June 2018: The Rays drafted and signed RHP Joe Ryan. 

A 39th-round pick of the Giants out of high school, Ryan went undrafted after an injury-plagued junior year at Cal State-Northridge. After a strong summer in the Cape Cod League, he transferred to Division II Cal State-Stanislaus for his senior year. There, he impressed enough to become a seventh-round pick by the Rays, via scout Alan Hull.

2019 Season: Ryan had a remarkable breakout campaign, climbing three levels up to Double-A Montgomery. The 23-year-old righty finished among the Minor League leaders (100 IP min.) with a 1.96 ERA (fifth), 0.84 WHIP (second) and 183 strikeouts (second) in 123 2/3 innings.

Ryan also ranked among the best with a 32.4 percent strike-to-walk rate (first), a 38 percent strikeout rate (second) and .172 BAA (seventh).  Ryan (ranked 15th in the Rays’ system) was named the organization’s Minor League Pitcher of the Year after a breakout campaign. He was the only starting pitcher in the minor leagues to average more than 13 strikeouts and fewer than two walks per nine innings.

Ryan told Charlotte radio broadcaster John Vittas that he has a simple philosophy. 

"I think it’s just confidence in my pitches,’’ Ryan said. "I’m just trying to fill up the zone. I’m not really looking for strikeouts . . . It’s just throwing strikes and giving your defense a chance to work. Sometimes you get swings and misses.’’

Ryan grew up in Marin County, Calif., with other interests besides baseball—including water polo—and had a bit of a circuitous path to pro ball, transferring from Cal State Northridge, where injuries had limited his opportunity, to Division II Cal State-Stanislaus. Considering his father was a distance runner, there was a lot of running in his life, to be sure. Water polo was also a heavy influence through high school, and really, he was just around the water a lot, with swimming, lifeguarding, surfing and fishing all playing formative roles in his upbringing.

In both 2020 and 2021, the Baseball America Prospect Handbook rated Joe as the 10th best prospect in the Rays' organization. He moved up to #4 in the spring of 2022.

2020 Spring Training Q&A

MLB.com: As a kid, you spent a lot of time outdoors and competed in a lot of different outdoor events. What would you say is the most intense, physically grueling outdoor competition you’ve ever done?

Joe Ryan: When I was 5 or 6 to 12 (years old) were some intense years of outdoor stuff. Mountain bike racing was a big one, where you’re cold, wet, exhausted. One of my best friends, we did pretty much everything together—the gnarlier the better. We’d do creek hikes with my dad when we were like 6 years old, and we’d just be over our heads in these creeks. If it was pouring rain and the river was going more, that’s when we’d want to go. We did the Dipsea Race, which is the second-oldest running race and oldest trail race in the United States. It's from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach, 7.2 miles. That’s a pretty intense one.

MLB.com: You mentioned biking before, but you also did a lot of other extreme, outdoor sports. What are some of your other favorites?

Ryan: I grew up surfing and did lifeguard camp during the summer, which was about 2-3 days per week. We were out there working with the lifeguards at Stinson Beach. It was pretty sweet. We had a good swim team down there and at the end we’d always have a competition down in Santa Cruz. It was a good time.

MLB.com: You were a very good and accomplished water polo player before you began your baseball career. What sparked your interest in that as a kid?

Ryan: My dad played water polo growing up and a little bit in college. All my friends were on the swim team, and I went to a little water polo camp with them and started doing swim team, which I realized would help me with water polo. So I kept doing that and realized that water polo was helping me with baseball, so I stuck with it. I played water polo year-round and only played baseball during baseball season, so you could say that almost was more of my main focus.

MLB.com: How did water polo make you a better baseball player?

Ryan: It helped so much. There’s a whole kinetic chain that syncs up, but now I’m realizing that it mostly helped me from the waist up, because my hips are pretty tight and I’m still learning how to use the ground now. That will be fun this year, learning how to use the force of the ground better. Overall, that late extension and late hand speed you need to have at the end in order to make the water polo ball skip really helps with my fastball.

MLB.com: Speaking of that fastball, you throw it a lot, right?

Ryan: I think the Rays were happy when I got my usage down to 71 percent and finally started to mix in the off-speed stuff.

MLB.com: So, have you at all been surprised with the success of your fastball in pro ball?

Ryan: Definitely not now that I’m in pro ball. I think in college I had a little success with it and probably arrogantly expected that to just carry over pretty easily.

MLB.com: You’re in big league camp now, after climbing three levels and finishing second in the Minors in strikeouts. A year ago, could you have seen this past year playing out as it did?

Ryan: Honestly, my goal every year is to be the best pitcher I can be. And as long as the Rays were willing to move me up, I knew I could do whatever I needed to do. I can’t say I was surprised. I just try to take it day by day and stay in the moment. Right now, I’m in big league camp, focused on that, and wherever I’m at next will dictate that mindset.

I noticed that halfway through short season, that mindset really helped me, and last year that couldn’t have been more true. I'm just trying to take advantage of the opportunity given to me, and with all the coaches they have around at every level, it’s pretty easy to do that.

MLB.com: How would you say your secondary arsenal has grown and how have the Rays helped to facilitate that growth?

