Surprisingly, David Festa's Fastball Stinks. Here's Why It's Not an Easy Fix.

Ten innings into 2025, a concerning trend with David Festa is continuing: his fastball isn’t cutting it. He’s allowing a .357 batting average against the heater, and the under-the-hood stats suggest it isn’t a fluke; that pitch is just far too hittable. If he wants to become a regular in the Twins rotation, something will need to change.

One of the inherent challenges in altering a pitcher’s offerings rests in the bedrock of their mix, the fastball. A player’s four-seam fastball can be malleable, to an extent—we’ve seen cut/cut-ride hurlers (like Dylan Cease) tweak their heaters for the better, or simply add a sinker—but the way someone throws a fastball is almost written into their DNA, and this isn’t Gattaca (1997). Unlike the crazy alterations we see pitchers make with breaking balls and offspeed offerings, their fastballs remain mostly static. Even Twins pitching guru Josh Kalk said, at last year's SABR Annual Conference in Minneapolis, that the team thinks about fastball shape as an immutable characteristic, akin to a fingerprint.

Festa’s main issue is that he’s an outlier in the modern pitching world, but maybe not in the best way. The Joe Ryans (Joes Ryan? people like Joe Ryan, is the point) of the world, with their low slots and high-rise heaters, are everywhere, and for good reason: carrying four-seamers at the top of the zone are difficult for hitters to identify and hit with consistency. Yet, while Ryan throws with a 23-degree arm angle, Festa is at 50 degrees, one of the highest in baseball.

That makes one of his fastballs at the top of the zone much easier for batters to hit. Hitters are less fooled by high heat when it comes from a high slot. Four-seamers in the top third of the zone with a sub-25° arm angle have induced a .181 batting average, .359 slugging, and 30.2% whiff rate since the start of last year, league-wide. The same pitch type in the same location begets a .249 average, a .435 SLG, and just 21.4% whiffs per swing if it comes from an arm angle of at least 50°.

That’s how Festa's 95-MPH fastball—with some of the best induced vertical break in MLB (19.2 inches)—gets hit at such a troubling clip. 

So, what can he do about it? Well, it’s clear the Twins are aware of his fastball woes. Festa introduced a sinker in 2025 to help augment his pitch mix, and introducing a sinker counts as a drastic step for the Twins. He’s only thrown the offering seven times in the majors, though, so it’s still unclear how effective it may be, and how it alters his profile. He also is already down 6° from his arm slot in 2024, so maybe they're trying to gradually get him working from a slightly more conventional three-quarters slot. 

Location is another factor. Festa has moved from a middle-high target to one on the glove-side third of the plate, belt-high. That’s an interesting change to make, given that the team is likely well aware of his on-plane issues. Here's where his fastballs landed in 2024, for reference. Obviously, too many of those balls crept down into the lower half of the zone and were still in the middle of the plate, but you can see what he's trying to do.

They could be looking at altering how he tunnels, but haven’t yet seen results because his slider command from last year has yet to arrive at the party. In any case, I think the horizontal move is groovy, but he’s still just a little low; if he can consistently bang high-and-away to righties, and under the armpit to lefties, that should do the trick. But that’s a tough spot to live in if his command isn’t up to snuff. So far, he's not quite finding that spot. He's caught in between hitting that top rail and steering it to the glove side, a bit.

There are successful tall, high-slot pitchers, but it’s a small group. Festa doesn’t have the velocity of Peak Justin Verlander or Tyler Glasnow, so he can’t just overpower hitters in the zone. He’s somewhat similar to his rotation mate, Chris Paddack, who has also had trouble getting the most out of his fastball. 

He may have to embrace the philosophy of Michael Wacha. Like Festa, Wacha is 6-foot-6 and throws from an almost identical slot (51°). His fastball isn’t good, in velocity or in shape characteristics, so he’s content to throw it in hittable locations to allow his tremendous changeup to succeed. The difference is in the depth of their arsenals: Wacha has six pitches, and while only one of them may be truly elite, the mere existence of the other five is enough to give him an edge that Festa lacks. It’s a lot easier for a hitter to only consider three (and a half? How generous are you feeling about that sinker?) pitches. At least throw an overhand curveball, dude!

Festa is still a tremendously promising pitcher. Of the trio of young hurlers consisting of Simeon Woods Richardson, Zebby Matthews, and Festa, I think he possesses the best chance at becoming a stud major-league starter. His changeup feel at such a young age is difficult to teach; his slider command last year was remarkable. He’s in a weird spot, where his command and “stuff” are good but need tweaking for him to reach his full potential. Those tweaks may be difficult to make.