It was an up and down 2026 for the Twins and there’s no position group who represents that trajectory than the starting pitchers. From Joe Ryan’s second half fall off, to Bailey Ober’s journey to break 88 MPH with a fastball, to the historically terrible performance from Simeon Woods Richardson, it was quite the journey for this intriguing group of pitchers. We’ll go by innings pitched for the Twins and stats only with the Twins since Dean Kremer’s numbers look a lot better that way.
Note: in the
tables below, “*” denotes a career best, while “^” is a career worst.
Taj Bradley
Bradley was the Twins’ best pitcher this season, and still has room to improve from his successful 2026. He was healthy, consistent, and reigned in a lot of the issues that plagued him in Tampa Bay. He nearly set career highs across the board, and still has room to improve if he can cut his walk rate down even further. Bradley remains under team control for the next three seasons and has shown a maturity and willingness to learn that he lacked with the Rays. It wasn’t perfect, but it was about as good as could be expected in his first full season on the team. I am very excited about Taj’s future in Minnesota.
FINAL GRADE: A-
Joe Ryan
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Joe Ryan had an electric first half and then fell off after the All-Star break. Heading into the Midsummer classic, Ryan was top five in baseball with 3.3 fWAR. And in case you don’t have a calculator handy, 3.3 is more than the 2.5 he ended with, so he was a pretty big negative down the stretch. He’s not the only reason the Twins missed the playoffs for the third consecutive season, but he was certainly a large one.
This has been the issue for Ryan for four consecutive seasons. Ryan has been an All-Star in both of the past two seasons, and had a legitimate argument in each of those four, but his second half fall off year after year has been a consistent issue. He’s a very cerebral pitcher who has a hard time when his body doesn’t feel right, so it might just be that the normal wear and tear pitchers sustain over the course of the season mess with him more than most, but regardless, it’s something the Twins and their new pitching coach will need to figure out to be competitive in 2027.
The good news is that he pitched poor enough that he’s quashed his trade value. The Twins would not get fair value at this point, which I’m personally excited about because I enjoy watching Ryan pitch for my favorite team.
FINAL GRADE: B
Bailey Ober
Bailey Ober is a mystery wrapped inside of enigma. A hip injury and ensuing mechanical issues have diminished his velocity to the point where he is the softest thrower in the game, by a fairly large margin, but remains relatively effective despite that. While I would like to believe Ober can get back to his 2023-2024 form, we’re a year and a half into him struggling to break 88 MPH on his fastball and this likely is who he is moving forward. It’s probably also worth noting that his ERA, FIP, and WAR only weren’t career lows because of how bad he was last year.
The Twins have a big decision to make the on big righty. He’s projected to make $6.9M in arbitration in 2027, which is steep for a team that still needs to be cost-conscious despite Tom Pohlad’s big claims. That being said, a $7M, one year contract is actually pretty reasonable for a fifth starter on the open market. The Twins gave Dylan Bundy $6M guaranteed in the 2021-2022 offseason coming off of an eerily similar season, so there’s even a track record within the Twins. That being said, the Twins have seven returning starting pitchers who don’t really need more time in AAA (Lopez, Ryan, Bradley, Kremer, Prielipp, Zebby, Abel), and more depth behind them in Rojas, Jack Anderson, Ryan Gallagher.
Retaining Ober might be a luxury at this point. We’ll see what direction the Twins go in the next month.
FINAL GRADE: C–
Zebby Matthews
After the season, the Twins revealed that Zebby had been dealing with a flexor strain for most of the second half, but gutted it out since the Twins were short on options after all their injuries to starting pitchers. It was an interesting season for Matthews because he had career lows in strikeout and walk rate, but also had the best ERA of his young career. You could also see that game to game, where he would look untouchable one start and then give up four homers in the next one. It’s also telling that his career-best ERA is 4.90.
Zebby has a lot of the same issues that plagued Louie Varland when he was a starter with the Twins. He has good control, but not enough command. He can get batters to two strikes, but has a really tough time ending those at-bats. Like Varland, Matthews’ best role might be in the bullpen where he can let it fly and focus on his two or three best pitches. But unlike Louie, Zebby has flashed just enough as a starter that I think he is worth trying out in the rotation for one more season. It’s always good to have more depth and if they don’t need him starting by midseason, he can start transitioning to the bullpen. 2027 will shape a lot of Matthews’ future in Major League Baseball.
Unrelated, I have absolutely no memory of what could have possibly happened to capture the picture above. I hope Zebby and his horses have a fun offseason.
