Thomas Hatch Could Become Minnesota Twins' Next Willi Castro

[Eric Blonigen]

Image courtesy of © Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

One of the upsides of trading almost half your team at the deadline is that you have space on the roster to try some things. One of the (many) things the Twins have tried is claiming Thomas Hatch (who’s controllable for four more seasons) off waivers. They have done similar things in recent seasons and been rewarded by getting the best versions of players like Willi Castro and Kody Clemens. Will Hatch be next? It’s tough to say. But regardless, he’s an interesting player with an interesting journey.

Heading into the 2020 season, while he was a starting pitcher with the Blue Jays' Double-A affiliate, Hatch was their ninth-best prospect. After seeing limited action, almost entirely in relief, the Blue Jays designated him for assignment in 2023 and he was claimed by the Pirates. They cut him after the season, and (although he initially signed to play in Korea) Hatch spent 2024 in Japan, playing for the Hiroshima Carp in NPB.

The Carp converted him back to a starter, and worked with him on his pitch mix. He came back Stateside for the 2025 season, where he signed a minor league deal with the Royals. He remained a starter with Triple-A Omaha. He was called up in July, after a stellar month in which he was named the Storm Chasers' pitcher of the month, then cut again at the trade deadline.

During his time in Japan, and during spring training, Hatch worked to add pitches. He’s throwing a true cutter and a sweeper for the first time. Hatch felt the year of stretching back out and the time with the Royals organization earlier this year allowed him to bring those projects to fruition.

“I used the first half of the year and spring training to work on some stuff, lock in some stuff that I’d wanted to do for a few years as a starter," he said. "I felt like I was in a good spot.”

Hatch now has a six-pitch mix. That’s quite unusual for a reliever, but it’s a testament to his pedigree as a starter, and his desire to find a way to stick in the bigs. He’s into baseball tech, and understanding the things that drive success.

"Coming back over here [from Japan], it was refreshing to get back in front of TrackMan, Edgertronics, where I could see the ball come out of my hand—pitch tracking, stuff like that,” he said. Hatch has used this tech to develop his pitches, including working on his cutter and changeup.

“That’s one of the beauties of technology, is we’ve discovered that even supinators can get the ball to go arm-side. And even honestly, it’s easier than a pronator for the most part. Usually, pronators are good at ‘riding the ball.’ Not seam-shift changeups, but more so spin-based, because they can get to the inside of the ball, whereas [supinators] are using seam shift to get the ball to go arm side. Which we didn’t know prior to Hawkeye, TrackMan.”

Using this tech (and being thoughtful in his approach) has helped Hatch dramatically increase the active spin and resulting movement in both pitches. Though he's always used a sinker as his main fastball, working with that technology taught him that he's a natural supinator, meaning that his arm naturally turns in the direction one needs to produce a good breaking ball. To create a changeuo that works for him has required more engineering. In 2023, his change got 6.4 inches of movement, on average. This season, it’s up to 15 inches.

Meanwhile, the pitch he used to call his cutter has morphed into a true slider—because he's felt his way to a cutter that better deserves that name.

“It was weird: we called it a cutter, previous to me going to Japan, mostly just as a mental thing. It was a slider. But then I was like, ‘You know what? I need something hard going in to lefties.’ Because two-seams from right-handed pitching to left-handed hitters are not exactly the best pitch to throw, so [the cutter] really keeps people off of fastballs," Hatch explained. "That’s been a good thing.”

It’s clear that Hatch is a tinkerer. Another example of this is his approach to his changeup, a project he's embraced with gusto.

“I think the changeup is a kind of a work in progress at this point. That’s the missing piece, I feel like. We’ve been working on splits, changeups.”

If you look at Hatch’s stat line, the results haven’t been pretty. Through three games with the Twins, he has a 5.17 FIP. He walks (sometimes way) too many and doesn’t strike enough batters out to be dominant—but a few of the pieces of a good pitcher are starting to fall into place, even as he nears his 31st birthday.

Results aside, the Twins do have a good track record of tinkering with pitch mix and approach to get the most out of pitchers, particularly those who are tinkerers themselves, and those who like to use data. Hatch is certainly that. With six pitches (and working on a seventh, in the splitter), there’s a lot to work with.

Hatch may not be well-suited to starting, or performing in a bulk role. Knowing the Twins will be getting Pablo López, Simeon Woods Richardson, and David Festa back before long, and acknowledging that the games really don’t matter down the stretch, it will be interesting to see how they deploy Hatch, and whether they convert him back to one-inning relief. On the other hand, he seems comfortable with this wider mix, and his best future might be as a swingman or back-end innings eater.

