ESPN NEWS: Twins Top Star Has Reached an Early Career Crossroads

Despite early career success, the Twins’ 27-year-old starting pitcher faced substantial challenges last season. Can he make the necessary changes to become a consistent frontline starter in 2024?
In his recent “Baseball Bits” video, “The Only Thing That Matters in Baseball,” YouTuber Foolish Bailey emphasized the importance of counts in determining the outcome of an at-bat. Last season, batters throughout the league had an OPS of.826 when they were leading 1-0 in the count. In contrast, when trailing 0-1, batters’ productivity dropped drastically, producing a mediocre.619 OPS. As the movie progresses, Bailey demonstrates how difficult counts are for both batters and pitchers before emphasizing which starting pitchers were most effective at going ahead in counts in 2023.

Unsurprisingly, the top three MLB starting pitchers were Max Scherzer, Spencer Strider, and George Kirby. Scrolling down slightly, Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Joe Ryan is rated sixth, having struck out on the first pitch 56.6% of the time. Ryan and other pitchers on this list were able to create over half of their first-pitch strikes by throwing their fastballs in the zone early and frequently. Ryan used a fastball on the first pitch of an at-bat 58.4% of the time.
Starting pitcher Jameson Taillon of the Chicago Cubs is second on the list for beginning 58.8% of at-bats with a first-pitch strike in 2023, despite an unimpressive 4.84 ERA and 4.61 FIP over 154 ⅓ innings worked in the previous season. In Ryan’s case, however, it has served as a marker of success throughout his brief career. According to Bailey’s video, Ryan has ranked third in MLB in winning plate appearances with the count advantage since 2020, striking out hitters at a 41.4% rate.

Ryan’s low arm angle is the main reason behind his low-velocity fastball (23rd percentile on Baseball Savant), which causes hitters to swing and miss early and often in counts. The 27-year-old used his low arm slot to generate a 16.8% swinging strike rate (97th percentile last season), while throwing 65% of his pitches high of the hitter (92nd percentile), regardless of where they were in the zone. Ryan and the Twins’ coaching staff understand what he does well, and while he has legitimately exploited this method to maximize early career success, there is reason to believe he is approaching a crossroads in his career.

Ryan’s left groin strain before starting against the Atlanta Braves contributed significantly to his downturn in performance from June 27th to August 2nd. However, a more serious worry accompanies the right-hander. In 2023, more hitters swung at Ryan’s pitches than any other starting pitcher in the MLB. The fundamental cause of this growth was that hitters were unconcerned about his lacklustre secondary pitches, which included an average splitter and a sweeper that frequently landed far beyond the zone. With the ability to overlook his offspeed pitches, batters could confidently sit on fastballs high in the zone, knowing he would throw them 57% of the time. Here are Ryan’s stats before and after hurting his left groin:

4/2 – 6/22: 93 2/3 innings pitched (IP), 2.98 ERA, 2.77 FIP, 9.61 strikeouts per nine (K/9), 1.44 walks per nine (BB/9), 71.2 left on base percentage (LOB%), and 6.7 home run-to-fly ball ratio
8/26 – 9/29: 35 2/3 innings, 4.79 ERA, 4.12 FIP, 11.36 K/9, 2.27 BB/9, 75.3 LOB%, and 16.3% HR/FB.
It’s unfair to judge Ryan’s performance when he was injured. It would be an incorrect reflection of the pitcher he is, but there are reasons to be concerned about his decline in performance prior to and during his injured list trip. Aside from his double-digit ERA and FIP, the most troubling aspect of the erstwhile Tampa Bay Rays prospect’s performance from August 26th to September 29th was the outrageous increase in his home run-to-fly ball ratio. Ryan allowed a home run in five of the seven games he began during that span, including three at Coors Field against the Colorado Rockies in his final start of the season.

Assuming Ryan has fully recovered from the left groin strain that contributed to his 8.63 ERA, 8.08 FIP, and 32.1% home run to fly ball rate from June 27th to August 2nd, there is no reason to believe he will perform so poorly. Ryan is a talented pitcher who belongs in an MLB rotation, and Twins executives agree. Twins manager Rocco Baldelli told reporters in Fort Myers on Saturday that Joe “showed us pretty much everything last year.” The highs were extremely high, and the lows were what they were, but Joe has established himself as a competent Major League starting pitcher.”
The organization feels good about giving Ryan the ball every fifth day, but Baldelli noted that he needs to make adjustments, saying, “he knows that he can’t go out there every start, or have a run of starts where he’s just relying on his fastball.” He’ll have to use those other pitches, and they’re good. They have great value in terms of getting hitters out; the key is to learn how to use them and maintain consistency.” Baldelli also underlined Ryan’s consistency: “So, I believe the consistency of his pitches needs to improve, and if he can do that, he can go from good to great.”

As Baldelli pointed out, the most major change Ryan needs to make to go from decent to great is to improve his offspeed pitches and become less reliant on his fastball. Ryan’s first step toward achieving this milestone is to fine-tune his appropriate splitter.

In 2023, Ryan got hitters to whiff on his splitter 21.8% of the time, which is fine, but the results showed that his splitter works better as a third pitch than as a primary complement to his great fastball. Last season, Ryan experimented with a sweeper and slider as third pitches in his repertoire, but neither produced strong results since they were frequently too far out of the zone for batters to follow. Ryan could be incentivized to improve his sweeper in order to use it again next season. Still, switching to a slower, more compact gyro slider could help his velocity-deficient profile, which relies on deception and a distinct arm slot.

Regardless, Ryan’s best chance for success in 2024 would be to show that he has improved his splitter and added another viable secondary weapon to compliment his excellent fastball. Ryan has come to a crossroads in his young career. This upcoming season will be critical in determining whether he is a frontline starting pitcher who can coexist with Pablo López and Bailey Ober, or if he is simply a consistent back-of-the-rotation arm with roadblocks that prevent him from becoming the actualized pitcher fans and pundits predicted early in his career.