Ahh, spring—the season of hope and renewal! It’s a time for daffodils to bloom, windows to open, and baseball to begin anew. Robin Williams (R.I.P.) once said, ‘Spring is Nature’s Way of saying, ‘Let’s Party!”
Robin never spent spring in Fort Myers battling to be the fifth starter for the Minnesota Twins.
While many are focused on the messy Red Sox infield situation or the prospect battle between Jackson Holliday and Coby Mayo that will determine the Orioles’ starting nine, lesser-known spring competitions will have significant implications for three American League teams with playoff aspirations: the Twins, Blue Jays, and Mariners.
Competition to Watch #1 – Twins 5th Starter
The Favorite – Simeon Woods Richardson (SWR)
Like a locker-room shower, SWR started hot only to end ice cold. The day after Memorial Day, he tossed five innings of two-run ball to get a win against the Royals. His ERA stood at 2.70 through 40 innings, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio at 30:9. His monthly ERAs for the remaining four months were 4.50, 4.62, 4.21, and a grisly 6.48 in September. Despite the mid-season turbulence and bumpy landing, SWR was a roughly league-average pitcher in his age-23 season with an ERA+ of 99. While that does not sound like anything special, in approximately the same number of innings in their age 23 seasons, Gerrit Cole and David Price’s ERA+ were 99 and 98 respectively.
In another positive sign, SWR’s velocity on his four-seamer and slider increased each time through the order. Thanks in part to a lower arm slot, his fastball velocity increased three miles per hour from his 2023 major league starts to 93 mph and touched as high as 97. He was also reliable. SWR made every start from the time he was called up on 4/25 through the end of the season. He was a very pleasant surprise for the Twins after posting a 6.08 ERA the season before in Triple-A St. Paul.
The problem is his stuff is, well, meh. While he has shown improvement, Fangraphs noted in a 2023 prospect scouting report that he ‘has no plus pitch’. SWR is not going to develop into Cole or Price, per the very much cherry-picked comparison above. He is a serviceable fifth starter who ran out of gas down the stretch in his first full 162-game season. He now has the benefit of experience and knows what it takes to stay strong when the kids go back to school.
SWR has made two home starts so far this spring, totaling four innings against the contingents of prospects and minor leaguers teams typically bring on the road for early spring games. He has allowed one run with a 3:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
The Challenger – David Festa
If SWR was like a locker-room shower, Festa was like a two-star hotel shower that starts frigid and then heats up to a viable temperature. In his first two starts covering 10 innings on June 27th and July 3rd, Festa surrendered 12 earned runs on 16 hits, including four dingers. His ERA was in double digits. Even Mama didn’t say there would be days like that. However, his 8:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio was a harbinger of better days ahead.
And indeed there were. On August 5th, Festa tossed five shutout innings with nine strikeouts against the Cubs at Wrigley. He book-ended the month by notching seven strikeouts in a six-inning two-run effort against the Braves. Unfortunately, the outing against the Braves was the only game all season where Festa completed more than five innings, further taxing an already depleted bullpen. All told, though, in the second half of the season, Festa threw 54 1/3 innings with 69 strikeouts, 22 walks, and five homers allowed, posting a 3.81 ERA.
In mid-August, the Twins stood at 70-53 and had the fourth-best record in the American League. Their playoff odds were around 90 percent. Then came the free-fall. By late September, they were in the rear-view mirror of the Royals and the ascendant Tigers to miss out on the playoffs. Some clubs would use that as a catalyst for an offseason spending spree. The Twins were so conservative that they made Mike Pence look woke. This means they need someone like Festa to be a major 2025 breakout.
So can he do so? Despite a double-digit ERA this spring (sound familiar), Festa has added a new sinker that grades out well on Stuff+, and he is pitching exclusively from the stretch. He already has a plus changeup and hopes the sinker can keep hitters off his four-seamer early in counts. Festa, a right-handed pitcher, had strong reverse splits, struggling mightily against righties (.773 OPS) while navigating lefties fairly well (.722 OPS). He tended to throw his fastball up in the zone, and the sinker is designed to change eye level, enable him to pitch more inside to righties, and induce weak contact.
The ‘I Coulda Been a Contender’ – Zebby Matthews
Zebby stretching in the bullpen before a September game at Fenway Park.
