Derek Falvey's Pitching Pipeline Could Decide the Twins' Fate in 2024 and Beyond

[Nick Nelson]

When the Twins hired Derek Falvey to lead their baseball operations, the decision was influenced by a belief that he could turn around their wayward pitching development engine, based on his reputed impact as part of Cleveland's front office.

Eight years in, it's time for the rubber to meet the road.

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports

Over the weekend, we learned that Joe Ryan is likely out for the year with a muscle strain. Chris Paddack remains sidelined, with some optimism but no clear timeline in place for his return. Because the Twins made no rotation additions at the deadline, they are left to rely on internal rotation depth to get through the rest of the season and into the playoffs. 

That means rookies needing to step up, with David Festa leading the charge. The 24-year-old right-hander epitomizes what Falvey and his group have sought to accomplish on the pitching front: targeting a particular type of overlooked collegiate pitcher in the mid-to-late rounds of the draft, and applying their magic to dramatically upgrade his velocity and stuff in the pros.

Back when he was selected in the 13th round out of Seton Hall in 2021, the pre-draft book on Festa (per Baseball America) was that some scouts wondered "whether his frame is too narrow to project much more physically from him." The Twins believed in his lanky frame, and were rewarded, as Festa has added substantial velocity and turned himself into a whiff machine with a dominant changeup.

Festa ranks as the Twins' fourth-best prospect, per MLB Pipeline, and 85th in all of baseball. This is precisely the kind of manufactured top-end pitching talent that Falvey was brought in to produce, and Festa is accompanied by a handful of other budding success stories within a system that Baseball America recently ranked as the third-best in the league.

The Twins system's biggest success story of this year, per BA, is not Festa, but Zebby Matthews, who will make his major-league debut on Tuesday night against the Royals. It's a pressure-cooker spot for a 24-year-old who hadn't pitched above Single-A entering this year.

Similar to Festa, the Twins grabbed Matthews later in the draft (eighth round in 2022) and built on the foundation of his existing strengths – namely, elite control and an excellent slider – while helping dial up his velo. As a result, Matthews has flown through the minors, and he now stands at the doorstep of the majors, with tantalizing upside thanks to swing-and-miss stuff that peppers the zone.

Most pitchers don't succeed right away in the big leagues – even those who end up being very good. That is the troubling reality that Minnesota is working against as they turn to these untested arms in a high-stakes moment: an outcome of failing to add meaningfully during the offseason or at the trade deadline. This is a "ready-or-not" assignment for the likes of Festa and Matthews, who collectively have pitched fewer than 80 innings at Triple-A. Hopefully, they prove ready.

Get used to it, because leaning on inexperienced youth is set to become a theme for the Twins going forward, as they try to piece together pitching rotations while operating under a crunched budget. So long as the "right-size" payroll limitations remain in place, the front office will be hard-pressed to spend much at all on new acquisitions; as we know, even moderately reliable starting pitchers come at a high price in free agency.

In other words, get ready for plenty more reliance on the Falvey pitching pipeline, which will play an outsized role in dictating the success of the Minnesota Twins for years to come. It starts with Festa and Matthews, but there's plenty more to like in a system that also includes Charlee Soto, Marco Raya, Andrew Morris, Cory Lewis, C.J. Culpepper and more. Whether it's enough is a separate question, though, and a different one every year.

What's your level of faith in Falvey's pitching pipeline to produce and carry the requisite load for the Twins? Are these young arms up to the task?

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[Dman]

Well said.  The Twins sort of spent their wad on Correa, Lopez and Buxton.  The rest will have to primarily come from the younger players they have developed.  Festa, Matthews, and Morris look close to ready with Prielipp, Culpepper and Lewis not far behind.  They are going to need that depth given how much drafting capital Cleveland puts into arms. Detroit is coming along and Chicago just drafted a potential ace in this years draft. The Twins are going to need to keep up in the arms race.