FINAL GRADE: C+
Connor Prielipp
Coming into the season, if you had told me that double-Tommy-John-ed, injury-riddled Connor Prielipp would have the fifth most innings on the Twins and rank third in WAR among their pitchers, I would have asked you if you believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy as well. But here we are.
Similar to Zebby, Prielipp flashed true ace stuff at times, with his highly touted breaking pitches and strong fastball baffling veteran lineups. And, like all rookies, there were times where he looked overmatched and worn down as games went on. That being said, a healthy, 140+ inning season alone would have earned him a high grade, let alone his relative effectiveness.
Parker Messick, Chase Burns, Payton Tolle, and Nolan McLean lapped the field as far as rookie pitching performances go, but they were also fake rookies who had a good amount of experience in 2025. Prielipp was as good as any pitcher who debuted this season and the Twins have to be thrilled at what the future looks like for the young lefty. They haven’t seen stuff like this from the left side since Francisco Liriano.
FINAL GRADE: B+
Dean Kremer
Kremer was one of the Twins’ big deadline pickups, and he performed about as well as you could expect down the stretch. His numbers in Baltimore to start the season were pretty rough, but that was largely due to an outrageous home run rate. That number normalized and he was arguably the Twins’ second best starter in the final two months of the season, and flashed a career high strikeout rate to boot. Kremer is under control for one additional season and should slot in as the Twins’ fourth starter heading into 2027.
FINAL GRADE: B+
Simeon Woods Richardson
- IP: 47.2
- ERA/FIP: 7.74/6.16
- fWAR: -0.4
- K%: 11.5%
- BB%: 11.0%
Woof. This happened so long ago that I truly forgot how awful Woods Richardson was, but it was a miracle he got as many innings with this teams as he did before he was DFA’d. He had the worst walk rate on the staff to go with the worst strikeout rate, two things that simply won’t mix, and was getting hit hard constantly. He eventually made his way to Toronto to soak up a few midseason innings as they were dealing with SP injuries, and while his ERA looked better, anything under the hood showed he was the exact same flawed pitcher the Twins have seen.
Instead of growth, the Twins saw the worst of all his tendencies and very little of the upside SWR had as a prospect. The Blue Jays also eventually DFA’d him and he is currently in the Mariners’ system, but I would expect him to elect free agency after the World Series. He’s still only 26, but even when things were going well with the Twins he was unspectacular. We’ll see what, if anything his baseball future holds.
FINAL GRADE: F
Mike Paredes
Despite having eerily similar numbers to SWR, Paredes gets a bump due to expectations. Sim was supposed to be what he was the past few seasons: a solid backend starter with a bit of upside. Paredes is an 18th round rookie who started the season at AA and threw all of 30 AAA innings before being forced into action due to injuries.
I don’t think Paredes is a long term starter, but the coaching staff had nice things to say about him and I’m hesitant to judge him for his initial work at a level he clearly wasn’t prepared for. He’s a depth piece if the Twins need him who could grow into something more if he can a way to get his strikeout rate up a touch. Or he could be DFA’d if the Twins need a 40-man roster spot. It’s truly hard to know.
FINAL GRADE: D+
Mick Abel
Unfortunately, I can’t go higher than a B for a player who appeared in four games and threw 20 innings, but it’s hard to feel anything but encouraged by what we saw from Abel to start the season. A lingering elbow injury kept him from pitching after April, but the Twins’ staff is confident it’s not a long term issue and that he will be ready in Spring Training.
He was the victim of the Twins’ awful fielding before the May defensive shift, which explains why his FIP is 1.2 runs below his ERA. And while a 10.8% walk rate is less than ideal, it’s actually a marked step up from where he was in the minor leagues. Abel has always had great stuff and if he reigns in the walks, he’s a frontline starter in the making. He’s my 2027 breakout pick, as long as he’s healthy.
FINAL GRADE: B
FINAL OVERALL GRADE: B-
Excellent performances from Bradley and Prielipp, an elite first half from Ryan, and solid relative production from Kremer and Ober kept this group afloat. But there simply wasn’t enough health and consistency to go much higher than this. At some point, pitching is about prevent runs despite what advanced metrics say, and the Twins gave up far too many and now Pete Maki is out of a job. That being said, this is a group that is established and should project as a top-10 unit in baseball for 2027 with healthy Joe Ryan and Pablo Lopez along with continued improvement from the young guns.
How did you think the Twins’ starters performed this season? I simultaneously feel like I was too harsh and too generous, which probably means I ended up in the right spot.
