Zebby Matthews Gets the Call to the Twins: What He Is, What He Will Be

[Hubie29]

59 minutes ago, Road trip said:

This is exactly what I was thinking.  Zebby is now going to need a 40-man spot this winter, as he can't be removed with out losing him.  There is a real cost to this promotion.  Yes, he was likely going to be added at some point next year, but that could have been done after spring training.  Twins now have one less roster spot to play with this winter as they decide who will be protected.

Having said that, if Zebby is the best possible option to start on Tuesday (and perhaps beyond) then I can't argue with the decision.  Twins have a pretty good chance at making the postseason, but they may need every win they can get.

We have no less than 10 guys on the 40 that we wouldn't miss. That should not be a concern. 

[nicksaviking]

8 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

Funderburk DFA? He'd be claimed instantaneously. Pre-arb. 2 more option years, 2027 earliest eligibility for arbitration 1.

Dobnak could get DFA'd, but the Twins clearly trusted him more than Boushley or Plutko, and right now, the depth in the rotation is thin ice. Dobnak probably wouldn't get claimed at this point so it's likely he'd pass through. Caleb Thielbar is certainly on the short list as well for veteran players.

Kirilloff is a potential DFA as he's going to be non-tendered this offseason. Ronny Henriquez, maybe Matt Canterino given the fact he hasn't pitched competitively in years and he's already 26.

 

Kiriloff is on the 60-day-IL, he won't impact this decision.

There's lots of options I don't mind cutting, but if Blewitt is on the roster for a full four game series that included a double header and he still doesn't get used why is he on the team to begin with with?

[mickster]

I thought they would sign Rich Hill over the weekend and put him in the rotation

[bean5302]

2 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Kiriloff is on the 60-day-IL, he won't impact this decision.

There's lots of options I don't mind cutting, but if Blewitt is on the roster for a full four game series that included a double header and he still doesn't get used why is he on the team to begin with with?

Kirilloff is eligible to come off the 60 day IL in 6 days I think, but given the fact there's been basically no news it seems highly improbable he'll be off the list any time soon, I'll give you that.

[bean5302]

5 minutes ago, mickster said:

I thought they would sign Rich Hill over the weekend and put him in the rotation

That'd probably wind up being really ugly. Take a 44 year old guy with a 5-something ERA last year and throw him into the rotation immediately without having pitched a single competitive game in a year. Talk to an elite pitcher like Blake Snell about how simulated games prepare you 100% for MLB action, let alone an 88mph (hopefully 88) veteran looking for a last shot at a championship.

[Fatbat]

I’m not going to temper my expectations. Zebby is a professional athlete who is well prepared.  He is mature enough to handle it and maybe thrive quickly.  KC’s lineup has a couple holes in it and a couple monsters.   Its not a stretch to surmise that he is here to stay and that pitching pipeline has been doing exactly as it is supposed to. 

[mikelink45]

I will try to curb my enthusiasm, but it is hard.  I really want to see him succeed. 

[Blyleven2011]

If he is compared to gerit Cole  and zebby's nerves don't get the best of him , then we should be in the win column  if blewett doesn't blow it in relief  ...

Good luck zebby  

[chpettit19]

1 hour ago, bean5302 said:

Honestly, people are way too worried. It shows how poorly this organization has developed talent by attaching big kid gloves to everybody. If they're ready, they're ready, but this organization has frequently log jammed talent far behind mediocre depth for whatever reason, be it extra team control or needing to polish some very rough ore. I was ready for Matthews to be called up directly out of AA. You do not perform at that level and not have what it takes to be serviceable. I'm sure some fans are thinking back to Berrios, who pitched in more pitcher friendly leagues. Matthews is age 24. It is totally normal for top prospects drafted out of college to make it to MLB in this timeline. 2-3 years is normal. If they're not in MLB by year 3, they're behind schedule, and if they're not in MLB by year 4, they've probably washed out.