Matthews left his last spring start with right hip discomfort after fielding a slow hopper down the third base line and firing to first. While the Twins are labeling it precautionary, the likely scenario seems to be some missed time in the Grapefruit League knocking him out of contention for the fifth-starter job to open the season.
The timing is unlucky, as Matthews was shoving so far this spring. In 6.1 innings, he had yet to allow a run, struck out seven, and not walked a single batter. More importantly, his velocity was significantly higher. In his first inning of spring training, he threw seven pitches over 97 mph and sat at 96.6; his top velocity last year on a pitch was 97.1 mph, and he averaged 94.9.
Matthews began 2024 in Single-A Cedar Rapids and climbed the ladder to Target Field. He had the third-lowest walk rate in professional baseball (any level) at 3.3%, with his 1.9% rate in A-AAA pacing the minors by a wide margin. He struck out 30.5% of batters in the minors with a 15.3% swinging-strike rate.
In the majors, his slider had a 20.5% swinging-strike rate and his SIERA was 3.78 in 37 innings.
That is the end of the good news.
His ERA was 6.69, thanks in large part to a grotesque 2.6 home runs per nine innings. While some of that was due to a wretched 25% home-run-to-fly-ball rate on his fastball that is likely to regress to the mean (MLB average is typically slightly below 10%), the fastball itself had a 70% fly-ball rate, and his barrel rate allowed across all pitches was 14%. For context, only 12 qualifying hitters last year had a barrel rate exceeding 14%, and those falling just short of the mark included Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bobby Witt Jr., and Francisco Lindor.
For a deeper dive into Matthews and his arsenal, see Nate Schwartz’s recent Pitcher List article, Zebby Matthews is our Next Favorite Command Freak.
Note – I was at a Red Sox-Twins game Matthews was starting and took the above video. My eight-year-old son Jackson loves watching the pitchers warm up in the visitors’ bullpen before the game at Fenway (friendly parenting tip – a great way to get your kid a major league baseball). Jackson can be heard in the video saying “oh my god” after Matthews’ first throw. The fact that major league hitters barreled him at a 14% rate is a testament to their abilities.
The Prediction
SWR wins the job out of camp, and Festa and Matthews drive 16 minutes east across the Mississippi to Triple-A St. Paul. Festa comes up in April and Matthews by May (assuming the hip injury is not serious) due to injuries in the rotation. All three contribute to the Twins avenging last summer’s collapse and winning the AL Central with both Festa and Matthews breaking out and ranking in the Top-50 Starting Pitchers in 2026 pre-season rankings (pitchers in that range in 2025 are Reynaldo López, Kevin Gausman, Christoper Sanchez, Brandon Pfaadt, Seth Lugo, Ryan Pepiot). Woods Richardson will continue to have the second-longest full name in MLB history.
Competition to Watch #2 – Blue Jays 3rd Base
The Favorite – Ernie Clement
In the 1985 teen coming-of-age comedy-drama The Breakfast Club, the stoner character John Bender (played by Judd Nelson) teases the nerd character Brian (played by Anthony Michael-Hall) about being in the physics club. Bender labels the physics club as “Demented and sad, but social.”
If Bender were still alive after the 2022 baseball season (doubtful given his trajectory), he would have teased Ernie Clement as being “Clement-ed and bad, but versatile.” In Clement’s first 109 big-league games, he tallied a negative .4 Fangraphs WAR with Cleveland and Oakland. In 163 at-bats in 2022, he hit as many home runs as this writer did.
He was below replacement level, though, at many different positions (which is like a business losing money on every transaction but making it up with volume), logging time in 21-22 at first base, second base, shortstop, third base, and left field. He even saved the pen by pitching two innings of mop-up duty, giving up two home runs. Giving up more home runs as a mop-up pitcher than you hit as a position player is, let’s just say, “Not great, Bob.”
In 29 major league games in 2023, Clement hit .380, fueled by an unsustainable .391 BABIP, which is a fluky BABIP for any player, let alone one with a first-percentile 84.1 Average Exit Velocity and a 2.1% barrel rate.
