Twins' Matt Wallner lands on IL, likely ending his strange season

Twins slugger Matt Wallner has been placed on the 10-day injured list with a left oblique strain.

It's reportedly retroactive to September 18. That technically gives him a chance to return and play in the regular season finale on the 28th, but it wouldn't make much sense for the Twins to have him do that. This move almost certainly ends Wallner's season. DaShawn Keirsey Jr. was recalled from Triple-A St. Paul as a corresponding move.

Wallner himself would likely agree that it was a disappointing year for the 27-year-old from Forest Lake, MN. He missed a month and a half due to a hamstring strain in the first half and struggled to really get into a rhythm at the plate. Wallner played in 104 games and slashed .202/.311/.464.

Wallner's statistical profile is always unorthodox, but this season took that to another level. He hit a career-high 22 home runs and somehow finished with only 40 RBI. It's the fewest RBI by a player with at least 22 homers in a season in MLB history. Here's another one: Of Wallner's 68 hits on the season, 41 went for extra bases. He's just the fourth player in MLB history with at least 40 extra-base hits and fewer than 70 total hits in a season.

To be clear, Wallner wasn't bad in 2025. His .776 OPS is good for a 110 OPS+, which means he was 10 percent more productive than a league-average hitter. But by his standards, it was a down year. Over the past two seasons combined, Wallner had an OPS of roughly .885 and generated 4.4 WAR in 151 MLB games (per Baseball Reference) despite playing half of his games with St. Paul. This year, he was worth 0.5 WAR in 104 games.

Wallner's batting average dropped from the .250-.260 range to just above the Mendoza Line. That's mostly because his BABIP (batting average on balls in play) fell to .228 after being well above .300 in each of his three previous seasons. His ground ball rate only went up slightly and he continued to hit the ball fairly hard, which suggests Wallner could be due for positive BABIP regression next season. His 29 percent strikeout rate was actually down slightly from his previous norms.

It'll be interesting to see what 2026 looks like for Wallner, who won't reach the arbitration process until after next season. If he can get back to his 2023-24 production and stay healthy for a full season, he could be a valuable 30-homer bat. Whether or not he gets to play against lefties will always be in question, considering he's a career .181 hitter (.641 OPS) in 205 plate appearances against LHP. Regardless, it's nice to have a guy for whom a down year includes 22 homers and a 110 OPS+.