Ryan: Having [Class A Advanced Charlotte pitching coach] Doc Watson here, who I spent the most time with last year, is special. Hunter Wood was down here one day last season working on the slider a little bit, and he showed me his cutter and I worked with that, throwing it for a while. I was trying to throw it for a good portion of the year and had some success with it, but I could see where it was going, becoming more of a slider, so that was one thing I worked on this offseason.

My agency, CAA, is amazing and had an outstanding setup for us down in Southern California where I got to work with some of the best guys in baseball right now, pick up some stuff from them. I would also say my changeup . . . I didn’t throw too many of them in High A until the last couple of games, but I was told that it’d be something I would need to move up. So I threw it more after that to show what I can do, and it was a pitch that helped me tremendously in Double-A. My off-speed just makes my fastball that much better, so it’s pretty sweet to have all those pitches in there now.

MLB.com: What’s it like facing big league hitters this spring?

Ryan: It’s pretty fun. It’s just baseball to me, just trying to focus on throwing to the glove. It was pretty cool, though, pitching at JetBlue the other day. It was packed out and I just got to take that in for a second, which was pretty special. I got to backfoot a slider and get a swing-and-miss from a lefty, which is something I’ve been working on, and the changeup got some swing-and-misses which I was excited about.  (Mike Rosenbaum - Mar. 10, 2020)

June 2021: Baseball returned to the Summer Olympics for the first time since 2008, and Joe was there.

Joe Ryan was a member of the qualifying roster for the United States of America. Ryan helped the team go 4-0 in the qualifying games in south Florida.

Aug. 2021:  Ryan helped the United States win a silver medal in Tokyo.

Sept 1, 2021:  The rotation help is on its way. Right-hander Joe Ryan was called up from Triple-A St. Paul to make his Major League debut as the Twins' starting pitcher in the Sept 1 game against the Cubs at Target Field, manager Rocco Baldelli announced. Ryan, ranked the No. 6 prospect in the organization by MLB Pipeline, will be the first of Minnesota's next wave of top pitching prospects to arrive in the big leagues.

A depleted rotation scrambling to cover innings through the end of the season could certainly use Ryan's help, and the 25-year-old's arrival should provide a welcome jolt to Minnesota's pitching staff. "We’re looking forward to watching him show up and do his thing," Baldelli said. "He's been throwing the ball very well. He’s been throwing the ball well all year long, everywhere he’s been."

It took a while for the Twins to get their first look at Ryan with Triple-A St. Paul following his arrival in the organization as the headliner of the July 2021 trade that sent Nelson Cruz to the Rays. Joe needed to finish out his stint as the ace of Team USA during the team's silver-medal run at the Tokyo Olympics and build back up to a full workload.

He made it worth the wait, striking out each of the first six batters he faced as part of his new organization, collecting 17 strikeouts and two walks in nine innings across two starts with the Saints. Now fully built back up, the Twins anticipate he'll be able to make a normal-length start in his debut against the Cubs.

What should Twins fans expect to see from the new face in the clubhouse? Fastballs. Lots of fastballs. To the naked eye, the numbers regarding Ryan's fastball don't pop—it sits in the 92-96 mph range. But hitters have always struggled to pick it up when he throws it at the top of the zone. That deceptive, tough-to-see offering has been the bread-and-butter offering for Ryan's 326 strikeouts in 226 career Minor League innings since the Rays drafted him.

"I think this has been very well discussed, but the fastball that he brings to the table is a very unique pitch," Baldelli said. "Hitters just consistently do not get good looks and swings against this pitch. I think that’s obviously his biggest strength, but his other pitches play off that pitch well, and probably play up because of the difficulty hitting the fastball."

The effectiveness of that fastball will help his secondary stuff (slider, changeup, curveball) play well, but make no mistake: that fastball will be the foundation for his Major League success.

"He has that Invisi-Ball," said Twins righthander Randy Dobnak, who watched Ryan pitch in the minors several years ago. "I've seen videos of him pitching. It's almost like the fastball just doesn't exist. It's just blowing guys up."

It would be in the Twins' best interest to get as many looks at Ryan as they can before the end of this season, likely with enough time for the right-hander to get six starts in a Minnesota uniform. With Kenta Maeda slated to undergo a season-ending procedure that could cost him all of the 2022 season if it's Tommy John surgery, Ryan's performance could better educate the Twins' front office as to what they might expect from him as part of their 2022 starting rotation.

"We know what his strengths are," Baldelli said. "We know he’s gone out there and been able to pitch with that really good fastball and there’s a lot of different reasons, probably, why he has success with the fastball, but we know that’s been his strength. There’s also a lot that we’re going to learn about this young man as time goes on." (DH Park - MLB.com - Sept 1, 2021)

Sept 25-29, 2021: Ryan was placed on family medical emergency/bereavement list to attend to an unspecified issue at home in California.

TRANSACTIONS

June 2018: The Rays chose Ryan in the 7th round, out of Cal State-Stanislaus. He signed with scout Alan Hull.