A funny thing happened though, in 2024 – Clement was good. Quite good. Clement was by no means Aaron Judge offensively, but he was nearly league average with a 95 OPS+ and a 94 wRC and reached double digits in homers and steals with a dozen of each. He played 96 games at third base (72 starts) and filled in for Bo Bichette by starting 35 games at shortstop.
His Fangraphs offensive WAR was still negative, but not nearly as much so, and he was extremely valuable for his defense and versatility. He played second base, shortstop, third base, and left field and once again even pitched an inning (to a 3.17 FIP no less). His range, according to Baseball Savant, ranked in the 92nd percentile. Among the 207 players with 400 or more plate appearances, Clement ranked smack dab in the middle at 103rd, right between Cody Bellinger and Lourdes Gurriel Jr., and just ahead of much bigger names like Bryan Reynolds, Pete Alonso, J.T. Realmuto, and Michael Harris Jr.
2025 Salary ($M) per 2024 WAR (min. 400 PA)
Fangraphs projects Clement to have a 1.4 WAR in 2025 once again fueled by defense. His wRC+ projections range from 84 (The BAT) to an above-average 103 (Steamer). The 103 seems overly optimistic given Clement’s fourth percentile average EV, third percentile hard-hit rate, 12th percentile barrel rate, and fourth percentile bat speed. Even if he does not repeat his 2024 season, with a 2025 salary under $2M and a 1.4 WAR, Clement would still be valuable enough for the Canadian government to consider retaliatory tariffs on the Rochester, NY-born import. Clement is the definite favorite to start the season at third base for the Blue Jays.
The Challenger – Orelvis Martinez
Orelvis Martinez led the minor leagues with 86 home runs between 2021 and 2023. In 2024, Orelvis left the building another 16 times in 63 games in Triple-A to earn a call-up for his major league debut on Friday, June 21st. Martinez collected his first major league hit that night in Cleveland. Two days later, Major League Baseball announced Martinez was being suspended 80 games for violating MLB’s performance-enhancing drug policy. Martinez tested positive for Clomiphene, a fertility drug on MLB’s banned substances list. Martinez claims that he and his girlfriend were trying to start a family, and he was assured by the doctor in the Dominican Republic that the fertility treatment did not include any performance-enhancing drugs. Talk about a roller-coaster of a weekend.
Martinez has pounded 109 minor league home runs, but he is not going to be the next Crash Davis. The power is real as evidenced by his .523 slugging percentage at Buffalo and even more so by his exit velocities – with 90th percentile average exit velocities and a top-of-the-scale 115.2 in Triple. The scouts agree with the stats in this case, giving Martinez a 60 grade for power.
Martinez has split his time this spring between second and third base. With the Blue Jays trade for defensive superstar Andrés Giménez, third base would appear to be the more viable path to regular playing time. There is also the chance he is the regular DH as the Blue Jays are desperate for more thump in the lineup even after signing slugger Anthony Santander this offseason. Teams generally frown upon DHing 24-year-olds, but the Jays have indicated this may be an exception. The bat is MLB ready, and he is off to a strong start this spring at the plate.
The challenge with Martinez is, to paraphrase defense attorney Johnnie Cochran from the O.J. Simpson trial, “the glove doesn’t fit.” Scouts rate Martinez a mediocre 45 grade for fielding but a more generous 55 for arm. The Jays have put a focus on run prevention, and Clement is the far superior defender, but that advantage is mitigated by all five projected Toronto starters having 2024 ground-ball percentages under the MLB average of 44.4%, with Max Scherzer and Bowden Francis even under 35%.
The bar for Martinez to be a full-time DH is high though, from an offensive standpoint. The overall MLB OPS for DHs last season was .742 with a 108 wRC+. ATC, which combines several projection systems, pegs Martinez for a .682 OPS and a 92 wRC+, well below the average DH.
The Longshots – Addison Barger and Will Wagner
Both Barger and Wagner project more as utility infielder types. The Jays likely keep only one of them on the Opening Day roster, but that battle is too under-the-radar even for this article.
The Prediction
The Angels have received endless flak for not winning a single playoff game when they had both Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout. The Jays have made the AL Wild Card three times since Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette debuted in 2019, but the pair has won the same number of playoff games as the former Angels duo, having been swept in all three series. With both being free agents at the end of the year, the Jays are under tremendous pressure to start fast.
