The Big Question: Minnesota Twins Top of the Rotation

Having Pablo López has been a delightful luxury for the Twins. Rocco Baldelli was able to name his Opening Day starter months ago, and he’ll get the ball every fifth day with an eye on domination. López was great in 2023, better than Sonny Gray at times, and should repeat that success this season.

How well this Twins group holds up overall without Gray and Kenta Maeda, however, remains to be seen. It depends overwhelmingly on continued development by both Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober.

The front office, hamstrung by ownership payroll constraints, did not get a bona fide number-two starter this offseason. There is hope that Ryan could turn into that, and it would be quite the coup, considering the organization gave up nothing but half a season of Nelson Cruz to net him.

Last season, Ryan posted a 4.51 ERA, with a better but similar 4.13 FIP. His expected statistics were much better, with an xERA of 3.53 and an xFIP of 3.76. Those suggest that better numbers were possible. For Ryan, much hinges on limiting the long ball. Having previously surrendered 1.4 HR/9 during his five-game rookie sample, he ballooned that number to 1.8 HR/9 a season ago. Batters got on base much more often, with a career-worst 8.6 H/9, which meant that every dinger did more damage.

There is no doubt that Ryan is capable of missing bats. He came up just three strikeouts shy of 200 last season, and he should be expected to best that total this season. Keeping hitters off-balance and reducing the 41.6% percentage of opponents' batted balls that left the bat at more than 95 miles per hour are the vital targets here, though. Predominantly a fastball and slider pitcher, Ryan went more often to a sweeper and threw a new splitter nearly a quarter of the time last season. He pushed his chase rate to a career-best 37.5%, and his whiff rate almost reached 14%. Zone contact rates weren't his problem, either. It was just that when batters did make contact, it was much too solid.

If Ryan's new sinker can neutralize that (and if he can stay truly healthy all year, rather than pitching through an injury for a month or more), the Twins could again have two pitchers in the top 25 starters across the entirety of Major League Baseball.

It’s not just Ryan, though. Ober should also be expected to take a step forward. Having started at Triple-A last season but proved himself throughout the campaign, he’ll be entrenched in the rotation this time.

Ober’s 3.43 ERA last season came in 26 starts, and while he doesn’t get the same level of hype as Ryan, he might well be better. Coming off 144 innings at the major-league level, being healthy should allow him to surpass that total, given the starts he made for the St. Paul Saints. 

As Matthew Trueblood wrote this offseason, Ober excels despite a lack of velocity. He is cut of a similar cloth to Zack Greinke, Kyle Hendricks, Maeda, or Merrill Kelly. He does things differently, in that the control and command of the zone predominate for him, rather than sheer power or movement. Utilizing the upper portion of the zone, he attacks hitters where his velocity plays up, while avoiding misses middle-middle.

This ability comes from the stature that Ober has at his disposal. With a commanding presence on the mound and extension that helps his stuff get on top of hitters, he uses his physical traits and pitching abilities to be a true outlier. There might not be a significant step forward for the 28-year-old, but if he sustains last year's production across an extra 30 innings, then the top half of Baldelli’s rotation will be in a good place.

It’s fair to question the depth Minnesota has behind some of their top options, but it’s also worth wondering if the Twins didn’t already have enough at the top that spending for a number two didn’t make sense.