The Minnesota Twins Have No Choice But to Remove the Training Wheels for David Festa

[Nick Nelson]

Image courtesy of D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images

David Festa has awesome stuff. That's easy to see, and it has translated into results. In his MLB career, he has struck out 77 hitters in 64 ⅓ innings with a 13% swing-and-miss rate. These are excellent numbers, especially for a young pitcher still finding his way in the big leagues. On top of that, Festa has overcome his greatest perceived weakness by walking just 8% of the hitters he has faced.

Pair that with what Festa has done in the minors – 2.83 ERA, 34-to-4 K/BB ratio in six starts at Triple-A this year – and you've got an ideal contingency plan for a team that just lost its No. 1 starter and much-hyped top pitching prospect to shoulder injuries. Festa oozes frontline potential. But up to this point, he hasn't been able to convincingly seize that potential.

Last year, the right-hander gave up 12 earned runs over 10 innings in his first two starts for the Twins. This made it nearly impossible for his overall numbers to recover, so he finished the season with an underwhelming 4.90 ERA despite pitching very well thereafter. But what is noteworthy about those first two starts is that – despite getting lit up – Festa completed five innings in both. In fact, he did so seven times in his first 10 major-league starts. Since then, he has completed five innings only once in eight starts, including zero of his four outings with the Twins this year.

Festa was allowed to face 23 batters in his first MLB start last year, and 24 in his second. He has since made 16 starts for the Twins, and never been allowed to face more than 21 hitters. In his four starts this year, the team has been very regimented in removing him at a certain threshold: he faced 19 batters in three, and 18 in the other. Under no circumstances have the Twins even flirted with the idea of letting Festa embark on a third time through the order. 

That was working pretty well, up until he got ambushed by the Athletics on Thursday for eight earned runs in 3 ⅔ innings. He'll look to rebound when he faces off against Jack Leiter and the Texas Rangers on Wednesday at Target Field – an interesting matchup between two 25-year-olds who were born about a month apart in the year 2000. (In the year two thousAAANNNDDDD.)

Leiter was more or less destined to be a major-league starting pitcher from the moment he was born. His father (Al Leiter) was a two-decade big-leaguer and an All-Star. Jack was a standout pitcher as a youth, in high school, in college, in the minors. He was a second overall draft pick, and now he's a fixture in the Rangers rotation, despite a record of performance that has been rocky through his first 87 innings as a big-leaguer (5.87 ERA, 4.80 FIP).

Nothing has ever come quite so easy for Festa, who had a solid but unremarkable run at Seton Hall University before the Twins drafted him in the 13th round – 399th overall – in 2021. From there, the Derek Falvey Pitching Machine got to work turning Festa into the "Slim Reaper." With amped up velocity and stuff, he averaged 11.1 strikeouts per nine innings in the minors in his way to the big leagues, where he is now firmly entrenched so long as he can stay healthy. 

Are the Twins ready to loosen the reins? Do they have a choice?

The "staying healthy" thing is no small caveat. It never is with pitchers, but Festa already this year has taken a break due to arm fatigue, and we're not even at the halfway point. This factor no doubt plays a role in the team's conservative handling of Festa, who has yet to throw even 85 pitches in an outing this season, minors or majors. But if he's going to be a full-time member of the Twins rotation going forward, the standard needs to change. I mean, I would think so. 

Pablo López had completed five or more innings in all but one of his 11 starts for the Twins this year. Those reliable innings cannot be absorbed entirely by a bullpen that already has been ridden hard, with Jhoan Durán and Griffin Jax on pace for career-high workloads, and Louis Varland seeing one of the highest usage rates in franchise history. It already feels kinda miraculous that Brock Stewart has stayed as healthy as he has, and Danny Coulombe is dealing with elbow pain at age 35. 

For his part, Festa sounded at the end of last year like he was ready for the challenge of extending his outings. 

“When the stakes were super-high, I really enjoyed it,” he said in a November 2024 Star Tribune article from the great Bobby Nightengale. “Would I have liked to go longer in some outings? Yeah, but a lot of that is situational, which I totally understand. Some outings I felt good and I was dying to get the team through six innings, but I only went 4 ⅔ or whatever the case may be. Learning to navigate the lineup and being able to face guys the third time around in most of my outings, I thought I did a good job of learning how to do that.”

The Twins, up until now, haven't been willing to see if those lessons actually took. But with López and Matthews down, and the kid-glove treatment essentially off the table, we're likely about to find out.

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[Rod Carews Birthday]

I am in agreement that Festa pitching a little deeper into games will do wonders for the bullpen fatigue situation.  However, it's really just a question of whether he can stay in control of the game in innings five and six.  If he can do that, I think he will be given enough leash to continue to pitch, but if he can't get people out the third time through the lineup, the extra innings are negated by the runs given up.  So to oversimplify things, he just needs to pitch reasonably well.  If we can score some runs, that will be enough.  

