When David Festa takes the mound for the Twins at Chase Field in Phoenix on Thursday afternoon, he’ll be bringing a repertoire that matches up with any member of the Twins rotation and his electric mix compares well to some of the better starting pitchers in the game.

A 13th-round pick in 2021 out of Seton Hall University, Festa didn’t even join the Twins’ Top 30 until June of his first full season of pro ball and he was a 6-foot-6 starter with largely fringy stuff and a relatively small track record of college success. The stuff has ticked up each year he’s been with the Twins and he now has three pitches that at least flash plus. Let’s dig into the stuff that could allow Festa to miss a lot of big league bats.

Fastball: 60 grade
Festa has touched triple digits with his heater and it’s averaged a tick over 95 mph so far this season. He throws the four-seamer with above-average spin, routinely around 2,400 rpm according to Statcast (MLB average is currently around 2,300). It misses bats at a 29-percent clip and he lands it in the zone 67 percent of the time, according to Synergy, while getting Triple-A hitters to chase it at a 30-percent rate. While the pitch doesn’t feature a ton of life, it does play up because he regularly registers extension of greater than seven feet, which would put him in the top 50 among Major League starters.

Slider: 55 grade
We might be a little light on this grade at this point. He’s actually thrown it a little more than his fastball this year, and who can blame him. It’s an upper-80s power breaker that has missed bats at an impressive 45 percent rate this year. The spin rates are high here, too, often north of 2,600 rpm. He’s been throwing it for strikes (64 percent strike rate) and getting hitters to chase it (34 percent chase rate). It’s tight and has a ton of vertical break, frequently more than 40 inches.

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Changeup: 55 grade
It might be his third pitch, but it’s pretty darn good, and he uses it frequently (27 percent of the time). It’s a spin-killer, typically in the 1,600-1,700 rpm range, and it features a whole lot of fade. He sells the offspeed offering well with arm speed and it has both good horizontal break (often close to 17 inches) and solid vertical movement (25 inches). He’s not afraid to use it against lefties and righties and misses bats at a 40-percent clip while getting hitters to chase it 42 percent of the time.

Curveball: 45 grade
Festa has worked to differentiate his two breaking balls; they used to blend into each other frequently. This is a slower pitch, coming in around 80 mph, but he doesn’t throw it nearly as often and he hasn’t landed it for strikes as consistently as his other stuff. It still can give hitters a different look and it will be interesting to see if he tries to incorporate it more, especially if he’s up long enough for big league hitters to adjust.

Control: 50 grade
For a power pitcher, Festa has done a pretty good job of finding the strike zone, landing all of his pitches this year for a strike 64 percent of the time. That’s up a tick from his 61 percent combined strike rate between Double- and Triple-A in 2023 and he’s brought the walk rate back down a bit this year (3.6 BB/9). He’s still working on refining his overall command and harnessing his stuff, but he’s been trending in the right direction, walking 5.1 per nine in April, 3.4 per nine in May and a tidy 1.7/9 in his four June starts before his callup.