A Lot Is Going Wrong For Simeon Woods Richardson. What's Fixable?

[Cody Pirkl]

Image courtesy of © Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images

Simeon Woods Richardson looked to have found a missing piece of the puzzle in 2025: a new splitter that looked like a legitimate plus offering to round out his repertoire. So far in 2026, however, he’s been the most disappointing member of the rotation results-wise. What’s holding him back?

The Splitter Is Different

Woods Richardson’s splitter looked like a weapon in 2025. It led all of his pitches with a 32.5% whiff rate and completely disarmed opposing hitters when they made contact. The pitch was a big proponent of the strong stretch to end the season, in which he posted a 2.33 ERA and struck out 36 of the 104 batters faced over his last five starts. After he integrated the pitch midseason, it had a slow buildup, and the splitter finished as his fourth-most-used pitch. With an offseason ahead of him, we expected to see him turn to his new weapon much more often in 2026.

The splitter has been the second-most used pitch for him so far this season, but it’s not seeing the same success. He’s throwing it 27.7% of the time, as opposed to 10% in 2025. It’s down to a 22.6% whiff rate and is allowing an expected batting average of .285 and expected slugging of .519. He’s throwing the pitch about half a mile per hour faster, and it’s getting about an inch less of vertical and horizontal movement. If this is an active change Woods Richardson and the Twins made to this pitch that was so successful in 2025, it may be time to rethink things. It's more likely, though, that the pitch just isn't doing what he wants it to do.

 

The Whiffs Are Gone

The splitter may have been Woods Richardson’s best pitch in 2025, but he had other successful offerings to turn to. That has certainly not been the case in 2026. His slider has dropped from a whiff rate of 27.4% to 20% so far, and the xwOBA allowed has increased from .261 to a crippling .377. His fastball has been his only acceptable offering so far, but even with decent expected numbers with the heater, it’s dropped from a 21.8% whiff rate to 12.4% in 2026. This all culminates in an untenable 11.4% strikeout rate overall so far this season.

A lack of swing and miss leaves Woods Richardson exposed to the Twins’ poor defense, and we’ve already seen that come back to bite him on multiple occasions. He’s not pitching well, but even when he coaxes batted balls that should help bail him out of his frequent jams, his defense hasn’t made the plays for him. Any pitcher would have trouble with this little swing and miss, but this problem is magnified even further by how bad the Twins' defense is.

 

Some Bad Luck

In addition to the poor defense, Woods Richardson has experienced some bad luck. His 66.7% strand rate of opposing baserunners is a notable change from his 75.9% mark in 2025 and 73.6% mark in 2024. He’s putting plenty of runners on base, and those runners are scoring at an unexpectedly high rate. His batting average on balls in play allowed is also a career high of .291, which is particularly painful given how many batted balls he’s allowing.

His fastball has been his best pitch so far, and he’s gotten unlucky with it in several ways. The pitch has yielded a .284 batting average, which conflicts with an expected mark of .224. It’s allowed a .345 wOBA, compared to a strong .296 expected wOBA. To be fair, the rest of his pitches have actually gotten lucky in these metrics, but it doesn’t help that the one offering he can turn to has been unlucky in addition to everything else going on.

 

The heater also isn't setting up the rest of the arsenal as well as it has in the past. In 2024, his fastball was in the upper third of the zone or above it over 46% of the time. Last year, that number fell to 40%. This season, it's 33%. With the fastball coming in lower, there's less space to let his splitter or slider separate from that pitch. It means fewer whiffs when the non-fastballs are close to or in the zone. To create the differential you want to achieve a whiff, now, he often has to throw the slider and the splitter in non-competitive locations. Batters chased 30.9% of his sliders and splitters outside the zone last year. So far, in 2026, it's 24.8%.

 

There isn’t much going right for Woods Richardson right now. Either intentionally or unintentionally, changes were made to several of his pitches that were successful in 2025, and the results have been disastrous. His strikeout rate looks like something out of the 1990s, and he’s pitching in front of one of the worst defenses in the league to count on for turning contact into outs.

 

Given the injuries in the rotation, Woods Richardson has some time to right the ship, but the clock is ticking, with the Twins showing a newfound aggressiveness in calling up pitching prospects. Woods Richardson has a ton to fix if he wants to hold onto his rotation spot for the entire 2026 season. Can he pull it off?

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[jmlease1]

I didn't think he looked too bad against the Mets last night; the homer was unfortunate and the worst pitch he threw. But it did look like he was struggling to find the splitter, and was spiking it enough that it was easy to lay off.

He's been disappointing so far, but he's also earned more rope.

[bean5302]

Scouting reports get out when pitchers add new pitches. Joe Ryan has seen a number of changes to his arsenal over the years which were initially successful and later got hit hard as scouting reports caught up. SWR's stuff doesn't grade out well in terms of Stuff+ or PitchingBot. It's not surprising hitters have figued it out now that they know what to look for.

[LA Vikes Fan]

We will find out how much rope any of the rotation has with Prielipp starting tonight and probably at least 2 more times before Abel is ready to come back (if we're lucky). Prielipp is really the only starter at AAA that has made a case for being promoted to the MLB rotation so far. If he's good, SWR and Ober may have a shorter leash. If he isn't, those two get lots of time since there's nobody to replace them.   

