{"id":594753,"date":"2026-02-26T20:58:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T20:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/594753\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T20:58:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T20:58:14","slug":"david-festa-likely-to-begin-season-on-injured-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/594753\/","title":{"rendered":"David Festa Likely To Begin Season On Injured List"},"content":{"rendered":"

The hits for the Twins\u2019 rotation keep coming. Right-hander David Festa<\/a>, who entered camp hopeful of securing a spot on the starting staff, has been diagnosed with a shoulder impingement and will be shut down from throwing for at least two to three weeks, per Bobby Nightengale of the Minnesota Star Tribune<\/a>. He\u2019s received an injection and is likely to open the season on the 15-day injured list.<\/p>\n

Since camp opened just two weeks ago, Minnesota has lost Pablo L\u00f3pez<\/a> for the entire season (internal brace surgery<\/a>) and seen No. 2 starter Joe Ryan<\/a> slowed by inflammation in his lower back<\/a>. Ryan has already resumed throwing, but what looked like a quietly crowded Twins\u2019 rotation mix has begun to thin out rather quickly.<\/p>\n

Assuming Ryan\u2019s back issue proves minor, the Twins will enter the season with him and right-hander Bailey Ober<\/a> locked into spots. Righty Simeon Woods Richardson<\/a> is out of minor league options and pitched well down the stretch in 2025, so he\u2019s likely to grab a third spot. Festa had been competing with homegrown righty Zebby Matthews<\/a> and 2025 trade acquisitions Taj Bradley<\/a> (acquired for Griffin Jax<\/a>) and Mick Abel<\/a> (acquired for Jhoan Duran<\/a>) for spots at the back of the group. All four were top-100 prospects in the game prior to their respective debuts.<\/p>\n

For now, the competition for those two remaining spots appears to have been whittled down to three (Matthews, Bradley, Abel). There are some longshot options in camp, like southpaw prospects Connor Prielipp<\/a> and Kendry Rojas<\/a>, as well as righty Andrew Morris<\/a>. All three are on the 40-man roster, but no one from that trio has made his big league debut yet. Prielipp and Rojas have barely pitched in Triple-A.<\/p>\n

Festa\u2019s injury is the latest health-related setback in the lanky righty\u2019s development. The 2021 13th-rounder has had the look of a late-round steal thanks to terrific strikeout and run-prevention numbers as he climbed through the minors, but he\u2019s now been slowed by two different injuries within the same shoulder over the past year. Festa has started 25 career games in Triple-A, pitching to a 3.46 ERA with a 33.2% strikeout rate, 9.7% walk rate and a swinging-strike rate north of 16%. He\u2019s had some nice starts in the majors but lacked consistency, working to an overall 5.12 ERA in 117 2\/3 frames dating back to his 2024 debut.<\/p>\n

With injuries mounting for the Twins\u2019 staff, it\u2019ll be telling to see whether they look outside the organization. New executive chair Tom Pohlad, who took that post from younger brother Joe when the Twins introduced a trio of new minority owners in December, has said since assuming that new position that the Twins \u201cwant to be aggressive\u201d<\/a> and believe they can compete despite last summer\u2019s July sell-off. Pohlad publicly confirmed that his club made a run at Framber Valdez<\/a> before he signed in Detroit, hoping to capitalize on the opportunity presented by Valdez lingering on the market.<\/p>\n

None of the remaining starters in free agency \u2014 Lucas Giolito<\/a>, Zack Littell<\/a>, Tyler Anderson<\/a> among them \u2014 can match Valdez\u2019s output, but someone like Giolito or Littell would at least give the Twins some credible mid-rotation innings to help offset the loss of L\u00f3pez and provide insurance while Ryan and Festa deal with what will hopefully prove to be relatively minor injury issues. The Twins\u2019 payroll currently projects to come in about $30MM shy of last year\u2019s levels and around $50MM shy of its 2023 peak. That, coupled with their purported interest in Valdez, certainly suggests that there\u2019s room in the budget for another established arm.<\/p>\n

Turning back to Festa specifically, it\u2019s a frustrating setback for the lanky 6\u20196\u2033, 185-pound righty, but there\u2019s no immediate indication that it could be a long-term issue. He enters the 2026 season with 1.052 years of big league service and a pair of minor league option years remaining. The Twins control the 25-year-old for at least five more years. If a rotation role doesn\u2019t work out, Festa\u2019s 94.5 mph heater and above-average slider and changeup could all play up in a relief role. Minnesota\u2019s bullpen looks even more uncertain than the rotation and will need several young, unproven contributors to seize key roles in order to avoid being one of the weakest groups in the sport (barring some late veteran signings).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The hits for the Twins\u2019 rotation keep coming. Right-hander David Festa, who entered camp hopeful of securing a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,3916],"class_list":{"0":"post-594753","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-david-festa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116138941594798849","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594753","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=594753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}