 

How many other players from the 2022 draft have debuted already? Jackson Holliday, Brooks Lee, Zach Neto, Drew Thorpe, Ben Joyce. I'm probably missing a couple, but it's not more than 10, I'd bet. As an 8th round pick it's pretty quick to the majors to be one of the first 10 there. Is there any other starting pitcher who's debuted besides Thorpe?

I think people's surprise comes from the fact that Zebby was by no means a top prospect until a couple months ago. Again, 8th round pick just over 2 calendar years ago. I'd be surprised if there's a lot of 8th round pick starting pitchers debuting within 2 calendar years. Think you're over selling how quickly people should be expecting a guy like Zebby to debut. Kumar Rocker, Cade Horton, Gabriel Hughes, Cooper Hjerpe, Landon Sims, Thomas Harrinton, Justin Campbell. All top 40 picks out of college who haven't debuted yet. Zebby flew threw the system pretty darn quick.

[h2oface]

Sweet. Just in time for 2024 Seth Lugo. Make him earn it right away.

I'm all for it. Isn't it about time the Twins really get a pitcher that is young and shocks MLB and becomes an instant star? I think it is high time. 

[roger]

Holy Cow!!!!

Was thinking about who would start Tuesday over this morning's coffee while reading the Strib.  Couldn't see them going with Ober on three days rest.  Twins just don't do that, nor should they.

To be honest, couldn't think of another option.  Calling up Zebby never crossed my mind.  Considering what I have now read in the past 15 minutes, I like it.  Don't have a clue how he will do tomorrow, but it will be the first step he will take towards becoming a big part of the 2025 starting rotation.

Yes, most of us were disappointed that they weren't able to get another solid starter last winter, or two weeks ago.  But a lot of us sure are happy to see their pipeline pitching at Target Field.   And what would we have thought had they traded Festa or Matthews for a rental?

They won't be looking to trade for, or sign free agent starters next winter.  Not with Lopez, Ober, Ryan, Paddack (he is under team control for another year, isn't he?), Woods-Richardson, Festa, Varland and Matthews.  That's eight starting pitchers.  And it doesn't include any of the guys down at AA right now.  OK, one may go to the pen and another sure could start in St. Paul.  But another can be injured and they still have five.  I like it.

[LA Vikes Fan]

A positive spin on this is that giving starts to guys like Matthews is exactly what this team should be doing. I started the year thinking this team was one year away from really contending and that this should be the year to get as many innings as possible for guys like SWR, Varland, etc, and as many ABs as possible for guys like Wallner, Julien, Miranda, etc. Then I saw them doing well after that poor start started to think let's get veterans so we can compete deep into the playoffs. The injuries we've recently had reminded me that were probably not quite ready for prime time in that way and that this year should be about finding whether we have the players to fill our three or four holes so that we can try to fill them from free agency if we need to. Two of those holes are the number four and number five starting pitchers.

I'm all for giving Matthews a shot, and I would want it to be more than one start unless he gets blown out on Tuesday. It looks like SWR is developing into a strong mid rotation starter whos upside may even be higher. We still need another solid starting pitcher and I'm not sold on Chris Paddack or Varland. I think both will wind up in the bullpen eventually. I would love to see both Festa and Matthews get some regular turns down the stretch so we can see if either one of them can be all long-term starter beginning next year.

 

[Dman]

I'm a little concerned it's too soon for Matthews as he has struggled with HR's and giving up more contact at the AAA level.  Also he throws sooo many strikes I wonder if that will work well at the MLB level? Especially first pitch fastballs.  The Royals aren't afraid to swing early.

Still I can see why the Twins want him up.  First of all he can throw strikes and doesn't appear to be intimidated by hitters as he likes to fill up the zone and make them earn their way on which is a trait the Twins love in their pitchers.

Second, his near zero walk mantra is gutsy and it means he can be trusted to throw strikes in tough counts and make batters swing early hopefully with poor results. Control is his calling card. If he keeps the ball off Barrels he will be effective.

