Make or Break Players For Twins In 2025: Chris Paddack

[Brandon Glick]

Will Chris Paddack win the No. 5 starter job for the Twins out of spring training this year? Will he even be on the roster come Opening Day?

Image courtesy of © Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images / © Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images

Chris Paddack, who is still on the Minnesota Twins — a fact you can check using our handy-dandy Chris Paddack tool — is in the final year of his contract and making $7.5 million this year ($4.175 million for luxury tax purposes). Earlier in the offseason, when it appeared the Twins wanted to do nothing but slash payroll, he was a lock to be traded.

Then, the team (slightly) reversed course, signing Danny Coloumbe, Harrison Bader, and Ty France to (cheap) major league deals for the 2025 season. Even with a prospective sale of the franchise looming over every transaction and player, it’s clear that Minnesota isn’t totally punting on the idea of putting out a competitive team this year.

Which brings us to Paddack. Can he actually contribute to a competitive team? He’s been very effective in the big leagues before, but his performance has leveled off since an impressive rookie season with the San Diego Padres in 2019. Do the Twins actually need Paddack to be his best self in order to have a chance in a loaded AL Central, or can they treat him as nothing more than expensive filler?

What Went Wrong In 2024?
Like most pitchers, the Sheriff’s struggles last season can be traced back to his injury issues. He was returning from his second Tommy John surgery in 2023, only to deal with constant forearm issues throughout the summer.

When healthy, he maintained his usually-excellent level of control, which is promising considering that’s often one of the last things to return for pitchers trying to come back from elbow surgery. However, his fastball velocity (93.3 mph) was more than two ticks below his average speed in 2023 (95.5 mph), though the former number is subject to small-sample size caveats (just 34 fastballs thrown in 2023).

The reason that dip in velocity matters is because it became harder for Paddack to fool hitters with his offspeed offerings without the threat of blowing something hard by them. From 2021 (his last healthy season) to 2024, only his fastball improved in terms of xwOBA allowed to opposing hitters. His changeup was smacked around to the tune of a .385 xwOBA in 2024, and it was downright catastrophic against right-handed hitters (.463 wOBA; for reference, Shohei Ohtani had a .431 wOBA last season).

Neither his slider (.314 xwOBA allowed) nor his curveball (.396 xwOBA) were all that good either, with both getting crushed by left-handed hitters (.434 wOBA on his slider to lefty batters; .356 wOBA on his curveball). His fastball remains one of the better for-strike four-seamers in the league, but if he can’t differentiate between his breaking pitches, he’s not going to make a lot of headway as a starter.

What Can Go Right In 2025?
For starters, as laid out by Cody Pirkl, better health. Paddack has had elbow, oblique, or arm injuries in every single season since 2021. He’s thrown a total of 224.0 innings in the last four seasons combined, and nearly half of that workload came four years ago. Ever since arriving in Minnesota, he simply has not been able to stay on the mound.

Likewise, when Paddack first began working with the Twins’ coaching staff, they implored him to add a slider to his arsenal, reworking a discarded cutter that got bashed around like silly in 2020. He tinkered with a sinker, too, though that doesn’t look likely to return in the wake of his second Tommy John procedure. Instead, all eyes should be on his firm slider, which, despite being crushed by lefties, was actually pretty dominant against right-handed hitters.

Throwing it 177 times to same-side hitters in 2024 (23.6% of all his offerings to righties), Paddack’s slider generated a .208 expected batting average and .258 xwOBA. He induced soft contact with it and got batters to whiff on the pitch 29.3% of the time — not quite the elite figure his changeup used to average during his Padres days, but some of his best stuff with the Twins.

At worst, the upside of this new breaking pitch gives Paddack a credible reliever profile, where his old velocity would also be more likely to show up in shorter bursts out of the bullpen. If he can hone the pitch (and stop throwing it to opposite-handed hitters) while finding a variation of his changeup or curveball that messes with lefty batters’ timing, Paddack could be a back-end rotation surprise for the Twins in 2025.

