An Unlikely Twins Player Has MLB's Best On-Base Percentage (By a Lot)

Once upon a time, Austin Martin was one of baseball's top prospects. A three-year collegiate star at powerhouse Vanderbilt, he hit .392 as a sophomore on a team that won the College World Series. After his junior season in 2020 was cut short by the pandemic, Martin was selected fifth overall by the Toronto Blue Jays in that summer's draft.

Before Martin ever played a professional baseball game, he was considered a borderline top-20 prospect in the sport because of his abilities as a pure hitter and on-base savant. He went straight to the Double-A level and was playing well. He participated in the All-Star Futures Game during his first summer of pro ball. And then, three weeks later, he was traded to the Minnesota Twins (along with Simeon Woods Richardson) for two-time All-Star pitcher Jose Berrios.

Martin continued to hit fairly well for the Twins' Double-A team the rest of that year. His stock had faded slightly, but he was still a borderline top-50 prospect heading into his age-23 season in 2022. That's when, for likely the first time in his baseball life, Martin started to struggle to produce results.

He had just a .241 average and .682 OPS for the Twins in Double-A that year, which marked the end of his time as a top-100 prospect. Martin was nevertheless promoted to Triple-A St. Paul the following year and saw his numbers bounce back, but that didn't happen until after he missed a big chunk of time due to a sprained UCL in his throwing elbow.

Martin made his MLB debut in 2024 and did not find much success. He hit .253 with a .670 OPS in 91 games and struggled on defense. He was optioned to Triple-A three times as a rookie and also had a stint on the injured list. Martin then began the 2025 season with St. Paul and missed a big chunk of the first half of the season due to injury issues. At 26 years old, his career wasn't going to plan.

Austin Martin in 2024 | Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images

But Martin kept going. He returned to the Saints' lineup in late June last year and was called up to the Twins on August 1, marking his return to the big leagues with his first career three-hit game. He hasn't played an inning in Triple-A since. Over the final two months of last season, on a Twins team going nowhere after its trade deadline fire sale, Martin quietly hit .282 with a .374 OBP and a 106 OPS+, meaning he was better than the league average as a hitter.

This year, Martin made his first MLB Opening Day roster at 27 and has taken his game to a new level. A quarter of the way into this season, he's been one of the best players and bright spots for Minnesota. Martin began the year on the weak side of a platoon with Trevor Larnach in left field, but he's hit so well that manager Derek Shelton has been forced to play him more and more against right-handed pitching. He's hitting fifth and playing right field in place of Matt Wallner on Tuesday night at Target Field against Marlins righty Eury Perez.

Through 35 games and 116 plate appearances, Martin has hit .337 with a home run and five doubles. More notably, his on-base percentage is a whopping .466, as he's walked 21 times (that's 18 percent of his plate appearances) and only struck out 16 times.

The qualified MLB leaders in on-base percentage, as of Tuesday, are Taylor Ward and Brice Turang at .422. Martin is a handful of plate appearances short of qualifying for official leaderboards. But he's 44 points of OBP ahead of those two guys as the MLB leader among 237 players with at least 100 PAs.

MLB's top 10 on-base percentages (minimum 100 PAs) | Stathead

Martin doesn't hit the ball particularly hard, with a seventh-percentile average exit velocity of 85.7 miles per hour. But what he does do is deliver consistently strong at-bats. He doesn't chase outside of the strike zone. And when does swing, he doesn't whiff very often. Martin squares up balls to all fields and has good launch angles for hitting lots of singles, not unlike former Twins batting champion Luis Arraez.

Austin Martin's Statcast page | Baseball Savant

It has all added up to an .889 OPS and a 150 OPS+ that trails only Ryan Jeffers among Twins hitters. Martin has also been solid defensively in left field and has above-average speed on the bases. His 1.1 WAR puts him behind only Taj Bradley and Byron Buxton as Minnesota's third-most valuable player so far, according to Baseball Reference.

Martin's hot start to the season coincided with the Twins facing a lot of lefties, who he's hit .311 against with a .920 OPS in 61 plate appearances this year. Perhaps more encouraging is that Martin has hit .362 with an .859 OPS in 55 PAs against righties so far. He was strictly a platoon player to begin the season and is now in something much closer to an everyday role.

Austin Martin sends one down the line to tie it for the @Twins in the 9th! 😮‍💨 pic.twitter.com/AVW0gepAaN
— MLB (@MLB) April 19, 2026

Martin, who has a .395 batting average on balls in play (BABIP), is due for some inevitable regression. His OBP will come down. But this doesn't seem like a fluke, either. Martin is a former top prospect who had a .474 OBP in college and has a career .399 OBP in the minors, including a .419 mark in 119 Triple-A games. He's always been able to square the ball up, draw walks, avoid strikeouts, and get on base.

It took Martin a few years to deliver on his draft and prospect status, but it's happening right now. And Martin, who won't be eligible for free agency until after the 2030 season, is starting to look like he could be a big part of the Twins' future.

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