It’s also been well-documented that the Twins excel at adding velocity. Given Hatch’s slightly below-average pitch speeds, it’s fair to wonder what an extra tick or two could do to his overall effectiveness. Hatch has already shown an ability to limit hard contact (average exit velocity allowed is in the 85th percentile), and with a great ground ball rate, the building blocks are there. Since the Twins need (effectively) a whole new bullpen in 2026, betting on a guy like Hatch to stake a claim just might pan out—particularly since he will be making the minimum for one more season before being arbitration eligible.

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Twins Daily’s own Matthew Trueblood contributed to the reporting here.

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[nicksaviking]

Nice article and it's a great story. Easy to cheer for a guy who's battled back from the Asian leagues.

However I'm skeptical he'll be on the 40-man come spring training. The Twins have done well with adding velocity and pitch mixes, but like every club in the history of the game, trying to fix a pitchers command and control is usually a futile effort. 

[jorgenswest]

Hatch could be a nice story. I think the better fit would be the “next Carl Willis” who joined the Twins at 30 and pitched well in relief for three seasons including the 1991 World Series.

I am not sure which is more likely. Will Hatch have an important role in the pen and finish the 2026 year with the Twins? Will Gasper be the back up catcher and finish 2026 with the Twins? It seems unlikely that Gasper will be the second catcher but I am not sure Hatch has a role larger than the back end of the pen that will be DFA’d by May 1. 

 

[farmerguychris]

 I expect that since he's going to have a very low salary - he'll be given every opportunity to stick around either as a starter or in the pen.

[Patzky]

9 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Nice article and it's a great story. Easy to cheer for a guy who's battled back from the Asian leagues.

However I'm skeptical he'll be on the 40-man come spring training. The Twins have done well with adding velocity and pitch mixes, but like every club in the history of the game, trying to fix a pitchers command and control is usually a futile effort. 

A ground ball pitcher with the infield defense we had last night is a recipe for failure..

[nicksaviking]

9 minutes ago, farmerguychris said:

 I expect that since he's going to have a very low salary - he'll be given every opportunity to stick around either as a starter or in the pen.

Cheap relievers grow on trees though. And there's plenty who aren't going to walk the bases loaded.

[TwinsDr2021]

IMO he is more likely to be the next Tonkin than anything. 

[mikelink45]

Quote

If you look at Hatch’s stat line, the results haven’t been pretty. Through three games with the Twins, he has a 5.17 FIP.

It seems as if you have countered your own premise.  Is he going to be good?  Skeptical, but the BP is never a straight forward process.  But the advantage for TD is that you can now write about - Kriske, Abel, Bradley, Misiewicz, Ramirez, Urenas, Ohl, Urena, Cabrera, Topa, and Funderburk - just don't do all of them on one day.

[thelanges5]

There should be a spot on the 2026 Twins for Hatch. So far he has been auditioning  well. Keep him in the pen as a 2-3 inning guy. 

[IndianaTwin]

Given that they only got 4.2 innings out of Castro over three seasons with a 5.79 ERA (91 ERA+), I'm hoping for a little more from Hatch. 

[NYCTK]

22 minutes ago, thelanges5 said:

There should be a spot on the 2026 Twins for Hatch. So far he has been auditioning  well. Keep him in the pen as a 2-3 inning guy. 

There should be an NRI for Hatch. There should not be a spot held for a pitcher with more BB than K. 

[CRF]

Can he play multiple positions, in addition to pitching? Willi could. 

[Dman]

Maybe I'm just a rube, but I am a Hatch believer. I generally trust stats to make predictions or decisions, but with such a small sample size to work with I'm not sure we are getting a great idea of how effective he could be.

I am going to cherry pick in a pretty bad way but since I only see three starts from him this year it's all I have.  In his two starts against Detroit where he went a total of 9.1 innings he only gave up 1 earned run. Yes the 4 walks were still too many and the 7 K's a little shy of what you'd like to see.  Still he was pretty effective in two out of his three outings. 

In the Yankee's game he gave up way to many walks, but had only given up 2 runs until he left with the bases loaded  and the relief pitcher allowed some more runs to score.  It wasn't a great night and while I generally feel like Rocco pulls guys too early in this case it seemed like he left him in too long to try and protect the pen. The numbers from that game really skew his overall stats.

