Last week, while on stage at the Minnesota Twins’ annual Diamond Awards banquet, Simeon Woods Richardson received his award for being voted the team’s 2024 Rookie of the Year.
It was the culmination of a career-altering 12-month stretch for the 24-year-old right-hander, who wasn’t considered a major part of the Twins’ rotation plans this time last offseason.
Back then, Woods Richardson’s prospect stock was likely at an all-time low following a rough 2023 season at Triple-A St. Paul, where he had a 4.91 ERA with way too many walks and his fastball barely averaged 90 mph.
The 20th annual Diamond Awards proved again how powerful a collaboration between the @Twins, the Twin Cities @officialBBWAA and the @UMNews can be. What a great evening! pic.twitter.com/y9yzQm0qL8
— Dustin Morse (@morsecode) January 24, 2025
Woods Richardson, a top-100 prospect when he was acquired from the Toronto Blue Jays in 2021 as part of the José Berríos trade, responded to that adversity by getting in the lab with Twins coaches. They spent all offseason overhauling his mechanics to find the velocity and fluidity that had gone missing, and he showed up to camp last spring in better form.
It was immediately apparent Woods Richardson was throwing harder and with better command, but he was far enough down the rotation depth chart that there was no path to make the Opening Day roster, even after Anthony DeSclafani’s mid-March elbow injury. But when fill-in starter Louie Varland struggled, Woods Richardson got his big chance and made the most of it.
During his appearance as a guest on my “Gleeman and The Geek” podcast Saturday as part of our annual Winter Meltdown live event, Woods Richardson pointed to the mechanical changes and spring success giving him the confidence to think a rotation spot could be there for the taking. So that’s exactly what he did in 2024, logging 28 starts and 133 2/3 innings with a 4.17 ERA and 4.05 xERA.
“It was having the confidence to know I had to change my arm slot and be OK with that,” Woods Richardson said. “Practicing it, trying to get it to be muscle memory. It wasn’t until spring training where I could actually see it come to life. When we start facing guys, and I can see results from the hard work. You don’t know until you go in the ring and try to fight somebody.”
Woods Richardson’s average 2023 arm angle was 67 degrees, an extremely over-the-top slot that ranked second-highest among all MLB right-handers. Last season, his average arm angle was 47 degrees, which ranked closer to the middle of the pack — 70th among the 343 right-handers who made at least 500 pitches — and was impossible to miss even without data to back it up.
In ditching what coaches called his old “touching the mountaintops” arm slot, Woods Richardson’s year-over-year average fastball velocity jumped from 90.5 mph to 93.5 mph, and he trimmed his walk rate from 4.9 per nine innings to 3.2 per nine despite moving up in weight class to face big-league competition. It was a huge developmental success story for the Twins, and may have saved his career.
“I was a two-way player in high school,” Woods Richardson said. “I played third base and shortstop, too. That was my natural arm slot. But as I chose pitching, it fluctuated up. And until I got a side-by-side view of ‘you were up here, now let’s try to get you back to the athlete you were.’ I had to look at the data, the pictures, the film, and just bring that old athlete back to life.”
In addition to the velocity boost, the lower arm angle changed some of the attributes of Woods Richardson’s off-speed pitches and how they played off his fastball. Early in his career, Woods Richardson was known for a good changeup, but last season his slider emerged as his most effective offering and hitters actually did by far the most damage against his changeup.
“It’s funny, the slider really wasn’t my pitch,” Woods Richardson said. “It has always been the changeup. But when I lowered the arm slot, I had to re-learn every pitch feel from that slot. And it just worked out. That slider was a good swing-and-miss pitch the whole year. Tunneling with the same effect as a fastball, it had some good deception to it.”
All four of his pitches — fastball, slider, changeup, curveball — generated a whiff on at least 20 percent of swings, and by the end of last season he was throwing them each at least 15 percent of the time. Without dominant raw stuff, Woods Richardson being able to mix and match four viable offerings will be essential if he’s going to build on his unexpected rookie success.
Simeon Woods Richardson, Dirty 85mph Slider. 😨 pic.twitter.com/Z7JOGaH2z9
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 8, 2024
Not surprisingly for a 23-year-old rookie who flew past his previous career-high workload, Woods Richardson ran out of gas down the stretch, allowing 16 runs in his final 21 1/3 innings as his ERA ballooned from 3.69 to 4.17. But between the majors and minors he was able to log 147 total innings across 31 starts, a solid foundation as he looks to avoid wearing down again in 2025.
“That’s the fun part of it, the challenge,” Woods Richardson said. “OK, this is the most (innings) I’ve ever gone, most starts I’ve ever made. That was the biggest goal of mine, just to be blessed enough to have a healthy season. Checking that box, so we can’t say we haven’t done it. Because at this point it’s more about learning, and conditioning your body for the second half.”
This spring training, Woods Richardson will arrive to camp in a much different position than last year. He’s likely shown the Twins enough, both on and off the field, to be No. 4 or No. 5 on the initial rotation depth chart, with an Opening Day spot his to lose. But after making such giant strides by putting in the work last winter and spring, he’s not taking anything for granted.
“Rinse and repeat,” Woods Richardson said. “And still do the same thing I did last year, having the confidence and conviction I had. I’m still working on the same mechanical stuff, so I can perfect that as my craft as I become a pitcher in the major leagues.”
For the full half-hour with Woods Richardson, as well as extended interviews with Ryan Jeffers and Cory Provus, listen here.
(Photo: Sam Hodde / Getty Images)