The Twins also have some good looking young arms in Soto, Bohorquez, Carpenter and Hill.  So they will have future depth as well.  

Arms are fickle things though.  They can give out at any time. They can get stuck at levels and never make it.  A lot has to go right, but there seems to be enough depth that even if just a few make it the Twins rotation should be in good shape now and in the future.

[Jocko87]

5 minutes ago, Dman said:

Arms are fickle things though.  They can give out at any time.

Now that there's been a couple injuries I can say it.  Whatever they are doing with the internal guys to add the velo doesn't seem to be adding injuries at a high degree.  Most of the injuries are the guys we knew were injury risks already in Preilipp, Stewart, Paddack.  It gives me some degree of comfort with someone like Raya as well.

I haven't looked into other teams Tommy John rates in the minors but the college arm type probably has something to do with the health component as well.

Course, I just messed it all up.  Arms are fickle things.

[BH67]

I've been a municipal finance director in places where there were few cash reserves. In order to succeed, a triage mentality was required -- and that meant certain tasks could be handled only by a single approach in order to maximize innovation and improved financial condition elsewhere.

Falvey's drafting approach per starting pitching strikes me as one of those single approaches. I dare say it's proven effective, enough so to deploy available funds for potential big improvements elsewhere (like maximizing team OPS). Very well reasoned on his part.

[Mike Sixel]

Given their financial constraints, it's always going to be about the pipeline. I think it's starting to show fruition 

[old nurse]

10 of the 25 pitchers on the 40 man roster or 60 day dl were drafted  or signed by the Twins. 5 more were brought in by trade as prospects. Jax is the only one not brought in by this FO.  They remixed a pipeline, they did not say it had to solely be by the draft. 

Berrios, Jay, Gonsalves, Stewart, Burdi, Meyer, Thorpe, Chargois, Eades and Zach Jones with Cedroth and Jorge getting C grade and Taylor Rogers being listed as a player of note were the top ranked pitchers in the system according to Sickles when Falvey took over. Cupboard was kind of bare. It was going to take a while

[FlyingFinn]

And there is movement in our pipeline. As many of us have speculated, Morris is moving up to St. Paul. Hall and Hamilton are also moving up, to Cedar Rapids.

Edit: And now Culpepper was just listed as moving up to Wichita.

[Jocko87]

16 minutes ago, old nurse said:

10 of the 25 pitchers on the 40 man roster or 60 day dl were drafted  or signed by the Twins. 5 more were brought in by trade as prospects. Jax is the only one not brought in by this FO.  They remixed a pipeline, they did not say it had to solely be by the draft. 

Berrios, Jay, Gonsalves, Stewart, Burdi, Meyer, Thorpe, Chargois, Eades and Zach Jones with Cedroth and Jorge getting C grade and Taylor Rogers being listed as a player of note were the top ranked pitchers in the system according to Sickles when Falvey took over. Cupboard was kind of bare. It was going to take a while

And that's not including whatever they did behind the scenes in training facilities and technology that was not there when they took over. 

[jmlease1]

Their ability to find pitchers with growth potential has been an excellent use of the later rounds of the draft. You can see a lot of obvious markers for why this is working: these guys at smaller collegiate programs might not have had that much exposure to elite training resources and/or coaching. they have measurables that allow for projection. But the twins are also doing it in volume: they're not just drafting 1-2 of these kinds of college pitchers per draft, they're getting 4-5 of these guys, so that when they miss on one they still have more outs.

Some of these guys are going to struggle if/when they reach MLB, but I'd rather rely on a stream of young pitchers rising up through the minors to move into the rotation than throwing $8-12M on mediocre veteran 5th starters that are subject to sunk cost fallacies if they flame out.

there seems to be a fairly good balance of risk/reward on the picks they're making. It'll be interesting to see if other teams start adopting this strategy and if the twins will still be able to sustain development once there's more competition?

