After starting two games in two seasons for the Minnesota Twins, Simeon Woods Richardson received extended action in 2024 and took full advantage of it. Richardson finished last season with a 5-5 record and a 4.17 ERA in 28 starts. In the process, he accumulated 2.0 bWAR and 117 strikeouts in 133.2 innings pitched, earned praise from Carlos Correa, and received the Twins’ Rookie of the Year award last season.
Acquired in the Jose Berrios trade with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2021, Richardson struggled to find a role early on in the Twins organization. 2023 was the low point for the former second-round draft pick. Not only did Richardson surrender five earned runs in 4.2 innings in his only game with the Twins, but he never dominated at the Triple-A level, either. Despite a 7-6 record with St. Paul, Richardson had a 4.91 ERA and a 5.38 runs allowed per nine innings.
So how did Richardson improve from a fallen Triple-A prospect in 2023 to a solid back-end starter for the Twins? Well, it started in the pitching lab, where Richardson made mechanical adjustments to his pitching motion. When asked at this year’s Winter Meltdown about when he noticed the changes he made start to work, Richardson answered that they dated back to spring training.
Simeon Woods Richardson of Twins explains the tweaks that led to successful rookie season
“Well, I think it was having the confidence to just know that I had to change my arm slot, and be ok with that, and be an athlete on the mound, and use those attributes on the mound. It wasn’t until, like, spring training where we started facing guys, and I could actually see results from the hard work," Woods Richardson noted.
According to Aaron Gleeman of The Athletic, Richardson lowered his release angle from a high 67 degrees to 47 degrees. That resulted in an increase in velocity from 90.5 to 93.5 miles per hour. In addition, Richardson started to get a better feel for the slider, which generated the highest whiff percentage among his pitches from Statcast.
Richardson enters this year as a back-end starter for the Twins, but wants to improve off a 2024 season that already represented a strong step forward. It was clear from his work in the pitching lab before last year’s spring training that Richardson has found a recipe for success. The question now becomes whether it will carry over throughout the whole season.