The veteran Clement will win the job out of spring training with the prospect Martinez optioned to Triple-A Buffalo. Clement will struggle offensively, while Martinez smashes the ball in Buffalo the way Bills Mafia smashes tables during pregame tailgates. Martinez will get the call in May and become the club’s regular third baseman, with Clement moving into a Swiss Army knife utility role.
Competition to Watch #3 – Mariners 2nd Base
The Favorite – Dylan Moore
A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. English astronomical pioneer and clergyman John Michell first proposed the idea as a possibility back in 1784. Astronomers have been searching for black holes since the 1960s and have confirmed the existence of approximately 100. They could have saved a lot of time by pointing their telescopes toward second base at T-Mobile Park.
The Mariners traded Robinson Canó to the Mets in December of 2018, along with Timmy Trumpet’s favorite Met Edwin Diaz, for a package headlined by Jarred Kelenic. While Cano went into a deep decline with the Mets, the keystone for the Mariners has been where careers go to die.
A look at Moore’s career .206 batting average and nearly 30% strikeout rate would not cause astronomers to turn their telescopes away. To say Moore went ‘Deep-less in Seattle’ in 2024 would be an understatement. Moore hit just two of his ten home runs at T-Mobile, and the 337-point gap between his home (.503) and road (.840) OPS was the third-largest gap among players with at least 190 plate appearances since the Wild Card era began in 1995.
To the naked eye, this looks like another lost season for Seattle’s second baseman. Moore, though, has some redeeming value, having won the American League Gold Glove for utility players. Moore played in 49 games at shortstop, 45 at third base, 37 at second base, 22 in left field, 11 at first base, and one in center field. There is no truth to the rumor that Moore serenaded the manager ahead of that appearance with “Look at me, I can be centerfield” but Moore was “ready to play today” for a career-high 135 games. While he is neighbors with Mario Mendoza in terms of batting average, Moore also walked in a career-high 12% of plate appearances and swiped a career-best 32 bags with an 84% success rate.
The Mariners also appear poised to utilize Moore’s speed even more. After the acquisition of Victor Robles, the Mariners averaged 1.03 stolen base attempts per game from June 5th to August 21st. After the managerial change to Dan Wilson on August 22nd, the Mariners averaged 1.24 attempts per game.
The Challenger – Ryan Bliss
Bliss was selected by the Diamondbacks in the second round of the 2021 draft out of Auburn. The now 25-year-old Bliss profiles similarly to Moore in terms of high strikeouts and low batting average (.217 xBA versus Moore’s .201). Bliss’s 31% strikeout rate in 71 major league plate appearances even topped Moore’s and turned the average pitcher into Tarik Skubal, who had a 30.3% strikeout rate.
Bliss struggled in his first full minor league season in 2022 to the tune of a .641 OPS. He took a giant step forward though in 2023 with an OPS over 1.000 for the Amarillo (By Morning) Sod Poodles and finished the year with the Reno Aces after being sent to Seattle in a deadline-day deal as part of the package Seattle received in exchange for closer Paul Sewald. Bliss finished the year with 23 home runs and 55 steals across stops in Amarillo, Reno, and Tacoma.
In 2024, Bliss yo-yo’d between Tacoma and Seattle, combining for 14 homers and 55 steals. His 9.3% barrel rate was impressive for any player, let alone a 5’7″, 165 lb rookie. His 22% strikeout rate and 14% walk rate at Tacoma provide more blissful thinking on his plate discipline than his major league numbers. Seattle GM Justin Hollander told the Seattle Times, “Ryan has real physical tools. He can run and he has surprising power. He can impact the game in multiple ways and has high-end instincts and intellect.” Bliss has been praised for defensive improvements in 2024 and spent the offseason focusing on swing adjustments to catch up with major league fastballs. He also has a promising .944 OPS in his first 18 spring at-bats.
The Prediction
In a vacuum, the Mariners would likely choose Moore as their everyday second baseman. However, the prediction here is that Hollander and Wilson decide the Mariners roster ultimately works better with Bliss able to settle in at second and Moore continuing to play the extremely valuable super-utility role.
The Closing
Robin Williams may not have waged spring training position battles in Dunedin or Peoria. Still, he did know a thing or two about under-the-radar battles, saying, “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.”