[Linus]

A lot of it has to do with efficiency. You can’t be at 80 pitches after 4 innings and go deep in games. Really it goes for all pitchers. 

[Dman]

3 minutes ago, Linus said:

A lot of it has to do with efficiency. You can’t be at 80 pitches after 4 innings and go deep in games. Really it goes for all pitchers. 

Agreed.  Look at Ryan arguably our best pitcher and he only made it 5 innings against the Jays. Also if Festa gets killed the third time through the order it is going to tough to have him as a starting pitcher.  

[LA Vikes Fan]

This is the year we are going to find out if Festa, Matthews, and SWR are ready to be MLB starting pitchers. A big part of a starting pitcher's job is to eat innings, at least 5 or 6 a game. SWR had an opportunity and failed in large part because he couldn't do that. He's now going to get another chance. Matthews did eat enough innings for two starts, but then wound up on the IL. That doesn't work either. Festa is the next man up. He is got to find a way to get through 5 innings in less than 80 pitches to give him a chance to go 6 or 7. Whichever one of these three can  start eating innings is our number 4 starter and stays as number 5 when Pablo is back.

I think the Twins see the issue and that's why Adams is in the big leagues. Assuming he stays now that Coloumbe has rejoined the club(I think Alcala may be gone), his job is going to be that of the traditional long man - go 2-3+ innings in relief of the starter who only goes 4 or 5. I think we need a guy like that with two rotation spots being held by these three young guys. They specifically used Adams at St. Paul to go in 3 to 4 inning bursts so we would have a prepared long man. Hope it works.

 

[TwinsDr2021]

On the radio yesterday (I believe, could have been Saturday) they interviewed Drew MacPhail (Director, Player Development) and he said the Twins (don't remember which minor league team) they are trying out pitching on 1 day less rest and pitching less innings (but more overall innings) per game and only seeing the lineup once, said it was better for health and development and hoped to see it happen in the majors. He said their minor league pitchers were actually pitching more innings that way instead of the normal 4 days rest. He said that is what they had been doing with Adams. In theory that sounds like a solid plan, but in reality doesn't seem like a good way to make major league pitchers happy, since IMO it would reduce their overall earning potential. But with the injuries to Lopez and Matthews it would not surprise me if they implemented in some fashion going forward.

[Vanimal46]

6 minutes ago, LA VIkes Fan said:

I think the Twins see the issue and that's why Adams is in the big leagues. Assuming he stays now that Coloumbe has rejoined the club(I think Alcala may be gone), his job is going to be that of the traditional long man - go 2-3+ innings in relief of the starter who only goes 4 or 5. I think we need a guy like that with two rotation spots being held by these three young guys. They specifically used Adams at St. Paul to go in 3 to 4 inning bursts so we would have a prepared long man. Hope it works.

Adams was sent back to St Paul after the game yesterday. The piggybacking idea has been discussed a lot on this website, and always sounds good in theory. But for whatever reason, the MLB club never utilizes the concept. 

[LA Vikes Fan]

1 minute ago, Vanimal46 said:

Adams was sent back to St Paul after the game yesterday. The piggybacking idea has been discussed a lot on this website, and always sounds good in theory. But for whatever reason, the MLB club never utilizes the concept. 

Thanks for letting me know. I was hoping for an IL spot for Alcala. I think this bullpen may burn out quickly if we don't have a long man that can go at least 2+ innings after Festa and SWR.  

[Vanimal46]

7 minutes ago, LA VIkes Fan said:

Thanks for letting me know. I was hoping for an IL spot for Alcala. I think this bullpen may burn out quickly if we don't have a long man that can go at least 2+ innings after Festa and SWR.  

Wouldn’t surprise me if Dobnak was called up again to fill the role. 

[karcherd]

16 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

Wouldn’t surprise me if Dobnak was called up again to fill the role. 

They had a chance to potentially use a long man tomorrow by keeping Adams up here and starting Festa as he would be on normal rest.  But instead they sent Adams down and my guess they will start SWR.  Does this organization really believe in a long man, it keeps being speculated but what is their plan.  They have starters they don't trust to go thru a lineup more than two times but then they don't set the bullpen up with any multi inning relievers who can help bridge to the later innings.  

They do not have the 8th man in the bullpen that they can churn thru like in recent years,  They either have to DFA Alcala or send Topa down, none of the other relievers are a realistic option to send down for a long reliever.

So really what is their plan, or are they just going to burn thru the bullpen as is and hope they don't burn out before September.

