Kyle DeBarge’s First 18 A+ Games

The Twins select­ed a col­lege infield­er in three drafts in a row with their sec­ond-round-ish pick. 2022 was Tan­ner Schobel at pick 68 ($1M), 2023 was Luke Keaschall at pick 49 ($1.5M), and in 2024 it was Kyle DeBarge at pick 33 ($ 2.4 M) (Keaschall and DeBarge were rough­ly 250K and 350K under-slot signees.) Watch­ing the bats in this sys­tem over the last five or so years, I’ve won­dered if the Twins are good at iden­ti­fy­ing and help­ing along some pow­er pro­duc­tion gains. Doing so by help­ing some ele­vate the ball more con­sis­tent­ly. Or at least try­ing to do so. All three of these hit­ters’ HR pro­duc­tion explod­ed from hard­ly exis­tent, to 19 for Schobel, 18 for Keaschall, and 21 for DeBarge in their final ama­teur sea­sons. So per­haps these guys were already on the right track? Yet, Keash­call, the appar­ent suc­cess sto­ry of the three, shaved rough­ly 10% off his ground­ball rates over his rapid ascent:

Schobel:

Here is DeBarge’s pro career in its infan­cy:

Here are the three Savant exit veloc­i­ty data sam­ples from just the FSL-tracked BBEs:

Over­all:

Balls in the air:

Fly­balls:

Here are DeBarge’s hard­est struck tracked balls from 2024. Balls in the air are high­light­ed:

DeBarge hit his first pro­fes­sion­al HR in his very last PA of 2024. Here it is:

Here’s a look at some PAs and BBEs from 2025, in chrono­log­i­cal order, with looks at some swipes and glove work at the end:

There is a lot to like about the swing. His short levers get the bat around fast. It’s sim­ple, bal­anced, and calm. The good pos­ture gives the illu­sion he’s swing­ing an extra-long bat. DeBarge is always direct to the ball, not need­ing to make mid-swing adjust­ments often. From a tech­nique stand­point, DeBarge looks pret­ty choice. He’s small in stature, and in the first nine or so games of this sam­ple, he was beat­ing it into the ground a lot. His line dri­ve swing start­ed work­ing bet­ter after a few series. There’s some pull-side charge, but this sam­ple came out more slap­py than I’d have guessed from the sur­face stats and bat­ted ball pro­file. He feels a bit of an old-school lead­off guy, but with a lit­tle extra pull-pop. If we see the DeBarge from the back end of the sam­ple more and the knack to hit the ball hard (rel­a­tive to him) in the air proves true, there could be an inter­est­ing fan­ta­sy bat here; high con­tact, 15 home runs, and bags. How many bags? Just how fast is DeBarge?

Defen­sive­ly, it’s not the strongest arm you’ll ever see, but it seems playable from the left side of the infield. DeBarge was­n’t per­fect in the dirt, but made some plus plays. The out­field seems a bit of a work in progress. He looked like a guy who had­n’t played out there before. 2B feels like his best spot.

The 4 ros% feels a lit­tle light, but I get it. Small in stature, and ques­tions about SLG is fair. But DeBarge has got­ten stronger, and he appears to be hit­ting more con­ducive shapes, prov­ing he can get out in front to ele­vate and cel­e­brate. Will DeBarge sur­prise dynasty own­ers and prove fan­ta­sy appeal like his pre­de­ces­sor, Keaschall? I’m skep­ti­cal, but it’s not out of pock­et to won­der.

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