Ryan makes it with mostly just his 92-96 mph 4-seam FASTBALL, elevating it high in the strike zone. Joe throws it with incredible backspin forged by years as a high school volleyball player and is nearly unhittable when located up in the zone, garnering a 65 grade. He has a SLIDER he added in 2019, and it gets a 50 grade while generating strikeouts. 

He also has a CUTTER. He has a power CURVEBALL that is a below-average 40 grade. And he has refined his 83-84 mph CHANGEUP. It now tunnels well with his fastball.

Joe hides the ball well in his delivery. He has above-average 55 grade for Control.

Ryan has always been a fastball-dominant pitcher. He used that pitch to power through the minors. While evaluators wanted to see him take strides with his secondaries, he continued to pitch overwhelmingly off his fastball (65.8%) with the Twins and continued to find success with it. The pitch has below-average velocity (91.2 mph) and spin, but a low slot and impressive carry up in the zone has allowed it to perplex and stymie hitters, nonetheless.

Scouts did like the improvement of Ryan’s slider, which he used 16% of the time in his brief MLB debut. The pitch comes in around 80 mph, and he generated whiffs with it 35.3% of the time. After that, Ryan also occasionally threw an 83-mph changeup and slow curveball. (Carlos Collazo - Baseball America Prospect Handbook - Spring, 2022)

2022 Season Pitch Usage/Avg. Velo: Fastball 60% - 92 mph; Slider 20.6% - 82 mph; Change 12% - 84.6 mph; Curve 7.3% - 75 mph.

2023 Season Pitch Usage/Avg. Velo: Fastball 56.4 mph; Splitter 22% - 84 mph; Slider 16.5% - 81 mph; Change 4.5% - 86 mph.

2024 Season Pitch Usage/Avg. Velo: 4-seam Fastball 48% - 94 mph; Sinker 6.2% - 92.7 mph; Change 21% - 88.5 mph; Slider 23% - 83 mph; Cutter 1.2% - 89.2 mph.

Ryan believes that learning to finish his throws in water polo helped develop his bread-and-butter pitch: a swing-and-miss four-seam fastball that’s played tremendously well at the top of the zone. The pitch has good velo but not eye-popping compared to his peers. But the pitch’s movement characteristic is its apparent “hop,” similar to one of his pitching idols, Matt Cain. The hop and his location make it more effective than the pure velocity would suggest.

In 2019, he led the Minors in strikeout rate, fanning 183 batters in 123.2 innings. The challenge now for Ryan is refining his secondary stuff, because he dominated almost exclusively with his fastball and may need more weapons to combat higher-level hitters. Ryan also throws a slider, his primary breaking ball, along with a loopy curveball and an occasional changeup that aren’t quite there yet.

Ryan has a starter’s delivery and a three-quarters arm slot that creates deception. Combine that with his above-average command and the life on his fastball, and you can understand why hitters have struggled to do much damage against him. Ryan is an intelligent pitcher who has watched and learned while working alongside Harvard-Westlake School products Lucas Giolito and Max Fried. If it all comes together, Ryan has all the makings of a mid-rotation big league starter, and he could help the Twins sooner than later. (Spring 2021)

Ryan’s calling card is a plus, swing-and-miss fastball that he relies on heavily. His innate feel for challenging hitters up in the zone with the pitch fuels his bat-missing ability, and he finished first in the Minors (120 IP min.) in strikeout rate (38 percent) and strikeouts-per-nine (13.3).

Ryan has a bevy of secondary pitches at his disposal, but he spent much of his first full season tinkering with different breaking ball grips. His above-average slider is his go-to pitch, and he also shows feel for a cutter that has distinct slicing action. He rounds out his arsenal with a slow, loopy curveball and a changeup that’s below average.

A former water polo player, Ryan’s clean, loose arm action and three-quarters slot give him natural deception which, on top of the pure stuff, makes him difficult to square up. Both his control and command are above average, especially with regards to his fastball, and scouts universally agree that the right-hander should unlock more potential as he refines his arsenal. He has all the ingredients needed to be a Major League starter, perhaps even a No. 3, and could continue to move quickly in 2020. 

While many pitchers have simplified their deliveries and even junked pitching from a windup, Joe begins with an old-school windup, bringing his arms high above and behind his head. then usually deals an elevated 92-96 mph. He commands the pitch so well that hitters can’t seem to touch it. Ryan’s 2,250-rpm spin rate is merely average, but he hides the ball well and gets good extension.

Joe meshes a power pitcher’s mindset with impressive command. (Spring, 2020)

Joe learned his cutter with help from reliever Hunter Wood (who was later traded to the Indians) and Brent Honeywell. Ryan learned it when he moved from low Class A Bowling Green to high Class A Charlotte and has quickly taken to the pitch.

Wood was starting a rehab assignment at Port Charlotte and asked Ryan to be his throwing partner.

"We were just playing regular catch, and towards the end of catch we always throw our off-speed stuff and flip a couple up there,’’ Wood said. "He threw me a couple sliders, and told me he’d been working on it because he was just fastball dominant.