Third even though his pitches are rated average his heater plays at 95 and he can pump it up to 98. He used it a lot his last time out and only gave up a lead off home run up in the zone with that approach. I think his cutter might be a plus pitch, but even if it isn't his 4 to 5 pitch mix combined with his plus to plus plus control should help him control at bats.

My only concern is it is a tough jump and generally takes time to get acclimated to the MLB level and I'm not sure he is even acclimated to the AAA level.  Still the one big thing he has in his favor though and likely why they willing to add him to the 40man early is he can and will throw strikes.  He has proven this year he has the stuff to K guys and give up very few hits with virtually no walks. He just needs to put it all together at the highest level.  Hopefully he's good to go and never has to look back.  We'll know more after his first start.

[Heiny]

Zebby Mathews = Roger Clemens!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[1985Fan]

Patience is required. FO is forced into promoting him way too early. I’m excited that he’ll get some experience at the MLB level and I’ll get to see his high velocity with excellent control. 
Twins have been patient with SWR, as an example, and that has paid off. Even if his debut is a flop, he can return toAAA for more innings there and be ready to compete for a spot in the rotation next spring. Can’t expect him to be Skenes in his debut, but if he can get through 4-5 innings and keep the team in the game, that would be success. 

[Fatbat]

1 hour ago, roger said:

Holy Cow!!!!

Was thinking about who would start Tuesday over this morning's coffee while reading the Strib.  Couldn't see them going with Ober on three days rest.  Twins just don't do that, nor should they.

To be honest, couldn't think of another option.  Calling up Zebby never crossed my mind.  Considering what I have now read in the past 15 minutes, I like it.  Don't have a clue how he will do tomorrow, but it will be the first step he will take towards becoming a big part of the 2025 starting rotation.

Yes, most of us were disappointed that they weren't able to get another solid starter last winter, or two weeks ago.  But a lot of us sure are happy to see their pipeline pitching at Target Field.   And what would we have thought had they traded Festa or Matthews for a rental?

They won't be looking to trade for, or sign free agent starters next winter.  Not with Lopez, Ober, Ryan, Paddack (he is under team control for another year, isn't he?), Woods-Richardson, Festa, Varland and Matthews.  That's eight starting pitchers.  And it doesn't include any of the guys down at AA right now.  OK, one may go to the pen and another sure could start in St. Paul.  But another can be injured and they still have five.  I like it.

Morris, Lewis, Culpepper, Raya, Hall, Preilipp and others in the pipeline!

[bean5302]

3 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

How many other players from the 2022 draft have debuted already? Jackson Holliday, Brooks Lee, Zach Neto, Drew Thorpe, Ben Joyce. I'm probably missing a couple, but it's not more than 10, I'd bet. As an 8th round pick it's pretty quick to the majors to be one of the first 10 there. Is there any other starting pitcher who's debuted besides Thorpe?

I think people's surprise comes from the fact that Zebby was by no means a top prospect until a couple months ago. Again, 8th round pick just over 2 calendar years ago. I'd be surprised if there's a lot of 8th round pick starting pitchers debuting within 2 calendar years. Think you're over selling how quickly people should be expecting a guy like Zebby to debut. Kumar Rocker, Cade Horton, Gabriel Hughes, Cooper Hjerpe, Landon Sims, Thomas Harrinton, Justin Campbell. All top 40 picks out of college who haven't debuted yet. Zebby flew threw the system pretty darn quick.

Keith Law partnered on an article a couple years ago.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/2662173/2021/06/21/law-are-high-draft-picks-getting-to-the-majors-faster-than-ever/
If you have a college draftee who hasn’t broken through to the majors or at least merited a call up within 36 months of his draft date, the odds of him becoming even a solid regular are probably pretty low.

The article talks about the average time to debut (median) increasing for college players from 786 to 1,058 days (up from 2.2 to 2.9 years), and performance correlates with call up time.

Of course, these are top draft picks, but most top prospects are also going to be high round draft picks. Matthews is a top prospect at this point. Expectations have changed. His performance outweighs his draft pedigree so his call up to the majors is "normal" in terms of time frame. The bottom line is if you think Matthews is good, he's getting his shot in a pretty normal time frame at 750ish days (2.1 years) recalling the "median average" is still a little under 3 years.