[JD-TWINS]

Pitch mix ….. command.

% of how often a pitch is thrown is an indicator for sure, however, 3 Splits in a row in the dirt, all for balls, is a “pitch mix” problem. That was SWR on Tuesday to Lindor ……. he had already walked Simien and was behind 3-0 ….. 3 straight fastballs followed the 3 straight Spilts and the 3rd ended up in RF bleachers. Slider usage - at least in the 3rd inning, seemed lacking. Mixing pitches was definitely lacking!…..change up away from LH hitters?

Can’t walk 3 guys in a 5 inning outing - his major issue!

Lack of command with fastball is a continual problem - get the ball up and down more. Nice job with it on corner, away from RH hitters. Last pitch (fastball) in 3rd to Lindor was put on a tee!

[Blyleven2011]

Woods-Richardson seems like a slow starter every year , as a fourth or  fifth starter I dont think his job is in jeopardy until the season ends ...

He's definitely consistent on pitching only 4 or 5 innings usually  , some have said that he could be better as a bullpen arm so he wouldn't have to face a batter more than once  ...

He'll remain a starter for now ...

[Blyleven2011]

51 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

Pitch mix ….. command.

% of how often a pitch is thrown is an indicator for sure, however, 3 Splits in a row in the dirt, all for balls, is a “pitch mix” problem. That was SWR on Tuesday to Lindor ……. he had already walked Simien and was behind 3-0 ….. 3 straight fastballs followed the 3 straight Spilts and the 3rd ended up in RF bleachers. Slider usage - at least in the 3rd inning, seemed lacking. Mixing pitches was definitely lacking!…..change up away from LH hitters?

Can’t walk 3 guys in a 5 inning outing - his major issue!

Lack of command with fastball is a continual problem - get the ball up and down more. Nice job with it on corner, away from RH hitters. Last pitch (fastball) in 3rd to Lindor was put on a tee!

Just kidding aside , Liriano throws a no hitter and he walked 6 batters 🤣 ...

[Linus]

When Sim is pitching well, he is using all his pitches and throwing all of them for strikes because he has no dominant pitch to fall back on. If he starts struggling with command of any of his pitches hitters can focus on one or two pitches and then he is in trouble. 

[Possumlad]

41 minutes ago, Blyleven2011 said:

Woods-Richardson seems like a slow starter every year , as a fourth or  fifth starter I dont think his job is in jeopardy until the season ends ...

He's definitely consistent on pitching only 4 or 5 innings usually  , some have said that he could be better as a bullpen arm so he wouldn't have to face a batter more than once  ...

He'll remain a starter for now ...

If Prielipp has a couple great starts and SWR puts up another clunker, I think SWR's spot may be in jeopardy when Abel comes back. Results matter, and SWR really hasn't looked good. Outside of that scenario, though, I agree with you. Not many other realistic options behind Prielipp. 

[soyouresayingtheresachance]

If I recall correctly, he's someone that takes a bit to get going. Whether he doesn't have the feel for his pitches yet or its just too cold for him still, idk. He seems to get better as the season goes on, though. Hopefully thats the case. 

His last start was decent. Not great, but decent. Better defenders behind him would help a lot. 

[Doctor Gast]

IMO, pitching sick, threw him off & set him back. He's had some bad luck & not enough support from the offense, defense & BP.

He's more a pitcher than a hurler.

[jorgenswest]

Some random thoughts.

• Some pitchers will be hurt more moving away from the 3D strike zone. Walks are up 9.9% and hitters know that the pitch that used to be at the bottom of zone at the from of the strike zone and then drop out is no longer a strike. They can lay off those splitters. The swing rate for hitters is the lowest it has been in 12 years. 
• The lack of defense behind Woods Richardson has been critical in each of his last three starts. In the Toronto game Wallner spun in circles on a ball hit a few steps behind him. Somehow it was scored a double from virtually a certain out. This led to a big inning. In the next game the big inning was spurred on when Keaschall somehow manage to make two errors on one play. In the next inning Kreidler and Lee turn two balls in the infield into hits. Kreidler’s was inexcusable with a hit probability of .150 and he is here for his defense. Lee’s was more difficult but an average shortstop makes that play. Neither was an error. Does an average shortstop turn last night’s ball in the 3 run inning into a double play?
• During the broadcast last night there was speculation that the colder weather makes it more difficult to control the splitter. I didn’t find splits related to weather but his career OPS in March/April games is his significantly worse than other months.

We aren’t going back to the 3D strike zone. Middle infield defense doesn’t look like it is getting much better soon. The weather will get warmer.

[DataNerd]

His fastball is hard for guys to hit hard, but it is not a bat-missing pitch.  Even without adjusting for a higher AVG than xAVG, his fastball has been more valuable than it was last year.  He needs to get either his slider or split-finger back to being a pitch that guys can miss on.

Won't be a quick fix, but he looks like a guy who could really benefit from a Sweeper or messing with the Curve to make it a chase pitch rather than sneaking it for strikes.

[Rosterman]

Anyone think he should transition to relief? Would he shine in a setup (or closer) role?

[tony&rodney]

Decent back end rotation guy.

[darin617]

Give him the Zebby Matthews treatment and demote him to the bullpen.