"I threw him my cutter a couple times, and he seemed to really like it. So I showed him how I was holding it (like an off-center four-seam fastball) and what I was doing with it. I let him throw it to me a couple times, and it was filthy. I was like, 'I think you’ve got something here if you keep working on it.' "

Ryan was doing pretty well already, and the cutter gave him another weapon in a repertoire topped by a 91-95 mph fastball he torments hitters with given the deception from his three-quarters arm slot, plus a curveball and a changeup.

The version he throws mostly is a low-90s offering that darted away from barrels of righthanded hitters and dug in on the hands of lefties while staying on roughly the same plane as his four-seamer. Also, the cutter can morph into a SLIDER.

Before the cutter and slider, Ryan changed the grip on his curveball. By moving off of his spike grip, he upped the pitch’s velocity and sharpened its break. Instead of a loopy pitch in the mid-60s, Ryan now has a mid-70s version that he can use early in the count to steal strikes or bury to finish off a hitter used to a steady diet of heaters. (Marc Topkin - Baseball America - Sept., 2019)

Joe believes part of the reason his fastball plays the way it does is because of the years he spent playing water polo. So he gets a 2,250-rph spin rate, which is merely average, but he hides the ball well and gets good extension. He credits his time skipping the ball in water polo for helping him get so much backspin on his fastball. 

“I played water polo for a long time growing up and learning how to really finish my throws from that (helped),” he explained. “In order to skip a water polo ball, you have to create some good backspin and really stay on the ball for a long time and finish your throw, so I think that helps me get that late life on the ball that we see a lot on the baseball field now.”

Ryan has the arsenal of a power pitcher, but he couples it with impeccable command. He is one of just five pitchers in the minors who have struck out 125 or more hitters while walking 25 or fewer. He’s achieved this not only by throwing a ton of strikes, but by throwing a ton of pitches that stay in the strike zone until the last moment. 

“That’s part of his success, is you can’t see a pitch as a ball early. By the time you’ve recognized that it’s a ball, you’ve already committed to your swing because he has so much life and he can command pitches, which is a word that I don’t use very often at this level, but he commands pitches in the zone as well as out of the zone,” Watson said. “He throws pitches out of the zone where he wants to throw the ball, which is extremely rare.” (Josh Norris - Baseball America - August 2, 2019)

2019 Season: Joe Ryan, pitching prospect of the year.

The seventh-round pick from Division II Cal State-Stanislaus had a remarkable breakout campaign, climbing three levels up to Double-A Montgomery. The 23-year-old righty finished among the Minor League leaders (100 IP min.) with a 1.96 ERA (fifth), 0.84 WHIP (second) and 183 strikeouts (second) in 123 2/3 innings.

Ryan also ranked among the best with a 32.4 percent strike-to-walk rate (first), a 38 percent strikeout rate (second) and a .172 BAA (seventh).

Ryan's fastball: Hard to explain, harder to hit.

Baseball was one of the focal points of Joe Ryan's athletic life as he grew up in Marin County, in wine country across the Golden Gate Bridge north of San Francisco. But baseball wasn’t everything. Considering his father was a distance runner, there was a lot of running in his life, to be sure. Water polo was also a heavy influence through high school, and really, he was just around the water a lot, with swimming, lifeguarding, surfing and fishing all playing formative roles in his upbringing.

"I was just always doing stuff,” Ryan said. “I’d play water polo and come home from practice. And if the sun was still out, we'd play catch in the street and just throw, or we'd throw a flat-ground or something in our driveway.”

But he still does remember showing up to a baseball camp in third grade with his buddies. They were maybe 10 years old. And he threw one of the hardest fastballs, he claims, at 64 mph. That heater has since been the driving force of his athletic life coalescing around baseball, and that pitch once again played the most prominent role, front and center, as he tore through MLB competition in his first four starts while throwing the fastball for 66.7 percent of his pitches. That pitch has helped Ryan become the second pitcher in AL/NL history (since at least 1901) to pitch at least five innings and allow no more than three hits in each of his first four big league games.  

Even as it has generated 14 of his 25 strikeouts, that fastball is, by no means, an overpowering pitch compared to his peers anymore, considering it has averaged 91.2 mph through four starts. It’s not even that it’s a particularly high-spin pitch, or that it has a crazy amount of carry. It just works. It always has.

That’s why he dominated the Minors relying heavily on it and why he threw it 70.8 percent of the time in his big league debut on Sept. 1 against the Cubs, and 61.2 percent of the time when he carried a perfect game into the seventh against Cleveland in his second start.  You’d think he would have all the details of why it’s worked so well for him throughout his life, considering how important it’s been to his career. And that he came up in the extremely analytical Rays system before he arrived in the July 22 trade that sent Nelson Cruz to Tampa Bay.

“I don't know,” Ryan admits. “I was always thinking about, like, throwing through the target. And maybe that helped me stay on it longer and help something along the way.”

As to why it works so well, many point to Ryan’s release at a strikingly low, three-quarters arm angle that might actually mess with hitters’ expectations, pitching coach Wes Johnson said. Among right-handers with four-seam fastballs in 2021, Ryan has an average release height that is the 24th lowest out of 555 big leaguers tracked by Statcast. And none of them throws the four-seamer as often as he does. With a strikingly low, three-quarters arm angle, Joe Ryan also seems to hide the ball well from hitters.

