Twins ace Pablo Lopez discusses career surge, new pitching arsenal and his take on pitcher injuries (Exclusive)

Pablo López is one of those pitchers who always was on the cusp of transitioning from good to dominating, but something was missing. He just couldn’t reach that elite level with the Miami Marlins, with whom López spent parts of five seasons and compiled a 3.94 ERA.

In January 2023, López received the unexpected push he needed. The Marlins sent him and two minor leaguers to the Minnesota Twins for American League batting champ Luis Arráez.

Arráez won his second straight batting title last season, but the Twins aren’t regretting the deal. Because López, now 28, has developed into Minnesota’s ace and a clubhouse leader. With the help of the Twins’ coaching and development staffs, he began throwing a sweeper that gave him a devastating put-away pitch to combine with his other offerings and his high baseball IQ.

The addition of the sweeper was instrumental in establishing 2023 as a career year for López, who made his first All-Star Game, finished second in the AL in strikeouts and seventh in AL Cy Young voting while posting career highs in innings pitched, strikeouts, wins, WHIP and strikeouts per nine. He’s among the league leaders in strikeouts and strikeouts per nine again this season.

The sweeper, however, has become a controversial pitch due to the stress it can put on the elbow during a time when ligament surgeries are increasing significantly. And López has already gone through one Tommy John surgery in his professional career.

Pablo Lopez Interview (Exclusive)

One of the more erudite players in the league – he initially considered following in the footsteps of his parents, both doctors – López took time out recently to discuss his career, why he signed an extension with the Twins, the development of his sweeper and the concern that the pitch and other factors have led to elbow trouble for many of his peers.

Editor’s note: The following has been edited and condensed.

Last year was momentous for you. You were traded, signed an extension, made your first All-Star Game and finished three strikeouts shy of leading the AL. What was 2023 like?

It was a year of an unbelievable amount of growth, both personal and professional. Getting traded is always a little bit emotional. We always get taught to not get too attached to teams because it's a business. You could always be subject to get traded. You could always change teams. You could always change from clubhouse to clubhouse, away from friends, teammates, families. But it's hard not to be emotional. It's human nature. We get attached, we get to develop good feelings for teams, especially the team that gave me the opportunity to make it to the big leagues.

So, getting the call, the notifications that I was traded, was a little bit bittersweet at the time. Also, logistics-wise, it was three weeks before spring training. But then I took a step back and really understood what it represented, opportunity-wise, for my professional career. You have to look at it from the perspective of the team that traded for you. They traded for you because they see something in you, because they want you to be a part of something they're trying to achieve, something special that they're building. Showing up to spring training and the way that the Twins received me, they welcomed me into their family with huge open arms. They made me feel right at home and they made all kinds of resources available for me.

Was that the message the Twins gave you when you arrived?

They went straight to the point of like, ‘We got you because we think that you can help us, but also, we can help you.’ It's one of those things that they saw opportunities. They saw things I could get better at in what I do for a living. I got to work from the beginning with an open mind, with a lot of discipline, hard work. A lot of cool things happened last year like the extension. I feel like it was a good fit, it was a good connection from the beginning.

Normally when a player signs an extension, it’s after being in one organization for a while. You agreed to a four-year, $73.5 million deal weeks into your Twins career. Why?

It was a quick decision, super quick. I was caught by surprise when my agent let me know that they had interest in making that happen. It had only been six, seven weeks. But it felt right. Something really cool that I noticed in camp with the Twins is that in 75 percent of camp we had (Hall of Fame pitcher) Bert Blyleven, Tony Oliva, Phil Roof there, people that played for the Twins so long ago and they wanted to stay close to the Twins. Something cool has to happen within an organization if you have baseball legends that still want to be a part of the culture, that still want to be a part of what goes on here.

It's an organization built on family values. They want you to feel that you are part of the family, that we’re all in this together. We're gonna help you get better, so then you can help us win. That really resonated with me. Everyone is just so nice and so genuine from top to bottom, from ownership to the people selling tickets in Fort Myers. I really loved the culture. I really loved the philosophies, and so I was drawn to agree to an extension. I'm more than happy to be here for the next four years.

