also matching up favorably against certain pitchers. Baldelli is offering a compliment when he calls Farmer a “baseball player.” He’s not purely a platoon player, like the Moneyball A’s sought out. But Baldelli will deploy Farmer in certain matchups. And he’s not a Carlos Correa-caliber shortstop, but he can fill in when Correa has back spasms or needs a day off.
Farmer has come back to earth a little. He struck out three times in Minnesota’s loss to the Chicago White Sox. But he’s come as advertised. Better, really. Farmer appeared to be of the Oakland mold, as in a platoon player Baldelli could use against lefties. But he’s actually a Tampa-type player, someone Baldelli can use all over. How versatile is Farmer? Well, he’s the emergency catcher if the Twins really need one. It’s the position he broke into the big leagues in, after all.