“One of the things we’ve found through science is hitters anticipate an arm slot or hand movement,” Johnson said. “If a guy throws sidearm, they anticipate arm-side run and sink. Any time they see that slot that’s lower, innately, they’re going to anticipate some sink and run. … His actually doesn’t.”

Ryan also seems to hide the ball very well, something that’s been pointed out by teammates and opponents alike in the short time he has been in the big leagues.

“There's a lot of guys swinging through the fastball,” Cubs manager David Ross said following Ryan’s debut. “It looks like 96 and it's coming out 91-92. Just got one of those fastballs that hitters don't see, whether it's the carry or [the fact that] he hides it well.

”So, if that’s a big part of what helps Ryan’s fastball work so well, why not just have more guys hide the ball and throw with carry from a lower arm angle?

“It’s really hard to teach a guy to do some things if their body is not going to allow them to,” Johnson said.  Ryan knows that his body is capable of it because it’s how he’s always thrown, influenced by the natural throwing motion he repeated as a high school water polo player for years, but also by those days when he'd come home from water polo practice or some other outdoor activity before he'd play catch.

Ryan figures that his body naturally found ways to compensate from its already fatigued state with a more fluid motion. And that led to this easy, natural motion from the angle that his body dictated to him.

"You're breeding that fluidity, especially when you're tired," Ryan said. "It's not like I'm going all-out trying to throw hard. It's just like, 'Hey, this is what happens.'"

It so happens that Ryan's natural arm slot helps his stuff play up on the field, which is an advantage for him over someone like Bailey Ober, who used to throw more over-the-top but who worked with the Twins to lower his arm angle to better suit his pitches. It's also an advantage in that Johnson is of the belief that Ryan's having developed that arm angle by listening to his body could bode well for the young right-hander's future arm health.

“Any time you can get somebody in their natural arm slot, they have a chance to stay healthier a little longer, [though] I don’t know if we’ve got enough data yet to make that statement objectively,” Johnson said. “Any time you don’t have to create that and they've been doing it for a long time, those muscles, those tendons, those ligaments, they’re used to working in that slot, so they know how to react and recover.”

That's significant because the Twins will figure to rely heavily on Ryan in their 2022 rotation and beyond, and though the next step of Ryan's progress and development will rely on his improving off-speed stuff, it all starts with that fastball. It always has. (Do-Hyoung Park - Sept. 27, 2021)

2021 Season: Acquired from the Rays in exchange for Nelson Cruz, Ryan wound up being among the best things to happen for the Twins last season. After pitching for Team USA, Ryan made five starts at the big league level. His 3.43 FIP was better than the 4.05 ERA, but a 30/5 K/BB is beyond impressive for a guy who doesn’t have dominant velocity. How Ryan adapts to more tape on him in year two is going to be intriguing. (Editor's note: In 2021, Nelson Cruz hit well for the Rays and helped them win 100 games. But the Rays lost in the playoffs to the Red Sox. Conclusion: Nice trade for the Twins.)

The Twins Joe Ryan Talks Sliders, Vertical Approach Angle … and Water Polo.

David Laurila: The majority of FanGraphs readers are familiar with your pitching profile. That said, how would you describe it?

Joe Ryan: “I’m not sure. I don’t think about it too big-picture or try to analyze myself in that way. Simplistically, I’m a strike-thrower that fills up the zone, tries to hit my spots, and pitches to my strengths. I’m also always trying to develop new pitches and make everything else better, and more consistent. I’m not trying to overhaul, but rather I tinker a lot. Maybe not a lot, but I am always wanting a little more.”

Laurila: I brought up your slider before we started talking on the record. Can you say a little on that?

Ryan: “The slider is better than it has been. Getting comfortable with the grip, working with [Chris] Archer to make some other cues … before, I was trying to spin it a little too much. Now I’m just maintaining arm speed, holding it, and getting out front. It’s coming out harder, too. I think staying through it longer with my hand got me that velocity, and the action I was looking for.”

Laurila: Can you elaborate on “trying to spin it a little too much”?

Ryan: “I was trying to create movement on the backside instead of letting everything happen out front. Basically, I was trying to spin it too early. I was trying to spin a curveball by my ear, to create arc, instead of letting my hand work through its natural arm path to create spin out front.”

Laurila: But you are trying to spin the ball, manipulate the ball…

Ryan: “Yes. It’s finger pressure on the grip, and then just finishing it that way. But I’m not really trying to manipulate my wrist, or turn anything. Mentally, I think index finger. Your middle finger is going to be the last finger to come off — the middle finger is still going to be dominant — but index finger pressure as the mental cue helps me to stay on it a little longer. Just emphasizing the middle finger pressure, which I do on my curveball… it’s a little bit slower and is going release a little bit earlier.”

Laurila: How similar is your slider to Archer’s?

Ryan: “I haven’t looked at the data. But it also depends a lot on the arm slot, right? For me, it’s going to be the lower arm slot. I don’t know how accurate our TrackMan is, but I’ve been getting pitches in the 4.4 range — release height — to 4.10, which is pretty low. So, it’s finding how that pitch is going to work, how that shape is going to build. Arch has a little higher arm slot, so we’re going to have different pitch characteristics.”