[Western SD Fan]

29 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

On the radio yesterday (I believe, could have been Saturday) they interviewed Drew MacPhail (Director, Player Development) and he said the Twins (don't remember which minor league team) they are trying out pitching on 1 day less rest and pitching less innings (but more overall innings) per game and only seeing the lineup once, said it was better for health and development and hoped to see it happen in the majors. He said their minor league pitchers were actually pitching more innings that way instead of the normal 4 days rest. He said that is what they had been doing with Adams. In theory that sounds like a solid plan, but in reality doesn't seem like a good way to make major league pitchers happy, since IMO it would reduce their overall earning potential. But with the injuries to Lopez and Matthews it would not surprise me if they implemented in some fashion going forward.

I believe the Players Association had previously threatened a grievance over this.  As we know, RP are paid the least in terms of positions on the field compared to starters that are paid very well even if they are terrible.  When the Rays started the "opener" trend, there had been bullpen games before, but they were rare compared to what we see now.  

Changing subjects, I am disappointed that they didn't rip the band aid off of Alcala.  I would have liked to see if Adams could have provided 2+ innings of relief to save the bullpen on certain days.  I remember back in the day where teams had pitchers like Oliver Perez or even the Twins when they had Swarzak that could pitch multiple innings or even spot start if needed.

[Vanimal46]

1 minute ago, karcherd said:

They had a chance to potentially use a long man tomorrow by keeping Adams up here and starting Festa as he would be on normal rest.  But instead they sent Adams down and my guess they will start SWR.  Does this organization really believe in a long man, it keeps being speculated but what is their plan.  They have starters they don't trust to go thru a lineup more than two times but then they don't set the bullpen up with any multi inning relievers who can help bridge to the later innings.  

They do not have the 8th man in the bullpen that they can churn thru like in recent years,  They either have to DFA Alcala or send Topa down, none of the other relievers are a realistic option to send down for a long reliever.

So really what is their plan, or are they just going to burn thru the bullpen as is and hope they don't burn out before September.

Yeah, I don’t think they believe in a long man out of the pen either. The only time they do it is if they are winning or losing by 5+ runs. 

I think a decision needs to be made with Alcala sooner than later. They have minimal trust in him, and I don’t think he’s going to suddenly figure things out this season. I would let Alcala go and call up Dobnak to soak up innings when needed. If he ends up pitching once every 7-8 games oh well. 

[LambchoP]

Why send Adams down, I don't get it? With Festa and SWR pitching in the rotation, there are going to be some short starts. We're going to need a long man who can go multiple innings and piggyback our young starters, otherwise our bullpen is going to be blown out in no time. Send Alcala to the IL if they are dead set on keeping him. Adams and Mccaghan have looked good in AAA and could pitch a lot of innings in relief.

[DJL44]

17 minutes ago, karcherd said:

 Does this organization really believe in a long man

They do not

[DJL44]

I would much rather see them burn out the bullpen trying to maximize the long-term success of the starting pitchers than have them burn out starting pitchers trying to save the bullpen. Starters are really hard to find but relievers aren't.

[Doctor Gast]

Festa, going through a fatigued arm after his 1st MLB round, makes me very concerned about trying to overstretch him. Have at least 1 long RP instead & use him intensively.

[Mike Sixel]

25 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

They do not

No team does, as far as I can tell. 

Festa needs to be more efficient. But the MLB average is well under six innings, so I'm not expecting more than five. 

[Mike Sixel]

23 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

I would much rather see them burn out the bullpen trying to maximize the long-term success of the starting pitchers than have them burn out starting pitchers trying to save the bullpen. Starters are really hard to find but relievers aren't.

Agreed!

[chpettit19]

Festa's problem getting deeper into games this year is a combination of being inefficient, the offense providing him no wiggle room, and him struggling in the 5th. He's been taken out earlier this year because he's been in close games and is allowing a bunch of base runners in the 5th as he gets back into the heart of the order a 3rd time. The first 2 times he was pulled with multiple runners on and a lefty coming up and Coulombe got him out of the jam (Tigers and Mets games). The 3rd time he got pulled and Sands and the defense let him down and bit and didn't get him out of the jam (White Sox game).

Festa needs to be more efficient with his pitch counts. The offense needs to score him some runs. And if/when those things happen, Rocco needs to give him some extra leash to get into the lineup a 3rd time and build that experience.

Festa was given a shot to go out and get through 5 in each of his first 3 starts this year but he imploded. Well, he was at least given the chance to start the 5th, I guess I can't say for sure how long the leash was. If you go look at the actual context of the games when he was removed, I think pretty reasonable arguments can be made for pulling him in all of them. With the Mets game being pretty obvious, in my opinion.

Top 5, 1-0 Twins lead and Festa gives up leadoff single followed by 2 deep lineouts. Top of the order gets a single and a throwing error leads to a game tying run and the go ahead run being on third base. 2 hole hitter with massive L/R splits coming up. With 2 outs and only at 64 pitches I could go either way on this one. Not crazy to take him out and go with the lefty reliever to improve your chances at keeping the game tied there. Not crazy to keep him in and see if he can get the last out and get you deeper in the game.