How Will This Impact The Twins in 2025?
Should the Twins have done more this offseason to add rotation depth and ensure Paddack wasn’t being relied on to throw 120+ innings this season? Probably, but you could say they should have done more at nearly every position on the roster.

With Pablo López, Joe Ryan, and Bailey Ober entrenched as the top three starters, Simeon Woods Richardson looks to have the inside track on the No. 4 job heading into spring training. That leaves Paddack, David Festa, Zebby Matthews, and Louie Varland fighting it out for the final spot in the Opening Day rotation. Top prospect Marco Raya is also on the 40-man roster.

By all accounts, Paddack should be the favorite for the job, at least as long as he’s on the roster. If his body just can’t handle a starters workload anymore, he could theoretically become a valuable long-man/opener in the bullpen, though that group is probably even more crowded than the rotation right now. Either way, with free agency looming for the 6’5” right-hander, Paddack will need to put together his best season in a half-decade in order to remain relevant within the organization.

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[old nurse]

Paddack has o be healthy. That has not happened recently.  So the team will take what it can get 2 years ago he was their best option for mid rotation starter so he got extended. This is a time where the plan not working was a good thing.  Maybe the Rookies from last year and the aaa pitchers will offer enough that Paddack becomes tradeable because the injury bug hit another team. Time will tell

[LambchoP]

I imagine he'll get every opportunity to run with the #5 rotation spot because of his contract. If Festa or Mathews looks ready to get called up early on though it could make things interesting, especially if Pdddack struggles as a starter early on. The easy move would be to call up Festa and move Paddack to the pen. Our bullpen is pretty full at the moment though, which makes me think a trade could be in order. Maybe try to put together a trade with PHI to allow us to keep Castellano? Maybe offer Paddock to whoever will give us something in return along with salary relief to use at the deadline.

[bean5302]

Sorry, Paddack is already toast. There's no team in baseball who wanted to trade for him (anything of value anyway), and if he were a free agent this past offseason, I don't think any team would have given him more than a MiLB contract with an invite to spring training, regardless of how many people sing his praises around here. There really isn't much further down Paddack can go this year.

He could secure himself a nice 1 year $12MM deal if he pitches at his absolute career peak and remains healthy this year, though.

[Linus]

This is not make or break for him.  He’s under contract and is going to pitch if he is healthy likely in the rotation.  He likely will hit the IL at some point and if he pitches decent he might get traded but he is going to pitch and get paid.

[CRF]

I don't think he's tradable at this point. No one wants him. It would be extremely nice if he's healthy this season, and we can actually see if he's any good or not. He'll be here and he'll be pitching, unless/until he goes IL again. 

[Fatbat]

The FO invested in him and they will run that investment up to the trade deadline.  He will either be successful in a SP role in April/May or not. If not, he will either go to the pen or IL depending on what the issue is.  If wildly successful, he will be in the rotation until he breaks. In that respect, its a make or break season but at the end of the day/season, He is only 29 yo.  Plenty of teams will be bidding for his services next season if he finishes healthy and with even moderately good stats in ‘25. 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

He’ll pitch somewhere in 2026, but will it be a multi year deal, a prove-it deal, or a minor league one? There is most certainly a lot riding on the sheriff’s season! 

[thelanges5]

He’s playing for 2026 and beyond. Maybe we can flip him at the trade deadline to recoup a little ⚾️

I see this as the best case scenario.

[Parfigliano]

It's a contract year so he has every incentive to pitch and do it well.

[Doctor Gast]

Yeah. IMO it's not make or break. He'll break camp on the 26-man no matter how his spring training goes. Like Kepler, we couldn't trade him & he didn't play really well but yet signed for the same salary early in the offseason. Paddack is playing for his FA money.

[thelanges5]

Paddack schedule to pitch tomorrow against the Rays ⚾️

[gman]

I don't think he is pitching just for 2026. I think he is pitching for his whole career. But I also hope he pitches so well someone else trades for him. If the best he can be is the fifth man in the rotation because of his check, I would prefer someone else takes the 5th spot and gets the experience that a year in a major league rotation will offer.