20 Questions for 20 Twins Pitching Prospects in 2025

Now that spring training is here, it’s a good time to take a look at some of the Twins' notable prospects, and a question facing each of them ahead of the 2025 season. In the first part of this series, we looked at hitters. Today, it's pitchers. Some of these development steps will seem obvious. Others will be less so. For ease of navigation, prospects have been listed alphabetically.

Kyle Bischoff (RHP) 
Will an opportunity present itself in the MLB bullpen? Bischoff is a name you need to have on your radar. He’s a 6-foot-2, 25-year-old right-handed pitcher who has a real shot to make the big-league club in a relief role. It’s a sinker, cutter, slider, changeup profile, and he throws hard (sinker up to 97 mph in 2024). He moved all the way from Cedar Rapids to St. Paul last season, throwing 61 1/3 innings and maintaining a stingy 3.09 FIP. Bischoff struck out 30% of the hitters he faced in 2024, although his walk rate is a touch higher than you’d like to see (10%). It’s an MLB-caliber arm. It’s just a matter of opportunity and continued consistent performance matching up.

Adrian Bohorquez (RHP)
Can he improve his strike-throwing? Bohorquez is now a trendy low-minors arm (thanks, Cody Schoenmann). He has plenty of starter traits. His fastball has good shape, and he can really spin it. He struck out 31% of hitters in a short debut at Fort Myers in 2024, but also walked almost 15% of batters. Despite this, he maintained a 3.23 ERA (3.53 FIP) across the Florida Complex League and Low A. He’ll need to get his strike rate up from the low 60s to 65% or higher in order to keep starting, though.

Matt Canterino (RHP)
Will he get a clean run of health? This could have been the question for 10-15 different Twins prospects, but it’s most salient for Canterino. He’s now 27, and he hasn’t been able to make his big-league (or even Triple-A) debut due to a miserable run of injuries. Looking at Canterino’s minor-league numbers from 2022 (his last run of health) invites hype: 37 innings, 1.95 ERA, 35% strikeout rate. I’d leverage Canterino strictly as a reliever at this point. He enters 2025 healthy, at least, and should start the season at St. Paul

Michael Carpenter (LHP)
Will he become the next Twins breakout pitching prospect? You don’t take a pitcher in the 11th round and pay them high 5th-round money ($500,000) unless you are convicted on their ability. Carpenter was the NJCAA Pitcher of the Year, striking out 111 in 78 ⅔ innings. Pre-draft, his arsenal consisted of a low-90s fastball; a curveball with ample depth; and a changeup with good fade. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but he also offers plus control. I’d expect him to be in the mid-90s by the time he debuts. He’s a breakout pick for me in 2025.

CJ Culpepper (RHP)
Can he sustain his velocity deeper into starts? After recovering from a forearm strain that delayed the beginning of his season, Culpepper thrived. Across 58 ⅓ innings in 2024, he managed a 3.09 FIP, striking out nearly 27% of hitters and walking 7.5%. Culpepper, however, has a challenge to overcome: sustaining his velocity throughout his starts. To this point in his career, he's consistently a few ticks on every pitch when he goes through the order multiple times. It’s a problem he’ll need to solve if he’s going to continue to start.

Jack Dougherty (RHP)
Can he log a healthy season? You’d be forgiven for not knowing who Jack Dougherty is. He missed all of 2024 due to injury. Before he went down, however, he was throwing 96-mph cheese in live bullpens at spring training. Dougherty was drafted in the 9th round in 2023 out of Ole Miss. He’s 6-foot-4 and had a college résumé light on results but heavy on stuff and strikeouts. He’s another candidate to move quickly through the lower levels if he can return to good health.

Ross Dunn (LHP)
Can he continue his improved strike-throwing? Dunn was an atypical Twins draft pick, in that he showed a stuff-over-strikes profile in college at Arizona State. The left-hander had a patchy 2024. He didn’t generate enough whiffs (21.2% strikeout rate), and continued to walk too many (10.6% of opposing batters), although his strike-throwing was significantly improved from his junior year of college. His xFIP (4.46) was much better than his ERA (6.46). He’ll need to continue to shore up his control when he moves to Cedar Rapids.

David Festa (RHP)
Will he add a consistently usable fourth pitch? This question has already been answered for us, kinda, sorta. Festa added a sinker this offseason, hoping to work right-handed hitters inside. After some classification hiccups, he threw a few in his spring debut. Globally, Festa seems to be throwing from a lower, three-quarters arm slot in 2025, so it’ll be worth monitoring all of his pitch shapes. Adding a consistently usable fourth offering and forcing righties to cover a bigger zone moves Festa closer to the middle of the great stuff-wide arsenal continuum.

Tanner Hall (LHP)
Will he recover his command? The scouting report on Hall (4th round in 2023) said that he was an elite strike-thrower with an outstanding changeup. Hall walked an average of 5% of batters in college. In his first professional season, that almost doubled (9.6%). Hall has a very east-west movement profile (more unusual stuff for the Twins), and has a fastball light on velocity, so he’ll have to add a few ticks, regain his elite control, or both to thrive in 2025.

Dasan Hill (LHP)
Will he have a healthy, effective first full professional season? Prospect-loving Twins fans got their first look at Hill in spring training and went into a minor frenzy. The 6-foot-5 19-year-old is already up to 98 mph with his fastball, with an above-average slider and an improving changeup. It’s easy to dream of the vast potential here. The reality is, the Twins can and should take it slow with HIll in his first professional season. Throwing strikes and missing bats are the key indices, but as was true of Charlee Soto last season, the main goal for Year One with Hill is to get through a full professional season with his health intact and his confidence on the rise.

