How Simeon Woods Richardson Can Find Another Level In 2025

In 2023, Simeon Woods Richardson tumbled down prospect lists—both national and Twins-specific—due to a drop in already underwhelming velocity. He was getting shelled even at Triple-A St. Paul. Entering 2024, Woods Richardson had a lot to prove in order to get his career back on track. The good news? He rose to the occasion. He had one of the largest year-over-year upticks in velocity of any player in baseball, averaging 93 and hitting 97 on his heater after struggling to average even 90 the year before. He worked on his curveball, and blew past his career high in innings. Cody Christie wrote a great piece in June, breaking down the mechanical tweaks that led to this breakout.

Based on these improvements, for two-thirds of the season, Woods Richardson put up mid-rotation results, with a 3.69 ERA through his first 22 starts, even if the underlying metrics weren’t quite so favorable. But, he threw his five-ish innings every fifth day, continued to prove his detractors wrong, and occasionally flashed brilliance on the bump.

Then, the bottom fell out down the stretch. Over the final six weeks of the season, the rookie’s velocity was way down, and he just seemed tired. And he probably was! When Joe Ryan went down for the season, Woods Richardson was thrust into the unenviable position of being a third starter for a playoff-caliber team desperately clinging to hopes of a deep postseason run, and doing it when the Twins weren’t scoring many runs due to having several impact bats on the shelf with a variety of injuries.

Ultimately, Woods Richardson probably has a ceiling in the role he was put into too early: a good third starter on a playoff team. What will it take for him to get there? The good news for him (and for the Twins) is that there are several paths to that reality: conditioning to help him stay stronger down the stretch, adding additional velocity to help his fastball play up, tweaking his pitch mix to increase his strikeout rate, or establishing better command with his changeup, to turn it into a reliable out pitch. The even better news? If he can do two of those things (asking a lot, I know), he could cement himself into the conversation to become a true rotational building block.

This piece won’t dive deeply into all of these possibilities, as much ink has been spilled by other Twins Daily writers over the past several months. So, read those for more info if you are curious. I’ll link to to all of them inline.

Conditioning
This one is pretty straightforward. Woods Richardson is 6-foot-3, with a lanky frame. Adding a bit of muscle may help him avoid tiring as the season progresses. Simply finding the fuel to be consistent over a 162-game season will be a difference-maker. That alone would have him likely putting up an ERA in the high 3s. That’s mid-rotation stuff, and will keep him in the rotation long-term.

Adding Velocity
Look, this may be easier said than done. On the heels of a substantial uptick in velocity, it may not be realistic to expect the same in a second consecutive offseason. But, the Twins coaching staff has done it before with Bailey Ober and Joe Ryan. Both have seen steady and significant increases in their velo, which has helped both transform themselves into borderline frontline starters. 

In 2024, Woods Richardson's fastball Stuff+ was a less-than-ideal 71. If he can add even a couple more ticks to his fastball, his 34th-percentile heater velocity would approach average, and his above-average extension could even make this a plus pitch.

Locating His Changeup
Matt Lenz recently put up a nice video piece on Woods Richardson's command, and specifically, his ability to locate his changeup. In it, Lenz points out that Woods Richardson gets good horizontal movement on the change, and that his Stuff+ on the pitch is above average, but he gets clobbered due to poor location, too often hitting the heart of the plate. If he is able to hit his spots low and away, this has the potential to be a truly plus pitch that can befuddle opposing hitters.

Pitch Mix
Matt Braun did some analysis showing that Woods Richardson would benefit from tweaking his pitch mix to throw his changeup more, since it has the potential to be his best pitch. As mentioned above, this is predicated upon being able to locate. Matt also identified that Woods Richardson should use his curve more when he’s in 1-0 counts. When he does, he gets great results.

Overall, these are relatively straightforward options that could help Simeon Woods Richardson not just repeat his breakout 2024 season, but instead, become the next significant pitching success story for the Twins, and one that can help the Twins contend for the next several years. The real question might be just what he’s capable of. What do you think?