Heads Up: The Twins have a Pitching Prospect Making The Leap

[Jamie Cameron]

Zebby Matthews put together a dominant AA debut on Thursday night in Wichita. What stands out about his performance so far in 2024? Just how good can he be? Let's dig into some numbers.

Image courtesy of Ed Bailey, Wichita Wind Surge

Stepping onto the mound for his AA debut for Wichita, 2022 draftee Zebby Matthews was staring down at a formidable group of hitters. The Arkansas Travelers boast a lineup that includes Cole Young and Harry Ford (34th and 35th in the MLB Pipeline top 100 prospects list). Tyler Locklear, a data darling and on base machine from the same draft as Matthews, also featured.

Matthews put together an impressive debut for the Wind Surge, going 6.2 innings, giving up three hits, two unearned runs (scored on a throwing error) and striking out nine. It was a performance that has cemented him as a Twins MiLB arm who has taken a significant leap in 2024.

Matthews was drafted under slot in the eighth round of the 2022 draft out of Western Carolina (signed for $125,000). With a prototypical starting pitcher’s frame (6’5, 220 pounds), the scouting report on Matthews coming out of college was that he was an elite strike thrower with good fastball characteristics without overpowering velocity or secondary pitches.

That’s a useful draft tendency to hold onto. We know that the Twins tend to take a run of college pitchers in the mid to late rounds of the draft as they believe they can develop good value in that range, and so it has proved with pitchers like Bailey Ober and Louie Varland . College pitching in the middle rounds is typically rooted in one or two intriguing traits, the rest is up to the player development team and player to develop and work on.

Matthews relied on an extensive pitch mix in 2023 (four seam, sinker, changeup, curveball, sweeper, cutter). The indicators from Twins PD staff were that developing consistent shapes on his secondary pitches was his biggest developmental need, having already added velocity to a good fastball. 

Thus far in 2024, the results have been outstanding. Matthews’ fastball touched 97 mph in his first AA start. Through 29.1 innings pitched this season, he’s maintaining a 1.18 FIP (1.72 xFIP), 34.6 K%, and hasn’t walked a single batter. Opposing hitters are currently hitting .187/.187/.243 (.430) off Matthews. All of this while leveraging his elite strike throwing (69.3 Strike%). To put Matthews’ control and command into context, his current strike percentage would rank sixth in MLB, behind Jared Jones, George Kirby, Zack Littell, Chris Sale, and Tarik Skubal. Matthews was always in the zone, now he’s beating hitters with increasingly nasty stuff in the zone.

It’s always hard to balance excitement about prospects with pragmatism. Matthews will undoubtedly run into bumps and challenges as he adjusts at AA (and hitters adjust to him). He’s yet another example, though, of the Twins doing what they do best: identifying pitching that can be maximized by their player development team. Matthews deserves a ton of praise for the progress he’s made since turning pro. He’s certainly showing the type of improvement and development you want to see in a future big-league arm.

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[LambchoP]

Will be nice to follow his development. I wouldn't get too crazy praising the twins "pitching pipeline" though. I mean success stories for Ober....who else? Festa can't throw strikes, Raya can't throw more than 50 pitches and might be a bullpen guy. Don't get me wrong, I watch all these guys and am rooting for all of them. Let's just not count our chickens...

[JD-TWINS]

All good for Zebby! Will check back after a half dozen starts ……. sounds intriguing with multiple pitches and ability to go 6 1/3! 9 K’s good at any level.

[mikelink45]

I am curious about the so-called pipeline and how players rank as replacements should anyone go down this year. Is Zebby now number two on the list?

[Otaknam]

Let’s hope Zeb keeps improving and can be a viable option late this year if needed. The Twins need some potential front of the rotation starters, not just number 3-5 starters. 

[jmlease1]

He's off to an outstanding start. I'm impressed with how he's added velocity while still maintaining that great control. I'm glad to see him in AA; as a college pitcher who is a little older, how he does against more advanced hitters will count a lot more for his prospect standing than beating up on A-ball kids. It'll be interesting to see if he ends up paring back his pitch mix as he continues this season or if he can maintain the full slate. But even if he drops 1-2 of these to focus on his strongest offerings it's a heck of a base to work from.

He's definitely trending up. He'll never make the national prospect lists; he's turning 24 this month and that will DQ him from a lot of lists simply based on age. (there are prospect evaluators who will always prefer the 19 year-old kid in A-ball with measurables over the 24 year-old in AA with results) But from a Twins perspective, who cares about rankings? He's developing into a potential rotation guy and on a path to debut in 2025. Reminds me a little of Joe Ryan in that respect.