I'm not saying I see a mid rotation starter or elite closer in Hatch, but I do think he could be an effective arm for them in the pen and as a long man or spot starter if needed. So yeah kind of Willie Castro in that he can help the team in multiple roles as an arm with solid, but likely not great production. I think that's pretty valuable.

 He looks like the best arm they've picked up so far to me.,  I'd like to see how he does the rest of the way before giving up on him or crowning him the next great arm, but I see the potential and hope he fulfills that potential.

[old nurse]

2 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

Cheap relievers grow on trees though. And there's plenty who aren't going to walk the bases loaded.

Bad cheap relievers grow on trees. Good relievers, no 

[nicksaviking]

50 minutes ago, old nurse said:

Bad cheap relievers grow on trees. Good relievers, no 

Right, well which category do you think a pitcher with a 17% walk rate falls into?

[jmlease1]

There's something interesting there, at least. Might not turn into anything consistent enough to be counted on for more than just middle/long relief, but he did well in his outings against Detroit (who is a good team) and twice in relative proximity at that. The Yankee outing was dreadful (7 walks? yuck) but if he can push 2 out of 3 to 3 out of 4...

I don't mind taking a long look at him to see if something can be put together in the bullpen. If he could give you 2 solid innings every 3-4 days...

He's a lottery ticket. Now's the time to try and cash some of those in and see what you get on the scratcher.

[old nurse]

1 hour ago, nicksaviking said:

Right, well which category do you think a pitcher with a 17% walk rate falls into?

A career walk rate of 11.9% is a more honest number,  If the K%-BB% is 30 once the Twins fixers get done, he will be the closer 

[rv78]

It's too bad that since the Twins are so good at tinkering with pitchers and their mix of pitches and have such a good track record of adding velocity that it wouldn't equate into pitchers actually becoming better pitchers. I'm pretty sure there have been more pitchers that they brought in via trade or off the waiverwire that failed verses those that they improved.

[DocBauer]

I don't mind a reliever that uses a bunch of different pitches as long as he gets the job done. I believe Jax uses 5 or 6 does he not? (Not saying he's Jax). Let's see what he can get done the remainder of the season. But poor BB/K numbers don't scream 40 man spot to me unless he really flashes.

 

[nicksaviking]

3 hours ago, old nurse said:

A career walk rate of 11.9% is a more honest number,  If the K%-BB% is 30 once the Twins fixers get done, he will be the closer 

There is one qualified pitcher with a higher rate than that this year but Devin Williams pairs that with an excellent K%..

11.9% is a terrible BB rate, Not going to work. And I don’t know why you spend the effort trying to fix a guy who gives up too many free passes and can’t strike anyone out, when there are guys just as cheap and much younger, that you only have to fix one of those areas.

[USAFChief]

4 hours ago, old nurse said:

 If the K%-BB% is 30 once the Twins fixers get done, he will be the closer 

If I can drop 50 years, 100 lbs, change genders and get some serious plastic surgery, I'll be a supermodel. 

[darin617]

A good role could be like first man out of the pen after a short start from a starter or whatever you want to call it. He could also be a nice pitcher to eat up some innings after the bullpen has been over used.  You bring him in the 5th or 6th inning and let him go 2-3 innings three times a week. If effective he will save a bullpen from over use.

[twinssporto]

Interesting article, especially about the technology pitchers are using today to help them compete.

(Side Note) As a fan, you know your team is in full rebuild mode when you read articles about a fledgling 30-something relief pitcher trying to stay in MLB, and it inspires hope.

[old nurse]

6 hours ago, USAFChief said:

If I can drop 50 years, 100 lbs, change genders and get some serious plastic surgery, I'll be a supermodel. 

So it is all about you?

[old nurse]

8 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

There is one qualified pitcher with a higher rate than that this year but Devin Williams pairs that with an excellent K%..

11.9% is a terrible BB rate, Not going to work. And I don’t know why you spend the effort trying to fix a guy who gives up too many free passes and can’t strike anyone out, when there are guys just as cheap and much younger, that you only have to fix one of those areas.

You missed the intent of both sentences. It is not worth explaining either statement 

[TwinsDr2021]

16 hours ago, thelanges5 said:

There should be a spot on the 2026 Twins for Hatch. So far he has been auditioning  well. Keep him in the pen as a 2-3 inning guy. 

So the Twins should lock him in to 2026 with 13.2 innings, and ignore his previous 800 in the minors and majors? Believing in career minor league players being a solution to the Twins woes is what got us here in the first place. 

[USAFChief]

4 hours ago, old nurse said:

You missed the intent of both sentences. It is not worth explaining either statement 

Pretty please?