[Rod Carews Birthday]

Excellent article, although I caution against using that word - pipeline.  It will definitely set a few people off with their own interpretations and definitions. 

Pitching prospects are always pretty fickle, but it certainly looks like they have built something that may continue supplying good solid arms for at least the short term future.  Drafting based on mostly projection is dangerous, but if they can do it somewhat successfully, then full steam ahead.  I think that Festa and Matthews (and some others) are going to be good MLB pitchers, but let's not judge them successes or failures until they have quite a few innings under their belt.  Joe Ryan getting hurt was a bummer, but I don't think all is lost by any means.  Let's go Twins!

[Fatbat]

Just imagine what the pipeline would look like if they hadn’t traded away so many prospects or drafted so many bad position player prospects. 
seriously tho, did guys like Sabato, Prato and Cavaco need to be drafted? 

[Brandon]

THe Twins have numbers in their favor and they have pitchers locked up for a long time too.

Lopez, Ober, and Ryan are locked up for the next 3 seasons so 2025, 2026, and 2027

Woods-Richardson is locked up for the next 5-6 seasons so 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029 and possibly 2030

Paddack is here for just one more season 2025

We have Festa, Varland, and Mathews as ready to graduate and be major league starters or close to it.  Varland should be moved to the pen soon.  I think he prefers that over staying in AAA as depth that may not get another shot with all of these other starters passing him by.

Next season we will also start to see others join the mix of being ready for a call up too.  Lewis, maybe Preilipp, Morris, Culpepper.  some of these guys could go to the pen too.

[old nurse]

29 minutes ago, Jocko87 said:

And that's not including whatever they did behind the scenes in training facilities and technology that was not there when they took over. 

Rapsodo did not come out until 2016, Trackman was prohibitively expensive. Whether or not the Twins would have went that way eventually is unknown. I doubt that anyone on Ryan’s staff will say the answer.. Falvey one tome did say it was a barebones operation. I remember looking  at the front office roster listed. Where there was one person there now seems to be 304. Lots of assistant GMa. The tickets sales people with more staff are not doing a great job. 

[LA Vikes Fan]

You're absolutely right that the young pitching will determine this year and next. It's encouraging to see the baseball community ranking our pitching prospects as well as they do. Let's remember though that this is what we hired these two guys for; to create a minor-league system that constantly replenishes the MLB pitching staff since the organization either can't or won't spend the free agent dollars necessary to do so. That's what has been happening in Cleveland the last few years and that's the model we need to emulate. I get it that all of these guys are suspects until they appear in the Bigs and perform. Still, I actually have hope that some of these guys will get to the Bigs and perform. In the old days, my most optimistic view of most of our pitching prospects was that they could pitch in the minors for a few years before seeking other employment outside of baseball.

If this works, this is the economic model that can keep us competitive. We spend our money on position players like Correa and Buxton, who salaries drop or drop off in a few years to be replaced by high salaries for Lewis and others, have two max starting pitchers making reasonably big dollars but who get locked up early so the dollars are little less ala Lopez, have maybe one bullpen guy with a decent sized salary closing, and have the rest of the pitching staff at least still in arbitration. It's a tough line to walk but having good pitching depth in the Minors is an absolute necessity to make this kind of a structure work.

[old nurse]

19 minutes ago, Fatbat said:

Just imagine what the pipeline would look like if they hadn’t traded away so many prospects or drafted so many bad position player prospects. 
seriously tho, did guys like Sabato, Prato and Cavaco need to be drafted? 

Landon Leach, Blayne Enlow, Charlie Barnes say hello

Traded pitching prospects like Legumina and Gipson Long  have not done anything of note so there really shouldn’t be any crying over their trades

[SaberNerd]

55 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

there seems to be a fairly good balance of risk/reward on the picks they're making. It'll be interesting to see if other teams start adopting this strategy and if the twins will still be able to sustain development once there's more competition?

