Fort Myers – While some ball players who aren’t playing in October take a bit of time to be away from the game, Minnesota Twins pitching prospect Andrew Morris was glued to his TV following the 2025 postseason.

Like many baseball fans following the postseason, there were two pitchers Morris had to see every time they were out on the mound: Trey Yesavage and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. While both young arms were at the top of their games for the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers this past postseason, the thing that caught Morris’ eye was their pitch mixes, and specifically Yamamoto’s splitter.

Morris didn’t mince words.

“He’s incredible,” said Morris. “That was honestly one of the coolest things to watch, that performance from a pitcher. It was very, very cool.”

How could any pitcher not be impressed by the 1.35 ERA, 0.77 WHIP, 33 strikeouts, and just six walks in 37 ⅓ innings of work this past postseason? It became one of the best performances in MLB postseason history. Still, Morris fixated on how Yamamoto used his splitter to make it happen.

So he spent the off-season trying to make his own splitter similar to Yamamoto’s. In the regular season and playoffs, Yamamoto used his splitter to strike out 97 of the 234 batters he faced on strike three, more than any of his other pitches. It was the right pitch for Morris to focus on this off-season, because he had to see how his arm responded to a forearm injury mid-season last year.

“That was the one thing, especially with the forearm stuff,” he said. “I didn’t want to be gripping something super wide and adding some more stress to the forearm. So it was more like figuring out what was comfortable for me. We’re kind of a very similar size. Not particularly big or anything like that, but more flexible, so I do like to emulate him and how he goes about things for sure.”

As Morris experimented more with the grip, he looked back at how Yesavage had thrown his splitter in the postseason. It was equally as effective as Yamamoto’s in a shorter sample size, recording 32 of his 55 strikeouts from Yesavage’s debut on September 15 to Game 7 of the World Series. What stood out as a similarity between Yesavage and Morris was that both have arm slots above 60 degrees.

“I tried the Yesavage splitter grip, and then I’ve tried other ones in the past,” Morris said, “but trying to figure out from my slot is tough because there’s not a lot of people that throw from up here. Yesavage is obviously a pretty good comp considering how high it is, and the arm slot is almost identical. So yeah, that is where we started and settled on what felt comfortable.”

Despite a limited workload of 31 ⅓ innings over the final eight outings of his 2025 season, Andrew Morris still demonstrated his strengths on the mound. He posted a 3.45 ERA, 0.77 WHIP, .180 opponents’ average, 24.8% strikeout rate, and an impressive 3.4% walk rate.

After the Twins added him to the 40-man roster in November to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft, Morris looks to be one of their top starting pitching prospects who will start the season in Triple-A again. If he can maintain the success he ended 2025 with, then he could be the first or second starter up when the Twins need one come May or June.

With Pablo López needing season-ending Tommy John surgery early in camp, Morris’ opportunity to reach the majors has come a bit closer than originally planned in 2026. It’s unlikely he’ll be on the Opening Day roster, and Morris is not looking at it as an opportunity for himself.

He’ll keep doing what’s asked of him, no matter where he’s pitching. Even with the blow to López for the season, he’s confident in what Minnesota’s pitching depth can do to keep them a winning team in 2026.

“It sucks. I mean, [López’s] just such a good person and a leader, and a great teammate, a great leader, all that stuff,” Andrew Morris said. “Opportunity is still the same as before, and however the team sees fit that they need me is what I’m willing to do. Whatever it may be. But it’s great to have those guys around, and there’s so much wisdom there.