Top 5, 0-0 game Festa gives up leadoff single followed by another single, gets a strikeout and then hits a guy. Festa is now at 76 pitches. The next batter up is some guy named Juan Soto and Danny Coulombe is warm in the pen. Is taking Festa out there "training wheels" or the smart decision to bring in your veteran lefty with a 0.00 ERA to face a first ballot Hall of Fame lefty hitter? Coulombe got Soto to hit into an inning ending double play, for the record.

Top 5, 2-0 Twins lead and Festa walks the leadoff hitter, then gives up a single and is pulled. Sands and the defense have a rough inning and it's 3-2 Sox by the end of it. Festa was at 84 pitches at this point and was pulled as the top of the order was coming back up. This is the one that fits the "training wheels" argument best, probably. No real chance at all to see the top of the order, but the argument for pulling him is that it took him 84 pitches to get through 4 innings and 2 batters. You need to be more efficient than that. Especially against a team like the White Sox. But a team like the White Sox is also the kind of team you'd like to see a young guy get a little more leash on. So, this one I think could probably go either way as well.

If I'm the manager, I leave him in in the Tigers game and let him face Carpenter. It was April 11th so he wasn't going to be throwing 100 pitches that day or anything, but 64 isn't a lot and it's a growth opportunity. It's a chance for me to show faith in my young pitcher. With 2 outs I give the kid a shot. The Mets is an obvious pull to me. The White Sox game was a bit of a tossup, but I probably pull him there after the first 2 guys get on. He likely isn't getting through that inning anyways so going to one of my top pen arms for the leadoff man and letting him cleanup the mess makes sense. But I think there's reasonable arguments for both sides here and saying that Festa isn't getting through 5 because the Twins have "training wheels" on him is ignoring a lot of the context on why he's been pulled.

[mnfireman]

Alcala's days may be limited anyway, looks like Tonkin is starting his rehab in St. Paul this week.

[DocBauer]

Forgetting the fact that Festa WAS throwing pretty well in 2024 after his first couple of appearances, the key to him is his 2 seamer. When he was sent down, reports were he started throwing it a lot more, and the results were positive.

A reasonably affective 2 seamer might provide a few more ground outs, and save on the number of pitches thrown. It also makes his 4 seamer more affective. So him having faith and command of that 4th pitch can really make a difference getting through the 5th inning, IMO. 

I still think he might be a perfect candidate to add a sweeper to his repertoire, but that's for 2026. For right now, he needs to show a competent 2 seamer, and that can make a big difference.

[thelanges5]

Alcala DFA. Adams can piggyback with SWR and/or Festa. Doesn’t help that they are pitching back to back right now. 

[Peter]

Festa needs to step it up!! Last game at A’s was 🤮💩👎forget about dobnak-no way-Alcala will get it figured out!!! 

[Doctor Wu]

21 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

Adams was sent back to St Paul after the game yesterday. The piggybacking idea has been discussed a lot on this website, and always sounds good in theory. But for whatever reason, the MLB club never utilizes the concept. 

Another baffling move, Why do they call up these players, never use them, and then send them back down again just as quickly? I realize it's all part of "roster construction" but it's maddening!

[Doctor Wu]

19 hours ago, mnfireman said:

Alcala's days may be limited anyway, looks like Tonkin is starting his rehab in St. Paul this week.

Seems like Tonkin has been rehabbing for the past 6 months. 

[Rufus]

"Young pitcher". the guy is 25 years old.

[Jeff K]

2 hours ago, Peter said:

Festa needs to step it up!! Last game at A’s was 🤮💩👎forget about dobnak-no way-Alcala will get it figured out!!! 

I think Festa should get a pass on his performance in Sacramento.  Had to fly to the west coast and pitch right away.  I thought they should have pitched him the first game of the homestand.  I think he would have been better served and fully rested.  Yes, I know that he was scheduled to pitch in St. Paul, so he was rested to pitch, but throw in the travel and the stress of being called up...that was a tough assignment.

[jorgenswest]

I wonder if it is the opposite. They started the year with 7 pitchers that could compete in the major leagues. Now that they are down to 5 would they be more cautious about losing another one?

[AKTwinsFan]

If he adds a sweeper or splitter to his repertoire he'll be that much better. He needs more put away pitches. His and Zebbys pitch counts get high quick if they face a batter that isn't going to go quietly. 

[Otaknam]

I dont agree that Festa has frontline potential. I just dont see it. Maybe solid number 3 starter, but not an ace. I hope he proves me wromg, because this team hasnt had a traditional ace, like a Verlander, for a long time, Maybe since Santana or Liriano.