Almost every team is doing this strategy to some extent.  The Twins have been one of the best teams at adding velocity, and all of their success stories didn't have an MLB caliber fastball out of college.  The question is can other orgs figure out what we are doing.

[Rod Carews Birthday]

44 minutes ago, Fatbat said:

Just imagine what the pipeline would look like if they hadn’t traded away so many prospects or drafted so many bad position player prospects. 
seriously tho, did guys like Sabato, Prato and Cavaco need to be drafted? 

Every team has those situations.  The baseball draft is a pretty difficult and inexact science.  In the aggregate, I think they've done pretty well.  It would appear that 20+ minor league systems would trade places.

[Fire Dan Gladden]

49 minutes ago, Fatbat said:

Just imagine what the pipeline would look like if they hadn’t traded away so many prospects or drafted so many bad position player prospects. 
seriously tho, did guys like Sabato, Prato and Cavaco need to be drafted? 

It took nine comments before the first negative Falvey remark?  That might be some sort of record..

[NotAboutWinning]

50 minutes ago, Fatbat said:

Just imagine what the pipeline would look like if they hadn’t traded away so many prospects or drafted so many bad position player prospects. 
seriously tho, did guys like Sabato, Prato and Cavaco need to be drafted? 

Trades have to be made. They cannot simply hoard all their prospects. It is not fair to these young guys to let them be jammed up in a crowded system.

[Jocko87]

40 minutes ago, old nurse said:

Rapsodo did not come out until 2016, Trackman was prohibitively expensive. Whether or not the Twins would have went that way eventually is unknown. I doubt that anyone on Ryan’s staff will say the answer.. Falvey one tome did say it was a barebones operation. I remember looking  at the front office roster listed. Where there was one person there now seems to be 304. Lots of assistant GMa. The tickets sales people with more staff are not doing a great job. 

I'm sure they would have done something with it.  I have a Rapsodo for golf of my very own-its was like $500 or something.  The tech is much cheaper and they would have to have it in some form.  I'm just not sure they would have aggressively pursued it though and would have been behind the 8 ball.

[August J Gloop]

While I see plenty of names on the reliever side who could help the Twins, I'm coming up empty on the starters they should have traded for front. Kikuchi at half what Houston gave up for him? Might do it. Flaherty? I suppose but I doubt the Tigers would have taken the same deal from the Twins. Gotta go higher on intradivision trades. Maybe Trevor Rodgers. 

This has always been the plan to some degree. Joe's injury is probably not something they were suuper ready for. 

[jmlease1]

1 hour ago, Fatbat said:

Just imagine what the pipeline would look like if they hadn’t traded away so many prospects or drafted so many bad position player prospects. 
seriously tho, did guys like Sabato, Prato and Cavaco need to be drafted? 

yes, imagine how great it would look if the front office never missed on a single draft pick and no one ever got hurt.

This is, of course, a record that no team has now, nor has ever had.

(also? Prato was a 7th round pick who is in AAA. I mean, come on. We're gonna take a poke at the FO for not turning a 7th round pick into MLB gold?)

[Fatbat]

30 minutes ago, NotAboutWinning said:

Trades have to be made. They cannot simply hoard all their prospects. It is not fair to these young guys to let them be jammed up in a crowded system.

I agree! The farm system was so far behind the 8ball by 2016 that Falvey had to spend extra years to get to where he can now trade or not from a position of power.  We have never had 3 SP rookies deep that we basically have to count on for multiple starts in Aug/Sept to get us a division championship.  The fact that we are even in this position instead of selling the farm for an aging vet that might be worn out but we hope he has 80 more innings in the tank. Maybe. Before his next IL stint. How many times have we HAD to make that trade? 
Now we just trotted out Rookie SP #3 that has arguably the best stats in all of the minors.  
Realistically, we could do about the same next year with different names and we still have all the other prospects that will be that much more developed and valuable.  
The FO could then look at trading an extra/backlogged player straight up for a position of need. Think about next year if/when AK and/or Julien come back to MLB and have a Miranda ‘24 season.  Someone will over pay for that type of player.  We were super lucky to find that type in Castro for FREE.  We got luck and momentum on our side!

