I know we’re used to Minnesota Twins fans being calm and collected with all of their hot takes, but one angle that seems to get many pretty irate in a hurry is the idea that the organization can’t develop the starting pitching pipeline that fans were promised when Twins hired Derek Falvey as the team’s President of Baseball Operations.
To his credit, Falvey helped to build a formidable starting rotation in Cleveland when they made it to Game 7 of the 2016 World Series when they lost to the Chicago Cubs. That resume boost helped him land the big seat in Minnesota, so fans assumed he could do the same with the Twins in short order. Now, they’re upset that the club’s farm system can’t pump out MLB-caliber starters at the drop of a hat.
But there are a few major fallacies with this line of thinking.
First, Minnesota’s starting rotation has been among the best in the game over the past two seasons, even if they acquired them mainly through trade. Second, that’s exactly how Cleveland built their standout 2016 rotation – they acquired all five via trade. Third, some notable starting pitching prospects are finally breaking out now that more time has passed since the weirdness of the COVID-19 pandemic, where minor league seasons were stunted, and data from amateur prospects in the high school and college ranks were skewed, to say the least.
Zebby Matthews is one of the prime examples of the Twins successfully developing a purely internal pitching prospect that they drafted. The 6’5″ 24-year-old just made his debut with Double-A Wichita, and he dazzled in his first taste of the upper minors. On Thursday night, the Western Carolina University product was dominant for 6 ⅔ innings, striking out nine batters without walking anyone. That extended his run of five straight starts without allowing a walk to start his 2024 campaign.
The best part is this performance isn’t exactly surprising if you’ve been following the righty over the last few seasons. Since making his professional debut in 2022, Matthews has a combined 3.20 ERA in 137 ⅔ innings pitched across 25 starts. His 10.1 K/9 is strong, especially considering he’s only walked 15 total batters in that time. He’s a true starting pitcher prospect who doesn’t appear to be destined for relief duty in the near future, as can often be the case with young arms. His fastball continues to develop in shape and velocity, with emerging secondary options in his repertoire that could push his stock as he develops.
“Like with his late-round counterparts, Matthews’ stuff started to tick upwards, starting with a fastball that now sits around 94 mph and was up to 97 mph during his first full year. While none of his secondary offerings jump off the page, he now has four additional arrows in his quiver,” said MLB Pipeline in their pre-season profile. “The best of them is now his above-average cutter, typically in the upper-80s, that has traditional hard slider feel to it, but he also has a low-80s sweeper and he can also fold in a slower curve, something he did more of when he got to High-A. The changeup has been the last thing to come, but he’s been working on a splitter to give him a viable option against lefties.”
And that’s Minnesota’s foundation for pitching development, even with some of their guys in the major leagues. They make tweaks with mechanics to add velocity on the fastball, try to find at least one good breaking ball option (usually a cutter or slider), and then add a splitter if the changeup fails to materialize as they progress. They’ve done that with Bailey Ober, Joe Ryan, and even Pablo López.
Matthews is the perfect example of how the club has successfully molded mid-to-late-round draft picks from unheralded college programs into exciting arms. Still, he’s hardly alone in that regard. Cory Lewis, C.J. Culpepper, and David Festa all fit into that mold, and all three look like they could have exciting futures ahead of them. So it’s weird that many critics seem to think the Twins don’t have a clue when building their pitching development line.
It’s important to remember that not all GMs build their pipelines with the same blueprint, and not all start from the same source. It shouldn’t matter where the input comes from as long as the output can produce at the major league level. However, if the Twins can continue to find late-round gems as they have with Matthews, we could be in for a much larger volume of product at the end of that pipe. But until that happens, we might need to get used to some noisy hot-take criticism.