Laurila: When people have written about your approach angle, they’ve generally done so in regard to your fastball. How does it impact your breaking ball?

Ryan: “It was a struggle for me to find that at the beginning, to find a traditional slider. How I was trying to think about it was a little bit different than my arm path. As I got my arm path figured out, it was like, ‘OK, this is where my slot is, this is where my hand is, this is where it’s comfortable, so let me find a grip, and then find the adjustments I need.’

“It helps me to watch other pitchers. Pedro Martinez, for example. I think watching Aaron Nola helps me, because he had that whippy arm out front. Everything was happening out there. So, not necessarily taking what he was doing pitch-wise, but just his mechanics, how he was staying long and whipping everything out front. That helps me mentally. OK, I can stay out front and whip through that with my hand.’”

Laurila: What is the movement profile on your slider?

Ryan: “Sometimes it’s a -0.5. That would be good for me. Between three and seven horizontal. Not crazy. I think coming from the low slot helps a lot. I think more cutter with it [as opposed to] creating a slider.”

Laurila: Have you always thrown the exact same way?

Ryan: “I looked at some photos from high school, from when I was a junior — maybe a sophomore — and I was a little more angled over the top. My arm slot was the same. I think I just got my shoulders more level, and comfortable, and then my hand was in the same … I think my shoulder slot has always been the same position, but I was tilted over a little bit more. It was more of a trunk tilt, as opposed to changing my actual slot.

“When I was younger, I used to try to throw like Tim Lincecum a little bit. That was probably in middle school into my freshman year of high school. I was a Giants fan, and he was a beast. But the shoulder — the slot for the shoulder — has always felt pretty similar. I think it’s just keeping my head a little bit more still and staying on line longer, which gets me out front. I think that comes from water polo, too.”

Laurila: Water polo?

Ryan: “I played from sixth grade through my senior year of high school. You’re skipping the ball and rotating through the water with mostly your trunk. You’ve got to get extension to skip the ball. You can’t just throw down, from right in front of you, or it’s just going to stop in the water. So, I’m trying to throw out, and get extension, and create that spin. It’s like a late hand speed to create that.”

Laurila: What is the spin efficiency on your fastball?

Ryan: “It’s usually 100% efficiency. That’s always been there. It’s been 98-100% in every bullpen, ever. If I try to throw a bad one, it’s still 98-100.”

Laurila: Is the curveball an important pitch for you?

Ryan: “It’s very important. I think it’s how I shot up through the minors. It taught me how to throw an off-speed pitch a little bit more consistently, the effectiveness of changing speeds. And then also how it plays off my fastball with the 12-6. It’s maybe a little bit more lateral than a 12-6, but having a straight up-and-down pitch helps me a lot. And the speed differences are great off of the heater.”

Laurila: People have pointed to how effective you’ve been with your approach angle and the fastball that goes along with it. They’ve also questioned whether you can continue having success in the big leagues with that as your strength. What are your thoughts on that?

Ryan: “I think it’s just a game-by-game basis, although using off-speed makes it a little bit easier to go deeper. That was a big usage thing in the minors. I was probably going five [innings] and there were a lot of games where it was like, ‘Hey, you’re coming out after 60 pitches,’ or something like that. So, it would be, ‘OK, I’m going to throw a lot of fastballs.’ Now … I mean, I can still throw a lot of fastballs — I know that I can do that — but I also have all these other weapons.”

Laurila: From everything you’ve said, it sounds like your approach to pitching is, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But at the same time, let’s try to get better …

Ryan: “Exactly. I’m just trying to keep it simple and absorb as much information as I can. I mean, having guys here … Chris Paddack came over, and he’s got a ton of knowledge. He’s a great resource. What he’s learned from Joe Musgrove, from Yu Darvish, who I’m a huge fan of … I’m getting to learn from guys who have been around pitchers that I’ve looked up to.

“I love talking pitching. I love messing around with the baseball, manipulating it in the dugout, just getting that feel. Then I get back on the mound with all of that. It’s a good time.”  (April 21, 2022)

2022 Season:  147 IP, 12-8, 3.55 ERA, 47 BB, 151 K, 1.10 WHIP, .211 BAA

Ryan led all rookies in innings pitched and was a steady presence in the Twins rotation, thanks to his low-90s fastball (called an invisiball during his Minor League days), which he threw more than 60 percent of the time in the Majors.  (Sam Dykstra - Oct. 16, 2022)

Billed as an MLB-ready starter when the Twins acquired him from the Rays in the Nelson Cruz trade, Joe Ryan looked the part in his first full season, posting a 3.55 ERA and 151 strikeouts in 147 innings. His unique fastball kept baffling hitters despite low-90s velocity, he limited homers better than expected and his slider and changeup showed signs of being more than merely show-me pitches.

