Luke Keaschall Is off to the Twins’ Latest, Hottest Hot Start

I owe Luke Keaschall an apology. Last night, the 22-year-old second baseman put up the first oh-fer of his brief and brilliant major league career, the predictable result of my decision to write about him today. In the series opener in the Bronx, the Yankees beat the Twins, 6-2, and Keaschall watched from the on-deck circle with an 11-game hitting streak on the line as Ryan Jeffers struck out to end the game. This is my fault. I knew that by pitching an article about Keaschall, I was condemning him to this fate. I really do feel bad about jinxing him, but it was time to highlight just how impressive his start has been. Keaschall will turn 23 on Friday, which makes him exactly three years older than FanGraphs.

Permit me to exclude Monday’s stats momentarily for the sake of painting a picture. Through the first 12 games of his career, Keaschall ran a 234 wRC+, slashing .415/.500/.707, homering twice, and stealing five bases. He’s one of just 10 players in the last 30 years – a list that also includes his manager, Rocco Baldelli – to start his career with an 11-game hitting streak. Keaschall also started his career with a 12-game on-base streak. Yes, that is possible; I’ll explain in a moment. With a nice round 1.0 WAR (which dropped to 0.9 on Monday; again, I’m so sorry, Luke), he ranks eighth among Minnesota’s position players. He has five multi-hit games. He was just named AL Player of the Week in his second week as a big leaguer. On Sunday, he achieved his first three-hit game with a walk-off homer against the Royals in the 11th inning.

To make all this even more impressive, Keaschall hasn’t exactly had a normal rookie campaign. The Twins called him up in April, and he started his career with a six-game hitting streak. He ran the on-base streak to seven games when a Kyle Hendricks fastball hit him near his right wrist on April 25. The 86.8-mph pitch fractured both Keaschall’s forearm and his season, shelving him with a career 206 wRC+ after seven games. Keaschall missed more than three months, and rather than picking up right where he’d left off, he hit even better when he came back. He returned on August 5, notching three straight two-hit, multi-RBI games. About those RBI: Keaschall has a wRC+ of 119 in low leverage situations, 261 in medium leverage, and 352 in high leverage. With 1.13 WPA, he’s already second among Twins hitters and 47th among all hitters. Once again, he has played in 13 games, and in one of them, all he did was walk up to the plate and get his arm broken by the second-slowest four-seamer in baseball.

Keaschall spent two years at the University of San Francisco, where he put together a combined OPS of .916 before transferring to Arizona State and going full supernova. He slashed .353/.443/.725 with 18 home runs over 55 games as a Wildcat. The Twins picked him in the second round in 2023, and he proceeded to blast his way up the minors. He posted a combined 154 wRC+ over 31 games that summer, starting in the Complex League and ending at High-A. In 2024, he combined for a 157 wRC+ between High-A and Double-A despite dealing with elbow issues that forced him to undergo Tommy John surgery near the end of the season. It was a ridiculously speedy recovery, as he made it back to start the 2025 season with Triple-A St. Paul after having surgery last August. He was quickly called up (and West) to Minneapolis, debuting in the big leagues three weeks into the season. He has still played in just 153 professional games. He’s only spent 28 games in Triple-A, and fully half of those came in the rehab stint after fracturing his surgically repaired arm. That’s right, his rehab stint was more than twice as long as his major league career to that point.

What Keaschall has done so far isn’t exactly unprecedented. According to Stathead, he’s one of 44 different players to run an OPS of 1.200 or better over his first 12 games since 1995. But the names on that list are awfully encouraging. It contains its share of flashes in the pan, headlined by Aristides Aquino (1.573 OPS), who put up 1.1 WAR over his first 12 games then 0.3 for the rest of his career. But it also features solid major leaguers, genuine stars, one definite future Hall of Famer in Albert Pujols, and one likely future Hall of Famer in Joey Votto.

What does all this mean going forward? Keaschall now has a 214 wRC+ to go with a .386 batting average, and he’s obviously not going to keep this up forever. Before the season, ZiPS and Steamer combined to project Keaschall for a .321 wOBA. They now have him at .336. That’s not bad for 13 days of work, but it’s a far cry from the .480 he’s rocking right now. Pitchers won’t keep throwing the ball in the zone against him 57% of the time and over the heart of the plate 34% of the time — much higher rates than any qualified batter has seen. Still, after chasing a lot in college, Keaschall put up excellent walk and strikeout rates in the minors, and that’s continued so far in the majors. With the Twins, he has a 9.8% walk rate to go with a minuscule 7.8% strikeout rate. Even if this won’t last forever, it’s certainly encouraging.

The real question is about the power in Keaschall’s bat. He came in at third on our list of Minnesota’s top prospects back in June, and as Eric Longenhagen and James Fegan wrote at the time, “A relative lack of power may cause Keaschall’s walk rates to sag in the bigs, and also might cause his hit tool to play down because of light contact quality.” On the other hand, when the Twins first called him up, Jeffrey Paternostro of Baseball Prospectus wrote, “Every time I’ve written that a prospect needs to find a balance between contact and power, I’ve been envisioning something like what he brings to the plate. He’s unlikely to reach in-game plus power against major-league arms, but Keaschall should consistently bop 15-20 bombs while making plenty of contact and getting on-base at a good clip.” So far, at least, Keaschall has continued to look like a great contact hitter who just might lift and pull the ball enough to make do with moderate exit velocities. However, we should probably be prepared for the eventuality that what we’re seeing now is what Keaschall will look like at his absolute best. He’s running pristine chase, whiff, and squared-up rates, but his bat speed grades out very low. His average exit velocity is close to league average right now, but that’s while he’s hitting like there’s no tomorrow. His hard-hit rate is still below average, and his 90th-percentile exit velocity would put him in the 22nd percentile. Five of Keaschall’s extra-base hits have come on doubles ripped down the third base line, and that’s probably what we should expect going forward.

Keaschall will also have to find a position. Back in June, Eric and James wrote, “Keaschall’s best position is ‘hitter.’” He hasn’t looked comfortable in his limited time at second base, and the arm hasn’t looked great either. The Twins tried him at the outfield in the minors, but there’s not a ton of room in the Minnesota outfield, and his elbow limited him to first base and designated hitter some of the time anyway. If Keaschall can pull off a decent second base, then being a great contact hitter with a bit of pop makes him a really useful player, but that’s very much an open question. If he slides down to first base or DH, the outlook isn’t as rosy.

If all this sounds a bit familiar, you’re not wrong. For whatever reason, in recent seasons, Twins hitters have been going off the moment they reach the majors. Ryan Jeffers ran a 154 wRC+ over his first 20 games in 2020. Trevor Larnach recorded a 143 wRC+ over his first 21 games in 2021. Jose Miranda chipped in a 116 wRC+ in his rookie campaign in 2022. Royce Lewis exploded out of the gate in 2022 and 2023, posting a 152 wRC+ over his first 70 games, then adding four homers in six postseason games. Both Edouard Julien and Matt Wallner finished with a 134 wRC+ as rookies. Last season, Brooks Lee surged to a 165 wRC+ over his first 12 games. All of these hitters came down to earth at some point, even as some of them have proven to be excellent hitters, but none of them has started out as hot as Keaschall. For now, at least, there’s not much more we could ask of him.