Twins’ Zebby Matthews Shows Refined Offspeed Stuff

When the Twins drafted Zebby Matthews last July, they figured they acquired fairly standard eighth-round value for their $125,000 bonus.

He was a tall, sturdy righthander who had used his 94 mph fastball to pile up strikeouts against mid-major competition at Western Carolina.

A worthwhile investment, but a flawed one, too.

“His offspeed pitches were holding him back. He was throwing a cutter and a slider, but they sort of just blended together,” Twins farm director Drew MacPhail said. “One was 86 (mph). One was 83. And both pitches had pretty unspectacular movement.”

The Twins offered a solution: Come to training camp a couple months early and work on pitch design with us. Matthews agreed and arrived in Florida in January, hoping to revamp one pitch and ditch the other.

“We didn’t care if it was the cutter or slider. Let’s just find a pitch that can be a weapon against righthanders,” MacPhail said. But by mid March, Matthews had made little progress, and the Twins feared he would simply be a fastball-forward organizational arm, vulnerable to hitters sitting on his best pitch.

“And then all of a sudden, something really clicked. Zebby, which is a nickname for Zebulon, his middle name, made an adjustment in his delivery and found a really sweepy slider that “looks like a genuine plus pitch,” MacPhail said.

“And the bonus was, once he figured out that slider, it actually helped his cutter play up as well. So where we were gunning for one pitch, we ended up getting two.”

Matthews managed to retain his command, too, even with revamped pitches. Four starts into the season at Low-A Fort Myers, the 22-year-old has struck out 26 and walked just three. He opened the season with 13 straight scoreless innings and gave up 12 hits in 20.1 innings in April, with a 3.10 ERA.

“The change from what his pitches were doing in 2022, it’s probably the most drastic, most impressive improvement of any pitcher we have in the system,” MacPhail said.

“He’s missing bats with movement, and using that to carry a 35% strikeout rate so far. He’s made himself a serious prospect.”