To take the next step from mid-rotation starter to front-line starter, Ryan needs to further develop at least one off-speed pitch into a reliable weapon and cut his walk rate from 2.9 per nine innings, which is too high given his ability to pound the zone. Ryan is very capable of taking that step, but it’s worth noting that he’s already 26 years old, so substantial additional development is hardly guaranteed.  (Aaron Gleeman - Nov 1, 2022)

2023 Improvements: Joe Ryan, Twins — splitter.

Often what follows a strong rookie season is concern over a potential sophomore slump. That was a particularly strong possibility for Ryan, who in 2022 was an excellent fastball pitcher without a strong breaking or off-speed pitch. In 2023, he’s mostly scrapped all three of last year’s secondary pitches – a slider, curveball and changeup – and replaced them with a splitter and a sweeper, and while he threw a few sweepers in 2022, his splitter is brand new – and it looks like a game-changer.  

Ryan almost exclusively works up with his four-seamer, with his breaking and off-speed stuff living in the lower third of the zone and below. This worked for him in 2022 – the only issue, of course, was the relative weakness of his secondary pitches, which yielded a collective .258 batting average and .438 slugging percentage. His new splitter, on the other hand, which he’s throwing in the same lower third 74.7% of the time, has yielded a 66.7% ground ball rate and a .116 BA (5-for-43, 0 XBH.)  (Shanthi Sepe-Chepuru - May 8, 2023)

2023 Season: Now that the media clowns have gone to bed, and (hopefully) we can approach these discussions with a level head. In 2023, Joe Ryan was expected to emerge as a frontline starter, after a fantastic rookie season. For the first 2.5 months, this expectation was exceeded, he was one of the 10 best pitchers in baseball, by upping his K%, lowering his BB%, and maintaining his stellar statcast stats (xBA, xwOBA, etc). In his first 15 starts, he went 8-4 with 93.2 IP, 2.98 ERA, 100 K, which, if he stayed at that level, would have looked like this in 33 starts: 18-9 record with 206 IP, 2.98 ERA, 220 K; which would probably be good enough for 2nd in AL-Cy Young. Unfortunately, a groin injury sustained after this stellar start made his final line look like a much less impressive 11-10 record with 161.2 IP, 4.51 ERA, 197 K in 29 starts. He had major issues throwing pitches over the heart of the plate; his meatball % on the year was 8.5, well over the MLB average of 7.3%, and hitters swung at his meatballs 4.1% more often than they did for other pitchers. His lack of fine control hurt him down the stretch, and he had a whopping 3.18 HR/9 after the groin injury after posting a stellar 0.77 HR/9. His ERA subsequently ballooned to 6.62 post-injury, and I feel comfortable in saying that the Joe Ryan we saw in the second half was not indicative of the caliber of pitcher he is.

Now if 4.51 turned out to be 3.53, I don't mind, I don't mind.

Even with his horrid second half, Joe Ryan was still phenomenal at striking batters out without walking them. His 5.8% BB rate is in the 92nd percentile, and his 29.3% K rate was higher than Max Scherzer's this year. Even with his awful stats post-injury, Ryan posted an xERA was 3.53 and xFIP was 3.76 for the year. These expected stats can be misleading sometimes- Shintaro Fujinami had an ERA of 7.80 with an xERA of 4.80, but he was awful at limiting damage with RISP, as his -19.89 RE24 was one of the worst in baseball. xERA and xFIP do not account for pitchers who give up lots of damage in short bunches, so it is hard to say that Fujinami got unlucky with poorly struck balls dropping. However, Joe Ryan's RE24 was positive at 1.30, which is not great but is above average. This suggests that he was the victim of some bad luck, and his ERA probably should have been in the mid to high 3.00s if he had had neutral luck.

Fastball sweet fastball, I wish I could throw less.

A lot of the narrative around Ryan revolves around his less-than-elite secondary stuff and how it holds him back. While I agree that he has a tendency to lean almost exclusively on his four-seamer in tough spots, he has completely remade his arsenal, and his splitter/sweeper have the makings of excellent strikeout pitches. When Ryan first entered the organization, his arsenal consisted of a fastball, slider, changeup, and slow curve. Now, he uses a splitter, sweeper, and slider as his three secondary offerings, with the splitter and slider being introduced this year. This is the first year he's used this arsenal, and it will likely improve with more experience.

His splitter moves 0.6" more than the average splitter at his arm slot, and hitters have not been able to do much with it (sub-.300 xwOBA against). It had a negative run value in '23, mostly because he was not getting many chases on it and was not tunneling it off his four-seamer, which was used primarily at the top of the zone. If he can start to work more East/West with his fastball, he can set up his splitter, which has been doing a great job of keeping at the bottom edge of the zone.

His sweeper offers a lot of drop, which makes it a great compliment to his fastball, as they have nearly opposite breaks. He collected a 36.5% whiff rate and only a 32.4% hard-hit rate against. In the small sample of batted ball events, the batting average, OPS, etc against significantly outpaced the expected stats; in a larger sample size, it should have better numbers. If he continues to work on his sweeper, it could be an excellent offering.

You'd better stick your dagger in someone else.

