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One on hand, mission accomplished for the Twins and Marco Raya . The 22-year-old right-handed pitcher enters 2025 spring training healthy and on the doorstep of the majors. On the other hand, there’s so much still to discover. It’s a regular occurrence that a prospect comes into spring training with something to prove. It’s a less frequent occurrence that the needed proof-point stems from organizational decision making, rather than player performance.
That’s exactly where Raya finds himself, though. His pitch counts and workload have been carefully monitored since he experienced shoulder problems earlier in his career. Successfully so. Raya hasn’t suffered persistent injuries since. He’s coming off a career-high 92 ⅔ innings in 2024 and is likely to start 2025 at Triple-A.
Raya pitched six innings just once in 2024, five innings just five times. The other 19 starts were all less than five innings. Raya was on fairly strict pitch counts in 2024 to ensure he got to the doorstep of the majors with as little wear and tear as possible. It leaves us with important unanswered questions; how will his arsenal stand up to going through a lineup the third time? How will his smaller frame stand up to an increased workload in 2025?
If Raya exhibits any frustration at the slow progression of his workload and pitch counts, he doesn’t show it. "It’s just building up little by little," Raya told Twins Daily’s John Bonnes, "Taking care of my arm and building my body weight to support it."
The Twins clearly feel that the time is now to take the training wheels off Raya’s workload limitations. He threw at least five innings in five of his last seven starts for Wichita and St. Paul in 2024, capping a solid season in which he posted a 4.05 ERA, 3.88 FIP, and struck out 24.6% of hitters, while walking 10.5%.
Raya has focused his offseason on being ready for spring training. "I got here January 5th," Raya told reporters, early in spring workouts. "The past few years I’ve arrived around the same date."
Raya isn’t just relying on thorough preparation ahead of 2025, he’s expanded his arsenal. "I’ve got six pitches: four-seam, two-seam, cutter, curveball, slider, and changeup."
Much like Andrew Morris, Raya has been engaged this season in diversifying his pitch mix. Raya added a cutter last year, which became one of his best pitches, creating plenty of in-zone whiffs. This offseason, his focus has been elsewhere. "I’ve really been hammering the change up. I didn’t feel super comfortable with it last year, but it’s really come along." Raya relayed to Bonnes, clarifying that he wants a pitch which ‘separates’ and moves away from left-handed hitters more effectively.
Monitoring Raya’s changeup will be one area of interest for Twins fans in 2025, as he struggled a little more than you might like to see against left-handed hitters. With an expanded arsenal of pitches and the pitch count handbrake being eased off, we’ll finally get a chance to see how Raya’s strong stuff might translate to a starting pitching role on the big-league team in an extended audition in St. Paul.
Twins Daily's John Bonnes contributed to reporting for this article.
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