[Otaknam]

51 minutes ago, LambchoP said:

Will be nice to follow his development. I wouldn't get too crazy praising the twins "pitching pipeline" though. I mean success stories for Ober....who else? Festa can't throw strikes, Raya can't throw more than 50 pitches and might be a bullpen guy. Don't get me wrong, I watch all these guys and am rooting for all of them. Let's just not count our chickens...

I’m with you. No one in their system seems to be a frontline ML starter. And keeping the 21 year old Raya in such a low pitch count is baffling, unless he has arm issues that no one is talking about. Why don’t Twins beat writers ask that question? 

[Jeff K]

Looks like a guy we should continue following.  Festa had his best outing yesterday.  We are going to need another starter, or 2 this season.

[tarheeltwinsfan]

Zebby Mathews attended Western Carolina University, not Western Kentucky. He lives in Cullowhee, North Carolina, where WCU is located.  I hope he will soon join fellow North Carolinians, Ryan Jeffers (Raleigh and UNC-Wilmington grad - majored in physics) and Bailey Ober (grew up in Huntersville NC) and they are soon joined by  Southport, North Carolina native, Walker Jenkins.

[jmlease1]

1 hour ago, Otaknam said:

I’m with you. No one in their system seems to be a frontline ML starter. And keeping the 21 year old Raya in such a low pitch count is baffling, unless he has arm issues that no one is talking about. Why don’t Twins beat writers ask that question? 

what counts as a "frontline starter"? If it's "someone you'd trust to start a playoff game" then we have several guys who have that potential. If it's "#1/ace" then maybe not...though the jury is still out on someone like Soto who has immense upside, but is 18. If the issue is that all of their pitching prospects have questions they need to answer...get used to it, because it's perishingly rare to have a pitching prospect with no questions.

Raya has had some injury issues in the past and the Twins are clearly being cautious in his development, and they've been pretty clear about it. I don't think they're really hiding anything. YMMV on whether they're doing the right thing by keeping pitch counts down and not letting Raya throw more (I've been skeptical) but there are a lot of pitching injuries these days, so maybe they're right.

[Dman]

A lot of us were excited about Zebby last year but Lewis was just so good and so consistent winning the Twins minor league pitcher of the year he kind of got lost.  Even Culpepper whose velocity and pitch mix were really intriguing seemed ahead of Zebby.  This year he has propelled himself himself to the top of the list with incredible control and command.  His FIP and xFIP support his dominance.  I don't know if he can keep this level of dominance up as he moves up and it is just one game at AA, but if he can he looks very Ober like to me.

[Brandon]

2 hours ago, LambchoP said:

Will be nice to follow his development. I wouldn't get too crazy praising the twins "pitching pipeline" though. I mean success stories for Ober....who else? Festa can't throw strikes, Raya can't throw more than 50 pitches and might be a bullpen guy. Don't get me wrong, I watch all these guys and am rooting for all of them. Let's just not count our chickens...

Jax is a good development, Brock, Thielbar was a good find.  I think they helped in that development as well.  Cole Sands is making huge strides this year and Simeon Woods-Richardson too.  Lopez made huge strides after joining the Twins last year.  There is development going on.  some at the major league level and some at the minor league level. 

[nova_twins]

Matthews has a lot of prospect helium right now. Age isn't an issue if you're already good. Being younger is important so there's time to improve. When you're up to 97 with plus command and solid secondaries, it's just a matter of proving it on the field.

[Jamie Cameron]

10 hours ago, tarheeltwinsfan said:

Zebby Mathews attended Western Carolina University, not Western Kentucky. He lives in Cullowhee, North Carolina, where WCU is located.  I hope he will soon join fellow North Carolinians, Ryan Jeffers (Raleigh and UNC-Wilmington grad - majored in physics) and Bailey Ober (grew up in Huntersville NC) and they are soon joined by  Southport, North Carolina native, Walker Jenkins.

Good looking out, fixed this, thanks.

[Obsvr]

On 5/12/2024 at 9:22 AM, Otaknam said:

I’m with you. No one in their system seems to be a frontline ML starter. And keeping the 21 year old Raya in such a low pitch count is baffling, unless he has arm issues that no one is talking about. Why don’t Twins beat writers ask that question? 

This isn't directed at you but probably all of us at one point or another...

I think as fans we sometimes get a bit callous to injuries and surgeries.  Sure, we would all love to see Raya pitch more innings, but you have to think of the human side and this is where i'm fine with how the Twins are handling him. 

Anytime you have a surgery and the body is being cut open, it's a big deal.  To let him pitch beyond what he might be capable of, knowing a tommy john surgery is a likely outcome, is negligent.  If your Raya...if your his parents...or the Twins...nobody wants that outcome.  His arm may never be able to handle 6+ innings in one go yet if he turns into a flame throwing closer and avoids TJ surgery, I think everybody, including Raya would be just fine with that. 

Look at Duran...he was also a starter and was highly touted but does anybody lament at this point that he's not a starter?