[Linus]

The pitching future looks brighter than it has in quite a while especially because we have three MLB starters under contract for three more years.  With the group coming up we should be able to fill the back two spots. However this applies more 2025 or 2026. I’m afraid it’s too much to ask Mathews and Festa to get us home this year. 

[Fatbat]

55 minutes ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

It took nine comments before the first negative Falvey remark?  That might be some sort of record..

It wasn’t meant as a knock of Falvey so much as what he had to work with when he arrived. 

[Rosterman]

You can argue about pushing players too soon, but why wait. Make decisions. And also will push decisions on guys like Varland and Canterino to maybe become bullpen mainstays in the future, rather than signing reclamation propjects or filling AAA with minor elague free agents.

The plus is that Lopez, Ober, Ryan and Paddack are all back for next season. Three around for three more at least. SWR is around for five seasons. So the Twins can comofrtably work new guys into the rotation over the remainder of the decade, or dangle guys for trade upgrades elsewhere.

If anything, the Twins start having difficu;t 40-man roster decisions, watching guys reach minor league free agency all at once, or the age old problems of guys going down with injuries and being bypassed. It is what the Twins do with their players that will make or break them in seasons ahead.

Like this trading deadline, one would think that the Twins had enough etra minor league pieces to get at least a rentable innings eating rotation arm, and maybe a competent lefty (some dozen changed teams leading to the end of July) for the bullpen, And till not hurt their "pipeline."

What we see with Festa and Matthews is the Twins making early decisions to add to major league roster, rather than running out the clock to the 40-man add. 

[tony&rodney]

Go back 15 years (or 20, 25, 40, ... ) and there was a similar positive attitude about the next great wave. 

I have been watching more minor leagues (via milb.com) in the last few years. The pitchers who especially captured my attention are guys like Varland, Woods Richardson, Raya, Festa, Lewis, Matthews, Morris, and Culpepper with a fresh attention recently to Prielipp, Hall, Soto, and Bohorquez. I'm interested to see what Roque looks like when he makes it to low A. Still, as much as I am excited by the current prospects, I remember that there was also enthusiasm for many prospects in the past. The interest in prospects goes way back and never ends. As much fun as reading/watching/following prospects has been been, especially since 1981 with the beginning of Baseball America, I cannot ever understand the criticism or denigration of past regimes and/or prospect years.

Sure hope Matthews is great tonight.

[KirbyDome89]

There is no "pipeline." 

A segment of this fan base won't let that moniker go, and every year this argument gets rehashed with new names, new profiles, new timelines, yada yada. 

Hopefully SWR's first handful of starts weren't a total mirage and the more recent regression means he'll settle in a back end role with some mid rotation upside. 

[Mike Sixel]

1 hour ago, Linus said:

The pitching future looks brighter than it has in quite a while especially because we have three MLB starters under contract for three more years.  With the group coming up we should be able to fill the back two spots. However this applies more 2025 or 2026. I’m afraid it’s too much to ask Mathews and Festa to get us home this year. 

I just don't get this attitude that they can't win with rookies. 

[jmlease1]

22 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

I just don't get this attitude that they can't win with rookies. 

Seriously. It's not like the whole team are rookies. Might be tougher with a bunch of young starters, but it's doable. (and encouraging for the future)

Festa's gotten better after a wobbly first 2 outings to be plenty competitive in his next 4.

SWR has been quality (I'll take the 110 ERA+ all day) and for those expecting him to fall apart: his ERA and FIP are almost identical, so to paraphrase Denny Green "He is who we thought he was!"

And I'm not mad about Varland or Matthews as being the next set of reinforcement. Much better than most seasons. It sucks to lose Joe Ryan, who was having a good season, but we're not chucking out no-hopers here.