Nelson Cruz<\/a> trade, he has developed into a reliable top-of-the-rotation starter and a key piece of the team\u2019s future. He\u2019s one of the few players in this conversation whose stock has held steady, or even improved.\n<\/p>\n\n\tOber is another developmental win. A 12th-round pick who turned into a big-league starter is a major credit to the front office. But this season has brought concerns. His fastball velocity has dipped into the upper 80s and low 90s, his ERA has crept over 4.50 again, and his mechanics are completely out of whack. For now, he looks more like a back-end starter than the mid-rotation mainstay he resembled in the past. There\u2019s still plenty of value there, but his trajectory has shifted.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tMeanwhile, Woods Richardson was a key contributor in 2024, helping stabilize the rotation early in the year. In 2025, he\u2019s struggled to miss bats, been optioned to Triple-A, and returned more out of necessity than performance. His ERA sits over 5.00, and his strikeout rate is a career low. There\u2019s still promise in his arm, but he hasn\u2019t looked like someone the Twins can count on every fifth day.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tFesta looked like he might be ready to make the leap. He finished last season strong, and expectations were high entering this year. But in 2025, he\u2019s battled shoulder fatigue and inconsistency, posting a 6.39 ERA and struggling to pitch deep into games. His strikeouts are down, his walks are up, and he has only reached five innings once all year. Festa still has youth and tools, but this season has been a step backward.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tMatthews showed up to spring training with major buzz. He pitched well in Triple-A and earned a promotion. His four starts with the Twins were a mixed bag, and he\u2019s since landed on the injured list with a shoulder strain. It\u2019s far too soon to make any declarations, but shoulder issues are always worrisome for young starters, especially those who rely on high-end velocity.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tBehind them, depth is looking thinner than expected. Andrew Morris is on the IL with a forearm strain after an uneven run in Triple-A. Marco Raya has a 7.59 ERA in 13 starts and has taken a significant step back. Even his long-term role as a starter now feels uncertain. Connor Prielipp, who was once one of the most intriguing arms in the system, has pitched this year but is now trending more toward a relief profile than a rotation piece.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tSoto, CJ Culpepper, and others bring upside, but they are still a ways off and have yet to face advanced competition. Counting on them for meaningful big-league innings anytime soon would be premature.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tTo be fair, none of this is unique to the Twins. Pitching development is incredibly difficult, and arm injuries are more common than ever in today’s game. But it also raises the question, is this just normal turbulence in the development process, or is there something about the system itself that still hasn\u2019t quite clicked?\n<\/p>\n
\n\tThis front office deserves credit for finding Ryan, developing Ober, and building some bullpen depth. But if pitching was supposed to be the calling card, and if the position-player development hasn\u2019t been a major strength, the bar has to be higher.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tWe\u2019re not here to declare the pipeline a failure. There is still potential in Festa. Zebby could bounce back. Raya, Morris, Prielipp, they\u2019re not done yet. But the shine has worn off a bit, and almost every name that carried hope into the year now comes with questions.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tIt\u2019s fair to wonder if we crowned the Twins\u2019 pitching pipeline too soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For more than two decades, the Minnesota Twins failed to develop starting pitching with any consistency. When Derek…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2388],"tags":[10794,760,5,3916,1455,15636,822,60,3190,4,3478,148,767],"class_list":{"0":"post-128035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-twins","8":"tag-andrew-morris","9":"tag-bailey-ober","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-david-festa","12":"tag-joe-ryan","13":"tag-marco-raya","14":"tag-minnesota","15":"tag-minnesota-twins","16":"tag-minnesotatwins","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-simeon-woods-richardson","19":"tag-twins","20":"tag-zebby-matthews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114739627104184601","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}