{"id":29174,"date":"2025-05-15T15:54:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T15:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/29174\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T15:54:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T15:54:09","slug":"twins-option-simeon-woods-richardson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/29174\/","title":{"rendered":"Twins Option Simeon Woods Richardson"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Twins optioned righty Simeon Woods Richardson<\/a> to Triple-A St. Paul following yesterday\u2019s tough start, per the team. Left-handed reliever Kody Funderburk<\/a>, who\u2019d been with the team as the 27th man in Minnesota\u2019s doubleheader versus the Orioles, will stay in the big league roster in his place.<\/p>\n

Woods Richardson has been a constant in the Twins\u2019 rotation dating back to last April. He\u2019s been solid on the whole, working to a 4.36 ERA with a 20.7% strikeout rate and 8.4% walk rate across 171 1\/3 innings, but his recent work has been lackluster. Woods Richardson has lasted fewer than five innings in four of his past five starts. He pitched into the sixth inning and held the Angels to one run back on April 26, but that\u2019s the only time in the past month he\u2019s completed five frames.<\/p>\n

The three most recent starts for Woods Richardson have been particularly problematic. Beyond their abbreviated nature, he\u2019s been tagged for a combined 10 runs and seen his command suffer considerably. Since the calendar flipped to May, Woods Richardson has pitched 13 1\/3 innings and allowed 10 runs (6.75 ERA) on 15 hits (four homers) and eight walks. He\u2019s walked 13.6% of his opponents against an ugly 15.3% strikeout rate and served up four of his eight home runs during that span.<\/p>\n

A team optioning its fifth starter isn\u2019t always headline news, but Woods Richardson\u2019s demotion is a bit more notable given both a relatively lengthy run in starting five and the presence of two high-end young starters with the Twins\u2019 Triple-A affiliate: right-handers David Festa<\/a> and Zebby Matthews<\/a>. Both ranked among the game\u2019s top-100 prospects prior to their respective MLB debuts last year. Matthews is still prospect-eligible and sits at the No. 46 spot on Baseball America\u2019s recently updated top-100 list.<\/p>\n

Festa, 25, was hit hard in his first two big league starts last year but settled in with a 3.81 ERA, 30% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate in his final 11 major league turns down the stretch. He started three games for the Twins earlier in 2025, pitching 13 innings with a pristine 1.38 ERA. Over his past 14 MLB starts, the 6\u20196\u2033, 185-pound righty \u2014 nicknamed the \u201cSlim Reaper\u201d \u2014 carries a 3.34 ERA, 29.4% strikeout rate and 9.4% walk rate. Since being sent back to Triple-A last month, he\u2019s tossed 11 2\/3 innings and held opponents to three runs (2.31 ERA) on six hits and no walks with 14 punchouts.<\/p>\n

Not to be outdone, the 24-year-old Matthews has started seven games in Triple-A this year and logged a sparkling 1.93 earned run average. The 6\u20195\u2033, 225-pound righty has set down 28.1% of his opponents on strikes and walked a sharp 6.7% of his opponents. Matthews\u2019 2024 debut was the inverse of Festa\u2019s first MLB look; he was terrific through three starts before being trounced for nine runs by the Blue Jays on Aug. 31. In his final six starts, he pitched just 22 2\/3 innings and was tagged for 23 runs.<\/p>\n

Both Festa and Matthews have the makings of potential long-term rotation pieces for the Twins. That\u2019s not to say Woods Richardson won\u2019t get another chance. He\u2019s still only 24 himself and won\u2019t turn 25 until September. This is also Woods Richardson\u2019s final option year, so the Twins will need to find a role for him heading into the 2026 season. Righty Chris Paddack<\/a> is a free agent at season\u2019s end, and injuries can arise at any time to create further opportunities, of course.<\/p>\n

For the time being, the Twins have Pablo Lopez<\/a>, Joe Ryan<\/a>, Bailey Ober<\/a> and Paddack starting games. Festa, Matthews and Woods Richardson are all on the 40-man roster and in the mix for the last rotation job, though it seems Woods Richardson is shifting to the back of the line for the short term, at the very least.<\/p>\n

The Twins will start Paddack today (2.51 ERA, 20.2 K%, 7.8 BB% over his past six starts) and then go to Ryan (2.74 ERA) and Lopez (2.77 ERA) against the Brewers on Friday and Saturday, respectively. They\u2019ll need to bring up another starter for Sunday\u2019s series finale in Milwaukee, as Ober would only be on three days\u2019 rest. They could also push Ryan and Lopez back a day, as Matthews is slated to start tomorrow and Festa would also be on full rest if summoned for Friday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Twins optioned righty Simeon Woods Richardson to Triple-A St. Paul following yesterday\u2019s tough start, per the team.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,3916,4,3478,767],"class_list":{"0":"post-29174","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-david-festa","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-simeon-woods-richardson","12":"tag-zebby-matthews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29174","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=29174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}