[h2oface]

43 minutes ago, 1985Fan said:

Patience is required. FO is forced into promoting him way too early. I’m excited that he’ll get some experience at the MLB level and I’ll get to see his high velocity with excellent control. 
Twins have been patient with SWR, as an example, and that has paid off. Even if his debut is a flop, he can return toAAA for more innings there and be ready to compete for a spot in the rotation next spring. Can’t expect him to be Skenes in his debut, but if he can get through 4-5 innings and keep the team in the game, that would be success. 

FO has forced themselves to have no pitching. Even when they have had the opportunity to go for the current draft's best, they never do. Hunter Greene. Yeah, I know who they picked instead. That's not the point. They are not forced to do anything. They do it because they think they are so much smarter and it will finally sometime probably work out. I hope it does before some of us are dead.

Hype means nothing. Predictive stats don't win games. No reason not to expect the prospects to excel. Some do right away. After all, the FO claims they know pitching. It is one thing to be so chest puffing proud about your low picks, and another for the MLB staff to actually show they were smart. Maybe it will come.

[Linus]

Love how he doesn’t walk anyone and Zebby is a very cool name. I will be excited to watch. However nobody should be surprised if things don’t go well. He’s essentially skipping AAA and in all my years watching the Twins I can only recall Radke Viola and Blyleven going from AA to the majors. If I recall correctly Bert was great Radke so- so and Viola got pounded. 

[twinfan]

He might get by with 75 pitches in 3+ innings then Dobnack comes in. Hopefully we can get to Lugo and give him a cushion.

[Mike Sixel]

7 hours ago, LambchoP said:

Excited to see Zebby of course, but also a bit worried. He started the year in A ball. He was dominant in A and AA, but has gotten hit a bit harder in his 4 AAA starts. Calling up guys before they are ready, ala Festa, can sometimes hurt their confidence and ultimately their development. Hopefully Mathews takes the opportunity and runs with it. Twins are desperate for quality innings at this point...

What evidence is there this has hurt Festa?

[twinstalker]

Based on his innings pitched this year and the past few, I don't think the Twins give him any more than 30 IP between MLB and AAA the rest of the way.  It's just a year too soon to help much, but I don't doubt he could help for a game or more if things go well.

[Steve Lein]

5 hours ago, bean5302 said:

I don't agree with Matthews having a lack of command. There is utterly no way a pitcher can have 80 grade control while throwing upper 90s, get elite results, but have poor command. There is room for improvement in placement, but to say he doesn't have at least good "command" doesn't make sense to me. High K rate, low BB rate. That combination is incompatible with being unable to throw the ball where you want it or even not having plus command without absolutely filthy stuff.

While I get this opinion, it is kind of the misunderstanding of what control vs. command is, and why it is mentioned in this article.

Control is throwing strikes. Command is consistently hitting the same spots, living on corners, etc...

BaseballSavant is awesome to visualize this stuff. I'm still terrible at using this functionality, but you can get graphs of pitches that have been tracked in the minors for Zebby, which shows the following:

What I see in this graph, is he throws everything for strikes, but is not necessarily consistent. Likes fastballs up in the zone, cutters inside and "cutting" a bit below them. Tries to bury sliders away but hangs quite a few. Lives on edges with his changeup and curveball.

Compare this with say, George Kirby, who is quite heralded for his command:

The difference in these, for me, is you can clearly identify the areas Kirby lives in with each of his pitches. Each color is without a doubt, focused.

I do not think you see that to nearly this level in Zebby's graph (Which is not a knock. As I said, Kirby is an elite command pitcher. It's a bit of an unfair comparison but I'm just trying to show the difference)

You can create heat maps for each pitch on this as well to narrow it down. This is a comparison of their "sliders":

I think these show a very good contrast of what "Control" vs "Command" is. Zebby is definitely more the former, but I would also agree that this is certainly not a bad thing.

