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Baseball America, MLB Pipeline, ESPN, The Athletic, and Baseball Prospectus have each posted their preseason top prospect lists for 2024, including top-100 lists. None of them had David Festa or Marco Raya among them, and as the Twins' fourth- and fifth-ranked prospects universally, the consensus is Minnesota has just three top-100 inclusions. However, Baseball Prospectus had Raya at 53 a year ago, before dropping him off the chart.
As we work through our top-20 countdown here at Twins Daily, Festa debuted at number five, while Raya checked in at the fourth spot. Is that the correct order, though?
First, look at Raya. We made him the higher-rated prospect because of a perceived ceiling. A fourth-round pick in 2020, Raya didn’t throw a single professional pitch until the 2022 season. He was 90-94 mph as a prep arm committed to Texas Tech, and he had a slider and curve projected to be above-average. With a three-pitch mix at an early age and good velocity to his credit, a frontline starter immediately became a discernible possible outcome.
It was just a 65-inning sample in 2022, but the 19-year-old Raya posted a 3.05 ERA with a 76/23 K/BB at Low-A Fort Myers. Success that soon is always going to get noticed, and that’s precisely what took place. Pushed to High-A Cedar Rapids out of the gate last year, he found success again despite being incredibly young for the level. His 2.94 ERA and 39-to-8 strikeout-to-walk ratio across 33 2/3 innings earned him a promotion to Double-A Wichita. That’s when things slowed.
Starting 11 games for the Wind Surge, Raya was lit up. He allowed 19 runs (17 earned) in 29 innings, and the strikeout-to-walk ratio fell all the way to 26:14. Nearly five years younger than the competition, it wasn’t unexpected that Raya would face challenges. Still, with only 127 2/3 professional innings to lean on, it’s hard to evaluate how he will adjust to them.
The kid gloves with which the Twins have handled Raya will need to come off in 2024, if they're to find out whether he can be a viable long-term starting pitcher. He needs to see the sixth inning and the third time through an opponent's lineup in order to test his mettle for the role. How Raya responds to that type of workload can shed some light on what his actual ceiling may look like, but for now, it’s hard to ignore what Festa is doing out of the spot behind him.
Considered Minnesota’s second-best pitching prospect by some, Festa’s success has been a story of development. He was a 13th-round pick out of Seton Hall in the 2021 MLB Draft, and he saw time at both Rookie ball and Low A in his first professional season. Although he came into the pros at 21 years old, he's climbed two levels each season--impressive, to say the least. His 2.43 ERA between both levels of A-ball in 2022 made a mockery of the challenge, and while he was on par age-wise with his competition, it was clear he could have done more. Last season, Festa posted a mediocre 4.39 ERA at Double A, but his 104 strikeouts in 80 innings were eye-popping.
Getting a late-season promotion to Triple-A St. Paul placed him on the doorstep of the big leagues, and it’s hard not to like what looks like a recipe for success. He has pushed the fastball toward triple digits and routinely sits in the mid-90s with the offering. The fastball is a plus pitch, and he pairs it with two major league-quality offerings in a slider and changeup. The combination of all three has resulted in significant strikeout numbers, but he has also put up ground ball rates north of 46% at every stop in pro ball.
There are still minor tweaks to make, and Seth Stohs outlined a couple of them in Festa’s top prospect piece. Getting a bit more crisp and working against upper-level hitters to start the year at Triple A will be helpful. He’s going to come with Minnesota to big-league camp, though, and working with pitching coach Pete Maki should give him concrete marching orders to take back to the minor league side when the season starts.
If Raya’s positioning ahead of Festa is about the ceiling, then the claim for a swap between the two involves the floor. We may never see Raya become a big-league starter, and the expectation for Festa should be that he fills a back-end rotation role at worst. He isn’t going to be an ace, but an arm like Joe Ryan or Bailey Ober who can slide into the middle of a group is plenty possible here. The Twins knowing they have that kind of arm so close to ready goes a long way when trying to figure out the depth for Rocco Baldelli’s group this year.
I have Festa pegged for an August debut, but we could see him sooner. The assumption should be that Louie Varland is the first starter to come over from St. Paul, but Festa won’t be far behind. With uncertain production from Chris Paddack or Anthony DeSclafani out of the gate, Minnesota will need arms ready to step up at a moment's notice. Festa has the makings of that guy.
Undoubtedly, it’s fun to dream on ceilings for prospects, and what Raya may be is exciting. Teams also need a level of certainty from future contributors, and what Festa already is should bring plenty of warm thoughts to dream about as well.
Where do you fall in the Festa-Raya debate? Does the looming presence of Festa make you more ok with the team's failure to add a frontline starter this winter?
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