{"id":634238,"date":"2026-03-20T21:39:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T21:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/634238\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T21:39:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T21:39:14","slug":"twins-option-zebby-matthews-finalize-rotation-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/634238\/","title":{"rendered":"Twins Option Zebby Matthews, Finalize Rotation Plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Twins announced Friday that they\u2019ve optioned right-hander Zebby Matthews<\/a> to Triple-A St. Paul. They didn\u2019t formally say it, but that effectively sets Minnesota\u2019s rotation heading into the season, barring a late injury or trade.<\/p>\n

Minnesota did, however, formally name Joe Ryan<\/a> the Opening Day starter today. That was a foregone conclusion after Pablo L\u00f3pez<\/a> was lost for the season due to UCL surgery early in camp<\/a>. Right-handers Bailey Ober<\/a> and Simeon Woods Richardson<\/a> were more or less locks entering spring training. Ober had a rough stretch last summer while trying to pitch through a hip injury but has been a steady third\/fourth starter in Minnesota for several seasons otherwise. Woods Richardson has been up and down between Minneapolis and St. Paul over the past two seasons but had a strong finish in \u201925 and is out of minor league options.<\/p>\n

The rest of the rotation looked less certain following L\u00f3pez\u2019s injury. Matthews and fellow righties David Festa<\/a>, Taj Bradley<\/a> and Mick Abel<\/a> were vying for the final two spots. All four were ranked as top-100 prospects prior to their major league debuts, but none has fully solidified himself in the majors yet. Festa went down early with a shoulder injury that isn\u2019t expected to necessitate a long-term absence but will send him to the injured list to begin the season. Matthews, Bradley and Abel were in a three-man competition for the final two rotation spots. With Matthews now optioned, it\u2019ll be Bradley and Abel rounding out the staff.<\/p>\n

Bradley came over from the Rays in exchange for Griffin Jax<\/a>\u00a0just minutes before the trade deadline last summer. He\u2019s had some success at times in the majors but lacked consistency. However, he\u2019s celebrating his 25th birthday today, so he\u2019s plenty young and still has four seasons of club control remaining. Bradley has had a good spring showing. His 4.50 ERA in 14 frames is unremarkable, but he\u2019s punched out a huge 32.2% of opponents against a solid 8.5% walk rate. His fastball velocity is up nearly a mile per hour this spring, sitting at an average of 96.9 mph, and he\u2019s sporting an above-average 12.5% swinging-strike rate.<\/p>\n

Abel, 24, is another deadline pickup for Minnesota. He came to the Twins from the Phillies in last July\u2019s Jhoan Duran<\/a> swap. Abel is a former first-round pick who for years ranked as a top-100 prospect. He was leapfrogged in the Phillies\u2019 system by Andrew Painter<\/a>, and a shaky 2024 season in the minors caused Abel to fall off of national prospect rankings. He bounced back in a big way in Triple-A last year, posting a pristine 2.20 ERA, 28.6% strikeout rate and 10.1% walk rate in 98 1\/3 innings. The 6\u20195\u2033 righty matched that production through his first four MLB starts with the Phillies but struggled thereafter, allowing nine runs in his next 4 2\/3 innings before being shipped to Minnesota.<\/p>\n

Abel has looked dominant this spring. In 18 innings, he\u2019s held opponents to a flat 2.00 ERA with a 34.8% strikeout rate against just a 4.5% walk rate and kept 53.8% of batted balls against him on the ground. In this spring\u2019s small sample, Abel has upped the usage of his slider and changeup while scaling back how frequently he uses his two-seamer. The results, clearly, have been quite strong.<\/p>\n

Matthews, 25, has pitched in parts of two seasons with the Twins already. He\u2019s logged very good strikeout and walk rates (24.7%, 6.6% respectively) but been far too susceptible to home runs. He\u2019s a pronounced fly-ball pitcher who has seen nearly 15% of his fly-balls leave the yard; that\u2019s led to an average of 1.77 homers per nine innings pitched.<\/p>\n

Matthews sat better than 96 mph with his heater last season, pairing it with a plus slider and plus command. He\u2019s yet to find an average third offering, as his changeup has been hit hard. If he can dial in a third pitch to help keep lefties off balance, he could yet emerge as a mid-rotation starter. Righties are flummoxed by that slider, but lefty hitters have turned in a huge .316\/.372\/.572 slash against him in the majors. Obviously, that won\u2019t cut it.<\/p>\n

The Twins will send Matthews to Triple-A\u00a0 to continue working on rounding out his arsenal. It\u2019s possible that he and\/or Festa could eventually emerge as bullpen options, particularly if Bradley and Abel can carry their spring performances into the regular season. The Twins have a number of interesting upper-level arms on the cusp of MLB readiness beyond that pair, including Kendry Rojas<\/a>, Andrew Morris<\/a>, Dasan Hill<\/a>, Marco Raya<\/a> (who\u2019s moving to the bullpen full-time this season) and top prospect Connor Prielipp<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Twins announced Friday that they\u2019ve optioned right-hander Zebby Matthews to Triple-A St. Paul. They didn\u2019t formally say…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,3916,1455,5158,3478,763,767],"class_list":["post-634238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-david-festa","tag-joe-ryan","tag-mick-abel","tag-simeon-woods-richardson","tag-taj-bradley","tag-zebby-matthews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116263673091441822","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634238","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=634238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}