Twins prospect Matt Canterino has a healthy elbow, 5 pounds of PEZ candy and a new go-to changeup

There was no PEZ candy, but Matt Canterino was back on the mound.

The right-hander, who ranks among the Twins’ best, highest-upside pitching prospects, threw his first live bullpen session in six months on Friday.

While his routine dictates no snacking on his favorite candy until the regular season, Canterino experienced all the emotions during Friday’s session one would expect from a pitcher who feels healthy again after going through elbow issues. Canterino twice was sidelined with a right elbow strain last season and didn’t pitch after an Aug. 15 outing.

“I had butterflies in my stomach, so I guess it’s good that I still care about it, right?” he said via video conference. “It was super fun to be out there again, even if it just means throwing 16 simulated pitches to guys.”

Though he described the elbow problems as more of a nagging injury than anything major, Canterino still was relieved last August to learn he wouldn’t need surgery. Knowing his season was done, he chose to focus on making sure he did everything he could to get and stay healthy. Upon reflection, Canterino determined he needed to be better communicating what was going on with his elbow to the team.

Seeing his effort pay off Friday spilled out onto the field.

“(Canterino) struck out the last hitter and kind of strutted off the field,” Triple-A pitching coach Virgil Vasquez said. “He’s one of the hardest-working pitchers. Really focused on the daily goal, his career goal. To see him wait this long and he’s feeling good, the work he put in and the way he was supported, it was really fun to watch.”

That hard work has also paid off with an improved pitch mix that includes a new go-to secondary offering, raising both his ceiling and his chances of remaining a starter.

Canterino spent three years atop Rice University’s rotation and was one of the country’s best college pitchers in 2019, posting a 2.81 ERA and .199 batting average against with 121 strikeouts in 99 innings to win Conference USA pitcher of the year. His mid-90s fastball and sharp slider overpowered college hitters, but Canterino’s changeup was considered merely a so-so third pitch.

Selected by the Twins in the second round of the 2019 draft, Canterino kept rolling against low-minor hitters in his pro debut, posting a 1.41 ERA with 31 strikeouts in 25 innings. But he wasn’t satisfied, so shortly after the season ended he went to work trying to improve his changeup, making it his biggest development goal to add depth to the pitch.

He was in contact with Twins coaches, but Canterino took it mostly upon himself to research how he could make that happen and essentially redesigned the pitch, with a new grip. It was immediately clear he’d found something that worked, and when he arrived at spring training in 2020 the pitch was on another level from what he showed in college.

“The solution that I came to was trying a new grip that was sort of like a modified split-changeup grip,” Canterino said. “Kind of like a Vulcan, circle-change hybrid. It was one of those things where I put in some work during 2019 and I felt really good about it in spring training of 2020. Then obviously the shutdown happened.”

With the 2020 minor-league season canceled, Canterino was unable to play with his new toy in actual games and couldn’t fully put it to the test against hitters from other organizations. So instead he kept refining it behind the scenes, trusting what he felt and what Twins coaches told him about the changeup’s improved data and pitch-design characteristics.

“Maybe a little bit of some sort of blessing in disguise, because I was able to work on it even more during my off time,” Canterino said. “During the pandemic, I was fortunate enough to have a facility to throw regularly and work on my changeup. So by the time I reported for 2021, it was what I felt to be a really good pitch and then the results I saw in the limited innings last year were really encouraging.”

8 strikeouts in 3 innings. Welcome back Matt Canterino! pic.twitter.com/OZTbfnI4Ib

— Prospects Live (@ProspectsLive) August 15, 2021

“Really encouraging” is an understatement.

Canterino began last season with a 1.00 ERA and 35-to-3 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 18 innings at High-A Cedar Rapids, striking out 51.4 percent of his batters faced in four starts. Sidelined for two months, he returned in August and threw five scoreless innings across two outings, striking out 10 of the 16 batters he faced before he was shut down again.

“Even with the limited mound time that I did have, I felt like I accomplished my goals,” Canterino said. “I improved my changeup. I was filling up the zone and I dominated hitters whenever I was on the mound, in my opinion.”

Rest and rehab did the trick, allowing Canterino to move ahead with a normal offseason plan. He was among a group of top pitching prospects invited to the Twins’ Florida complex in Fort Myers in mid-January, a month before the official start of spring training, an opportunity that excited Canterino because he was itching to get back to work after losing development time.

Now his elbow is feeling healthy and he has a bat-missing changeup in his bag.

“And (the changeup) feels like it’s in a really good spot and fits within the rest of my repertoire really well,” Canterino said.

There’s no doubting Canterino’s raw stuff or on-field results thus far. He throws a mid-90s fastball with two plus off-speed pitches, and he’s been even better against minor-league hitters than he was in college. Rice pitchers have a lengthy history of breaking down after taking on big college workloads, but if Canterino can stay off the injured list this season the path is clear for him to reach the majors.

Canterino is encouraged by the success Bailey Ober had in the majors in 2021. Though he didn’t get an invite to big-league camp last spring, Ober was called up by the Twins in mid-May and went 3-3 with a 4.19 ERA and 96 strikeouts in 92 1/3 innings. His 108 1/3 combined innings between Triple-A St. Paul and the majors was a professional high.

What especially intrigues Canterino is how Ober reached that success. Ober had to be shut down several times in the minor leagues after experiencing health issues, including elbow inflammation. The Twins have closely managed Ober the past few seasons and watched his pitch and innings count once he arrived in the majors. Canterino described Ober’s route as “impressive” and the Twins can undoubtedly point to the path taken if Canterino needs motivation.

“Any time you can pull from those stories is great for guys like Matt Canterino,” Twins pitching coach Wes Johnson said. “Matt threw the ball fine (Friday). … Any time guys get shut down for an injury or things like that and then they come back and they’re excited and look healthy, you’re excited for him.”

Twins pitching prospect Matt Canterino ranks his top six PEZ flavors after telling us he plans to go through a five-pound bag of the candy this season as part of his game-watching routine. pic.twitter.com/8LGPGiqjbF

— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) February 27, 2022

Once the regular season begins, Canterino plans to reinstate his game-day PEZ routine. Whenever Canterino watches a game from the dugout, his pockets are loaded with PEZ and the dispenser du jour. Canterino owns dispensers featuring Woody and Buzz Lightyear from the movie “Toy Story.”

He normally eats three packs of PEZ every game, one for each set of three innings, though “that can be subject to change, too, if I feel like we need a rally starter or something like that.” Canterino recently ordered a five-pound bag of the candy to get him through the first 100 games of the season.

His favorite PEZ flavors are the original six. Though he struggled to recall the sixth, raspberry, Canterino listed his favorite flavors in order of preference.

“Number one is lemon, number two is grape, number three is orange, number four is cherry, number five is strawberry,” Canterino said with a laugh.

Canterino clearly was in a good mood after Friday’s outing. He not only detailed his PEZ routine, but also mentioned the various board games and video games he plays. He even discussed his magic act and love of card tricks, though Canterino doesn’t perform as much as before.

The Twins hope Canterino is in a similarly good mood throughout the 2022 season. He’s hopeful the hard work he’s put in keeps him there.

“My goals have been very much geared around health,” Canterino said. “I’ve tried to not just make it about staying healthy, but make sure I can do things within my control to stay healthy. I feel like I’m working very hard towards these things. I’m communicating a lot with the staff and I feel like as long as I still do that then I’m going to be able to give myself the best chance for a healthy 2022.”

Twins prospect Matt Canterino has a healthy elbow, 5 pounds of PEZ candy and a new go-to changeup — breakout coming?

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