(edit: someone should also probably tell me how to not make these visuals embed so large 🤣)

Edited August 12, 2024 by Steve Lein

[mark sills]

would love to see that chart on fiesta Varland and morris

[Doctor Gast]

It's very easy to be optimistic about Zebbie & wish him the best. IMO he seems a little rushed. It seems much safer to have gone with mainly Martin & Keirsey instead of signing Margot. Signing a solid Rich Hill to help steady the rotation seems safer. But I'm all for giving our own guys an opportunity. I really hope it all works out. 

[wabene]

As Steve is pointing about above and Festa has spoken about, the margin for error at the MLB level is tough as hell. You could see it in Festa's last outing. He panicked a little because Cleveland's hitters require excellent command (as do all good teams), and the next step for a young hurler is to quickly determine what they have that day and make it work. Rocco pulled Festa early this time but I don't think it was a negative experience for him. Similarly Zebulon will quickly find himself in the same position to figure out how to put the best away. I wish him well. 

Cleveland has suffered many injuries to their staff. The Twins are no different. What is different is the Twins finally appear to have viable young options, I'm loving it however it turns out.

[chpettit19]

1 hour ago, bean5302 said:

Keith Law partnered on an article a couple years ago.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/2662173/2021/06/21/law-are-high-draft-picks-getting-to-the-majors-faster-than-ever/
If you have a college draftee who hasn’t broken through to the majors or at least merited a call up within 36 months of his draft date, the odds of him becoming even a solid regular are probably pretty low.

The article talks about the average time to debut (median) increasing for college players from 786 to 1,058 days (up from 2.2 to 2.9 years), and performance correlates with call up time.

Of course, these are top draft picks, but most top prospects are also going to be high round draft picks. Matthews is a top prospect at this point. Expectations have changed. His performance outweighs his draft pedigree so his call up to the majors is "normal" in terms of time frame. The bottom line is if you think Matthews is good, he's getting his shot in a pretty normal time frame at 750ish days (2.1 years) recalling the "median average" is still a little under 3 years.

Yeah, 8th round picks starting the year in A+ ball don't often reach the majors that season. So that surprises people. Nothing you said changes that. Him reaching the majors faster than the previous, lower median even is surprising. He's beaten the odds of what anyone was expecting of him in 2022 or coming into 2024.

That article is about college players taken in the top 20 picks in the draft. An 8th round pick beating their median is surprising. That article is actually proof that we should be surprised by the rapid ascent of Zebby Matthews. We should be both surprised and excited about his rapid ascent. 

[Shaitan]

7 hours ago, Eris said:

Interesting choice considering he was not Rule 5 eligible until after the 2025 season. 

Strange. I've read on this site 100s of times that the Twins never give the kids a chance until their roster spot is at risk.

/s

[Shaitan]

5 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

How many other players from the 2022 draft have debuted already? Jackson Holliday, Brooks Lee, Zach Neto, Drew Thorpe, Ben Joyce. I'm probably missing a couple, but it's not more than 10, I'd bet. As an 8th round pick it's pretty quick to the majors to be one of the first 10 there. Is there any other starting pitcher who's debuted besides Thorpe?

I think people's surprise comes from the fact that Zebby was by no means a top prospect until a couple months ago. Again, 8th round pick just over 2 calendar years ago. I'd be surprised if there's a lot of 8th round pick starting pitchers debuting within 2 calendar years. Think you're over selling how quickly people should be expecting a guy like Zebby to debut. Kumar Rocker, Cade Horton, Gabriel Hughes, Cooper Hjerpe, Landon Sims, Thomas Harrinton, Justin Campbell. All top 40 picks out of college who haven't debuted yet. Zebby flew threw the system pretty darn quick.

Not picking on the OP here, but it seems many people judge a player's readiness by their age alone.

[Shaitan]

I hope he's the real deal, so to speak.

Even if he's not ready a player can get lucky. (See Albers, Andrew). Hoping for the best.