Gauging fan sentiment from a few stray posts is unadvisable, but I have seen way, way too many posts describing Ryan as a "backend" starter or a "#4 or #5". Maybe I just happened to look at posts from the seven to thirteen people who look only at box scores, but to me, this is like calling Carlos Correa a bottom-of-the-order hitter, Byron Buxton a 4th outfielder, or Griffin Jax a middle reliever based on down '23 seasons. Joe Ryan is not an ace, and the Twins should definitely seek a Sonny Gray replacement, but a strikeout pitcher who eats innings and doesn't walk people is a certified #2 starter. He is better than anything the Red Sox, Nationals, Tigers, Royals, White Sox, Cardinals, Reds, Angels, Athletics, and Rockies currently have on their roster (or will once free agency starts): a guy who would be the opening-day starter for a third of the league is an asset that should be highly appreciated, not insulted.

There are many questions about whether Thielbar, Stewart, and Paddack will be able to pitch at a high level for a full season. First base is a huge question mark, given the injuries to Miranda and Kirilloff. A number of hitters are regression candidates. Joe Ryan is the kind of guy who can be penned into the #2 or #3 spot of the rotation without much thought- I hope he can enter the season without a cloud of doubt and disrespect looming over his head because he does not deserve that based on his performance.

No reason to get excited

The 2023 season was great, the Twins won three playoff games and the division, we had an incredible rookie class, and tons of exciting plays. 2023 is a great building block for this team to firmly cement itself amongst the elite American League teams for the foreseeable future. The Twins have high expectations and aspirations for 2024, and Joe Ryan is a big reason why. To summarize:

He was a top-5 pitcher in baseball before his injury. According to several expected stats, he was the victim of very poor luck. He introduced two brand new pitches this year that figure to get better with time.He has the talent to be a star pitcher. Some of you have selective or short memories and will choose to glom onto his HR-prone second half or the fact that Rocco only trusted him to pitch two innings in an elimination game. I look forward to seeing Joe Ryan prove his doubters wrong and fulfill his potential as a co-ace on this magnificent Twins pitching staff. (NeverSeenATwinsPlayoffWin - Oct. 24, 2023)

Ryan had an impressive 2024 campaign, bouncing back from a strange 2023 season to bolster a formidable three-headed monster at the top of the Twins rotation alongside Pablo Lopez and Bailey Ober.

Ryan developed his arsenal into five above-average pitches, led by his unique four-seam that, while allowing fly balls at an extremely high rate (55.8 FB% and 29.7 average LA), limited hard contact (87.6 average FB EV) and averaged an elite 5.45 PLV.

Ryan’s sweeper may even be his most improved pitch, averaging a 5.62 PLV and 33.5 CSW%, up from 26.5 in 2023.

The only downside to Ryan’s 2024 season was he threw just 135.0 innings in 23 starts, suffering a serious shoulder injury in late August that placed him on the 60-day IL.

Due to his unique release point and high extension, a serious shoulder injury could be a long-term risk. His elite talent and high potential at just 28 years old are very exciting, and I certainly hope his recovery goes well. (Patrick Connors - Nov. 8, 2024)

2017: A poorly timed lat injury crushed Ryan’s draft stock. But a solid season after transferring to Division II Cal State-Stanislaus made him a seventh-round steal for the Rays in 2018.

Sept 14, 2021: Joe didn’t have any time to get out of the way of the comebacker as the line drive caught him flush on his right wrist. X-rays revealed no damage, and the right-hander said postgame that he felt more stiffness than pain from the contusion following his exit from the sixth inning of another dominant start. He was day-to-day.

"I'm feeling good. It's fine. I'm not worried about it. Salazar got me set in there right away. Scanned it. Checked it out. Things are good. Did a bunch of treatment in it already. Got it all wrapped up in this fancy stuff," said Ryan. 

May 24-June 14, 2022: Joe was on the Covid-19 IL.

Aug 3-26, 2023: Joe was on the IL with left groin strain.

Aug 8-Nov 4, 2024: Joe was on the IL with right shoulder strain.

Aug 10, 2024: Top-end starter Joe Ryan -- key to a potential playoff rotation -- is lost for a substantial period with a Grade 2 right teres major strain, and it’s unclear at this point if he’ll pitch again this season.

Aug 27-end of season, 2024: - Buried furthest down in the Twins’ flurry of roster moves ahead of the game against the Braves was perhaps the most consequential news for the ultimate trajectory of the season: Joe Ryan will not pitch again this regular season.

Because Ryan’s IL placement for the Grade 2 teres major strain behind his right shoulder was dated to Aug. 8, the 60-day placement means he would be eligible to return on Oct. 7 at the earliest, well beyond the final day of the regular season on Sept. 29.

“I haven’t picked up a baseball,” Ryan said. “I have been working out, crushing the legs, which has been pretty fun. Getting good cardio in. Yeah, doing a lot of shoulder stuff and strengthening and maintenance, and trying to heal everything up properly and eating a lot of food, and trying to maximize the time that I can to get some extra training in and use everything at my disposal.” (DH Park - MLB.com - Aug 27, 2024) 

Mov 6, 2024: Ryan continues to recover well from the injury that sidelined him toward the end of the season, Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey said.

“Reports on him have been nothing but positive, kind of exactly what we expect for this to recover,” Falvey said. “So that's good news.”

A second opinion by Dr. Neal ElAttrache confirmed the initial diagnosis of a Grade 2 teres major strain in his right arm area, head trainer Nick Paparesta said.