How the Minnesota Twins built their pitching pipeline through the draft: An inside look

Travis Adams, a sixth-round pick in the 2021 MLB amateur draft, pretty much threw only fastballs and changeups when he pitched at Sacramento State.

His stats, a 4.31 ERA and 72 strikeouts in 79 innings, didn’t stand out. He wasn’t rated among MLB.com’s top 250 prospects in his draft class. Baseball America noted he lacked an effective breaking ball.

Four years later, the righthanded pitcher the Twins took with the 189th pick and signed for $253,300 was added to the Twins’ 40-man roster, and he provides additional starting pitching depth at Class AAA St. Paul. Oh, and he throws an expansive six-pitch mix: four-seam fastball, sinker, cutter, slider, curveball and changeup.

“It’s a good job by our scouting group with a guy like Travis to identify that he wasn’t really using breaking balls and that he could be a development opportunity,” Twins General Manager Jeremy Zoll said. “Travis has gotten to work with a lot of coaches and coordinators along the way.”

The pitching pipeline the Twins have worked on constructing since Derek Falvey took charge of the baseball operations department nine years ago sits at its healthiest point. During spring training, major league scouts gushed about the pitching talent in the upper levels of the minor leagues.

Adams, who threw 2⅔ scoreless innings in his first Saints outing this year as a piggyback reliever, is just one example of a pitcher who developed well beyond his initial scouting report. Baseball America rates Adams as the No. 22 prospect in the farm system.

David Festa (13th-round pick in 2021), Zebby Matthews (eighth round in 2022), Andrew Morris (fourth round in 2022) and Marco Raya (fourth round in 2020) combined to pitch 17⅓ scoreless innings with two walks and 17 strikeouts in their first turn through St. Paul’s rotation.

“What we’ve gotten better at in the draft is scouts understand the things we do well developmentally,” Falvey said. “When they’re out there, they’re aware of, ‘Oh, this guy has pitch ”X" and “Y,” but he doesn’t have “Z.” We think we can actually impact that.’ That’s helpful because you have player development and scouting synced.”

Syncing the player development staff’s strengths — and weaknesses — through the draft is much easier said than done. It took the Twins nearly a decade to reach this point. They’ve lost three minor league pitching coordinators to promotions outside of the organization since the end of the 2020 season.

“Part of this is the world of pitching keeps evolving,” Zoll said. “Just a couple of years ago, the sweeper becomes a thing. Now there is the craze of the kick change, and fastball profiles are changing. I’m really proud of our pitching group that they work to keep adapting, so they can stay on the cutting edge.”

Adams had a breakthrough last season when he altered the way he gripped his slider. After poor results through the first two months of the season (5.85 ERA through 40 innings), he posted a 2.38 ERA over his last 68 innings at Class AA Wichita before he was promoted to St. Paul.

He’s always been open to ideas for his pitch mix. In 2022, he added a slider and worked on improving a curveball he rarely threw in college. The next year, he unsuccessfully tried to replace his changeup with a splitter while beginning to throw a sinker. Last year, the cutter entered the picture.

“I don’t know if there are any more pitches for me to add, unless it’s a knuckleball,” Adams said, smiling.

Much of the work with a new pitch starts in January, when the Twins host minor leaguers for a velocity camp at their spring training complex. A common drill is hanging a net over home plate.

“They’ll take the nine-pocket [strike] zone and put a metal target in a certain zone and just say, ‘Throw it to the metal target,’ so when you hit it, it makes a big ‘ol ping sound. Kind of like you’re on a shooting range. I thought it definitely helped, and it’s a good visual,” Adams said.

Most Twins minor league pitchers, to their credit, are willing to experiment, but it’s individualized. Matthews tried to throw a sweeper two years ago, when many pitchers were trying to add it, but it was scrapped relatively quickly because it didn’t work well with his pitch mix.

Morris threw a two-seam fastball when he pitched at Texas Tech. The Twins told him to ditch it when he started his pro career because it didn’t fit with his other pitches, but after adding a cutter and a harder slider, he worked on bringing it back to his pitch mix this spring.

“Pitching can come from all over the place if you know what you’re looking for and you know how to nurture them,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “That is what every team needs. Most teams can’t go out and spend $250 million on a top-notch starter, but you can develop a top-notch starter. That’s a much better way to go about it if you want to win on a consistent basis.”

Every pitching pipeline is partially a numbers game. Pitching injuries, unfortunately, are ubiquitous. But it’s clear the Twins have a good idea what types of pitchers they think will blossom under their player development group.

“There is some benefit to looking down at the draft sometimes and seeing guys who can really command the ball, and think we have the ability to layer on strengths, arm strength, and all these things that will help these guys develop,” said Falvey, who helped develop Cleveland’s pitching pipeline before he joined the Twins.

“I do feel like we have a [scouting and development] group in place that is continuing to produce guys that can come up and be major league contributors pretty soon. It’s exciting to look at the young guys that are here.”