Ty Langenberg (RHP)
Can he find more consistent velocity with his arsenal? Langenberg was the Twins' 11th-round pick in 2023 out of Iowa and is one of the more likely players to make a significant jump forward in 2025. In his first pro season, he pitched 108 innings, holding a 3.28 FIP, striking out 25% of hitters and walking just 6.6%. That's really solid. Langenberg had some fluctuations in his velocity from start to start in the minors. The Twins will want to see consistency in a season in which he should spend the bulk of his time at Double A. Langenberg could be yet another back-end rotation option for the Twins in 2026.

Cory Lewis (RHP)
Does his fastball tick back up to pre-injury velocity? Lewis missed a bunch of time at the beginning of 2024 with a shoulder impingement and became a little lost in the shuffle amid the ascendance of Zebby Matthews and Andrew Morris. Lewis’s fastball has good shape, but it sat at 89 mph in his lone Triple-A start (likely due to being worn down at the end of a long season). He’ll need to live in the 92-94 mph range to factor as a starter in the big leagues. He sat around 89 again in his first Statcast-tracked outing of the spring, but that leaves plenty of time for him to ramp up into the low 90s.

Christian MacLeod (LHP)
Can he add a few ticks to his fastball? The Twins are excellent at helping pitchers add velocity, and they have several arms who could use a little more. Christian MacLeod is a 6-foot-4 left-handed starter with a Clayton Kershaw pitch mix and an outlier fastball shape. He got a smattering of Triple-A innings, in which his fastball sat at 89 mph. He’s an intriguing arm with good deception and some starter-type traits, but he’ll need a few more ticks on the fastball to have a big impact in the bigs.

Zebby Matthews (RHP)
Can he tighten up command of his secondary offerings and learn when to leave the zone? Matthews looked good in his first start of spring, with his fastball sitting around 97 mph. He's an elite strike-thrower, but doesn’t yet have elite command—that ability to locate the ball precisely and to achieve consistent movement patterns. Improved spotting of his secondary offerings is important. Knowing when, how, and where to leave the strike zone and induce batters to chase can help him maximize his diverse arsenal of pitches and become a lock in the Twins rotation for the next half-decade.

Andrew Morris (RHP)
Will a new pitch open up the outer third of the plate to right-handed hitters? Morris added a sinker this offseason (Hunter Brown, here we come). Similarly to David Festa, he wants something to establish the inner half of the plate against right-handed hitters. Morris and the Twins will be betting that this can help Morris generate more swing-and-miss with the stuff that breaks away from those righties. He’ll need to up the 19.6% K rate from Triple A to thrive when he gets a chance with the Twins—which could come this year.

Jaylen Nowlin (LHP)
Can he transition smoothly enough to become a bullpen weapon? I’ve bucketed Nowlin as a relief pitcher at this point. An 11.8 K-BB% isn’t going to work for a starter. Nowlin has plenty going for him, though. A good fastball that sits 93-94 mph and has touched 97 mph fronts the mix, augmented by a great power slider that sits in the low 90s from the left side. He’s probably organizational lefty relief pitcher No. 3, after Danny Coulombe and Kody Funderburk.

Pierson Ohl (RHP)
Can he generate more whiffs in Triple A? Before Matthews took off so marvelously last year, Ohl was the most remarkable strike-throwing Twins prospect. In three professional seasons, he’s never posted a walk rate higher than 4%. Ohl is a little light on velocity and struggles to generate the amount of swing-and-miss you want to see in a starting pitching prospect. He’ll start 2025 at Triple A, since he already has 189 innings under his belt at Double A. He’ll need to up the strikeout rate to factor into the Twins' plans.

Dylan Questad (RHP)
Can he find some consistency in the low minors? Questad, 20, was an Arkansas-committed right-handed prep pick out of Waterford (Wis.) High School. In the Complex last year, he generated plenty of strikeouts (26%) but had real control problems. He walked 29 batters in 28 1/3 innings. His professional career is in its infancy; look for strike-throwing progress in 2025.

Marco Raya (RHP)
Will he thrive the third time through the order? Raya has been in Fort Myers preparing for 2025 since early January. He talked early in spring training about expanding his arsenal to six pitches and working extensively on his changeup to combat platoon issues from left-handed hitters. The Twins will have to ease off the handbrake a little in 2025 and let Raya get after it the third time through the order. How will his frame and stuff handle an increased workload?

Charlee Soto (RHP)
Can we get a repeat order of 2024, please? The Twins' competitive-balance pick from 2023 is now receiving Top-100 prospect buzz. Soto was much better than his 5.23 ERA last season (3.23 FIP). He still has some work to do on control and command, but the fastball has been up to 100 mph early in spring training. Soto added a sinker and cutter in 2024. I’d take him running back similar results at Cedar Rapids in 2025, 100 times out of 100.

Which Twins pitching prospects are you most excited to see this offseason? What are other questions facing Twins prospects this season? Feel free to add your own in the comments.

Interested in learning more about the Minnesota Twins' top prospects? Check out our comprehensive top prospects list that includes up-to-date stats, articles and videos about every prospect, scouting reports, and more!