Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey acknowledged final week that Matthews was very a lot within the combine for a name to the large leagues within the wake of Joe Ryan’s Grade 2 teres main pressure — an damage that puts the remainder of Ryan’s season in jeopardy.
Matthews, the Twins’ eighth-round choose in 2022, posted sub-2.00 ERAs in each Excessive-A and Double-A earlier than his latest promotion to Triple-A. He’s had two stable begins and two tough begins on the high minor league degree. Collectively, the 24-year-old has logged a 2.60 ERA with a powerful 30.5% strikeout fee and a staggering 1.8% stroll fee throughout these three minor league ranges. He’s fanned a hefty 114 opponents and issued simply seven walks in 97 innings this season.
Although he boasts elite command, Matthews is hardly the kind of soft-tossing finesse pitcher one would count on for somebody with that kind of location. His heater sits within the mid-90s and tops out round 97 mph. Matthews is listed at 6-foot-5 and 225 kilos, although Baseball America’s scouting report notes that the “large” righty “appears to be bigger” than his listed peak and weight. Matthews works with a five-pitch arsenal, complementing his four-seamer with a cutter, slider, curveball and changeup. Each BA and The Athletic’s Keith Legislation write that not one of the 5 pitches are true plus choices, however they every play up due to his precision.
Matthews has ridden his breakout season all the way in which to the No. 61 spot on Baseball America’s latest replace to their top 100 prospects, the place they be aware that he has maybe the most effective command in minor league baseball. Law ranks Matthews sixtieth within the sport, and MLB.com has him as their No. 100 prospect.
With Ryan shelved maybe all through the season — supervisor Rocco Baldelli stated his damage would take “weeks or months” to heal — Minnesota will lean on a rookie-heavy beginning employees down the stretch. Pablo Lopez and Bailey Ober give Minnesota some wholesome veterans atop the employees, however they’ll want righties Simeon Woods Richardson, David Festa and now Matthews to step onto the employees. Proper-hander Louie Varland, who opened the season because the No. 5 starter, might additionally think about down the stretch, though he’s had a tough exhibiting each within the massive leagues and the minors this 12 months.
Woods Richardson has emerged as a stable mid-rotation arm this 12 months, logging 3.78 ERA with a 21.4% strikeout fee and seven.3% stroll fee in 102 1/3 innings (20 begins). Festa, a fellow top-100 prospect alongside Matthews, was hit laborious in his first two massive league begins (12 runs in 10 innings) however has a 2.04 ERA in 17 2/3 innings since. He’s but to work greater than 5 innings in an enormous league sport, nevertheless. Matthews would be the subsequent man up. The Twins stay hopeful that Ryan will return this season, and righty Chris Paddack can also be anticipated to rejoin the rotation in some unspecified time in the future, however he’s nonetheless on the 15-day IL with a forearm pressure.
Matthews received’t be capable to choose up sufficient massive league service time to get a full 12 months in 2024, which means he’ll nonetheless be below membership management for an extra six seasons — even when he’s by no means despatched again down from this level on. He’d presently be on observe to succeed in arbitration eligibility within the 2027-28 offseason, though future elective assignments to the minors might affect each his arbitration and free-agent timelines. He’ll be a part of a rising pitching pipeline within the Twins group, the place Lopez, Ryan and Ober are signed/managed via 2027 and every of Woods Richardson, Festa and Varland are (like Matthews) controllable via not less than 2030.
