When Matt Wallner led off against the Atlanta Braves early in spring training, I posited on my podcast that it might just have been because the Minnesota Twins were facing Chris Sale.

Wallner, as a lefty, can use all of the zero-stakes plate appearances against tough lefties he can get, and having the big man hit lower in the lineup that early in the spring would have limited the odds that Wallner would get such a plate appearance.

But as spring training has gone on, Wallner has seen ample time leading off — which doesn’t necessarily disprove the initial supposition, but perhaps lend credence to the idea that he could beat leadoff on a regular basis in the regular season.

True enough, Wallner won’t bat leadoff against Sale in a regular-season game if one were to happen. That assignment would likely go to Harrison Bader, or another right-handed hitter.

But it seems entirely reasonable after a couple weeks of spring training to suppose he’s an option to bat first in a game against a right-handed starter.

Does it seem like the most conventional arrangement?

Well, no.

Leadoff men with speed are part of a bygone era. Leadoff men with on-base skills became en vogue during the Moneyball era, and remain there to this day, more or less.

That doesn’t mean it’s a hard and fast rule, either. Wallner doesn’t fit the bill of a leadoff speedster, to be sure — though he moves well for a man his size — but does he fit the bill of someone who gets on base?

Yes. Yes he does.

It’s not unprecedented for teams to use a power hitter who can take walks in the leadoff spot.

Matt Wallner leading off for the Twins is reminiscent of another good offense’s strategy

Kyle Schwarber took 691 plate appearances out of the leadoff spot for the Phillies last year, and he’s sort of the prototype of what kind of hitter Wallner should desire to be. In his 149 games in the leadoff spot, Schwarber hit .248/.366/.486 with 38 home runs and 60 extra-base hits.

Keeping in mind that Wallner took less than half as many plate appearances as Schwarber did last season, it’s worth looking into how similar the two are.

Schwarber had a 118-point gap between his on-base percentage (.366) and batting average (.366). A gap of 100 points or better is considered elite plate discipline, and goes a long way to getting a player with a low batting average on base often enough to still be an asset atop the order.

Wallner’s gap was 113 points (.372-.259), and he slugged almost 50 points better than Schwarber (.523 to .485) besides. And again, the plate appearance gap between the two means that gap is probably larger than would be if the sample sizes were closer.

Wallner’s walk percentage of 9.2 percent is light in view of Schwarber’s 15.3 percent, but the former added 10-plus points in batting average as well as the aforementioned slugging percentage advantage.

They’re not the exact same hitter, but it’s not hard to see the vision.

And did this unconventional measure work for the Phillies?

Well, Schwarber led leadoff hitters with 110 runs scored, and he still drove in 104 runs (the most by a leadoff hitter by 20 RBIs). The Phillies were fifth in MLB in runs scored per game with 4.84.

The runs scored/batted in don’t necessarily translate from team to team. Will the Twins have hitters capable enough to be on base in the Nos. 7-8-9 holes to give Wallner — or whoever hits leadoff — the chance to drive in 100 runs? Will the hitters behind him drive him in that many times?

There are a lot of things at play here.

But Wallner does a nice job seeing pitches, averaging 3.95 per plate appearance in 2024. Schwarber saw 4.12, which comes out to about an extra pitch seen every six plate appearances (if my math is correct).

Team fit matters, too. Wallner isn’t on a team flush with on-base percentage merchants.

From a raw OBP standpoint, Wallner hitting leadoff with a .372 OBP makes a ton of sense. Only Carlos Correa — a fine choice to lead off in his own right — had a higher mark among hitters with at least 200 plate appearances.

Only three Twins hitters with at least 200 plate appearances last season saw more pitches per plate appearance than Wallner:

• Edouard Julien (4.10), who is another potential leadoff hitting candidate if he can regain all, or even some of his 2023 form
• Carlos Santana (4.08), who is no longer with us (still alive, though)
• Willi Castro, who was in a virtual tie with Wallner at 3.95 himself, but is a surprise altogether and probably not an ideal leadoff candidate after posting a .331 OBP in 2024

One last truism about leading off — and it’s blatantly obvious, but probably not immediately understood by most — is that it guarantees a hitter will get the most plate appearaces on the team on any basis, be it day, week, month or year.

Each space down in the lineup is worth about 20 more plate appearances, at least according to how they were parceled out for the Twins last season:

• 1st: 751 PA
• 2nd: 730 PA
• 3rd: 713 PA
• 4th: 696 PA
• 5th: 682 PA
• 6th: 665 PA
• 7th: 648 PA
• 8th: 631 PA
• 9th: 607 PA

While the concept of lineup construction has changed over the years, it’s not hard to wrap one’s brain around simply wanting the best hitters to get the most plate appearances.

This isn’t to say Wallner is the team’s best hitter, but more of a justification for hitting a good hitter leadoff no matter what his profile is.

Wallner leading off is an unconventional idea for the Twins this year, but it’s one they should lean into.