Minnesota Twins: Tyler Austin, big home runs, and his case for 2019

The Minnesota Twins newly acquired 1B/DH Tyler Austin has early on been an important acquisition for the club especially when it comes to his power.

The Minnesota Twins watched one of their recent additions have a pretty great game even if it was in a 6-2 loss to the Oakland Athletics on Sunday. Tyler Austin, who came over to the Twins with pitcher Luis Rijo from the New York Yankees, in exchange for Lance Lynn hit two home runs in the final game of the Twins four-game set with the current Wild Card team.

Austin was a player who continued to look buried on the Yankees organization depth chart and stuck being used more like a Quadruple-A player than anything else. So much like Jake Cave before, the Twins were able to put together a trade to acquire a quality player from the Yankees that simply was running out of a role in their system.

After spending some time with the Twins Triple-A affiliate Rochester Red Wings, Austin got the call to the major leagues and his power became apparent very quickly. In his first game and in the fifth inning against the Detroit Tiger’s Francisco Liriano Austin launched his first hit with the Twins for a home run.

With the Twins, Austin has hit some mammoth home runs including his first one on Sunday off of Oakland Athletics pitcher Chris Bassitt. According to Statcast, Austin’s home run had an exit velocity of 111.0 mph and travelled 433 feet. It was just another home run that showed off Austin’s impressive power to straight away center field.

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Since his call-up Austin now owns a slash line of .316/.357/.658 and an OPS of 1.015 along with four home runs in 11 games. So yes we must declare a small sample size alert, but Austin is making his case to be the second right-handed power bat that the Twins have been searching for.

While Joe Mauer continues to hit his own milestones the elephant in the room continues to be that Mauer’s future with the Twins is still up in the air. That leaves Austin auditioning for potentially both the first base and the designated hitter position in the Twins lineup as Logan Morrison is likely not returning to the Twins in 2019.

While lots can happen between now and the end of the season, Austin could become quite the steal for the Twins. Even with Lynn initially pitching well for the Yankees, the Twins may have acquired a good hitting DH/1B in Austin who is under team control through 2022. As we have seen as Twins fans, finding a quality bat for the DH spot in the lineup is something the Twins have struggled to do at times. That makes these developments with Austin very exciting ones.