From afar, the big change in your game is the development of your sweeper. Would you agree?

I think that definitely helped propel me to the level I reached last year. I have always been a pitcher that relied mainly on the same two or three pitches that only explored three parts of the zone: the up, the down and the east. I never had anything to expose the west. I tinkered here or there with a cutter in Miami. It wasn’t a quality pitch. It got hit hard. I didn’t really have a good feel for it. When I showed up to camp with the Twins, they went straight to what I could get better at. And they sat me in a room for some ‘Get to know yourself’ meetings.

What happened in those meetings?

They showed me videos and statistics of pitchers with the same profile that have pitches to explore all parts of the zone and give themselves more options to put people away in put-away counts. As a pitcher, you always want to hear that. You want to hear options. You want to hear, ‘We can teach you something so you can strike people out.’ And then it was about finding the right pitch, finding the right grip. really paying attention to what the movement flow was saying, what we want to get out of the pitch. Then it was learning how to use it. How to command it, what’s the count you want to take advantage of using it. Because now that we did some work with that pitch, it would open up doors to the different pitches I have. So, understanding the arsenal was interesting, having pitches that complement each other to attack batters from all different angles and parts of the zone was really cool and fascinating to me.

You are known as one of the more intelligent pitchers in the game. But there’s also this belief that pitchers can’t think too much on the mound. How do you balance that?

I’m definitely guilty of overthinking at times, especially early on in my career. I thought I needed to do more than I needed to do. I was putting too much information in my head. As the years went by, you do want to take advantage of all kinds of resources and information, but you want to keep it simple. You want to absorb as much useful information as you can, but you have to filter it and keep the things that you think are gonna help you on the mound. Now, we only have 15 seconds with no man on base (in between pitches) or 18 with people on base. For me, the pitch clock is kind of a blessing in disguise because there's not much time to think right now. You grab a ball, you hear the signs, you look and there are only four seconds left. It’s like, ‘Let’s go.’ And I agree. Let's throw it.

One of the biggest stories currently is the proliferation of elbow injuries in the game. Your sweeper has propelled you, but some have labeled the pitch as a contributor to arm injuries. What do you make of all of this and how much are you concerned about it?

The first thing I have to say is that it is incredibly sad. You never want to see a player getting injured. You never want to see the superstars of the sport not being able to perform for a year, a year and a half, two years. I’m wishing all the best, a very quick, speedy recovery to those guys. It's no secret that there is something happening. There must be something going on, but it's also really hard to pinpoint. Everybody's different. Everybody will respond differently to the amount of stress it takes for certain pitches, breaking pitches. Some people say it’s the pitch clock. One of the things we were told when MLB implemented the pitch clock is that this is here to stay, you guys have to adjust to it. And I really took that to heart, and I’m not saying that no one else did. But I really used to take advantage of the time in between pitches to gather two to three deep breaths to make sure that I was sending oxygen, sending all those good cells, to the tissues to replenish, and then execute a good pitch. Now, I don’t have time to take three deep breaths, maybe one or two. So, I must get my body to the point that every time I take those one or two breaths, I'm still sending the same amount of oxygen. I’ve developed a good anaerobic capacity and aerobic capacity with my running and my conditioning.

Then I learned the sweeper and I'm like, ‘Everyone wants to have the nasty sweeper, everybody wants a Griffin Jax sweeper to strike everyone out.’ Well, that pitch puts a lot of stress on a specific area, so you must have better strength there. Earlier in my career, I dealt with injuries here and there. And I'm like, ‘OK, I have to find a way to get stronger and develop the resistance that's going to help me endure a long season of every five days. Everyone wants to throw hard; everyone thinks it’s sexy when you look at the radar gun and it says three digits, 100, 101 (mph). It attracts teams, attracts interest from people, so I do think players have a desire to throw hard. That might be a reason for it, too. There’s such a big pool of possibilities.

You had elbow (Tommy John) surgery about 11 years ago when you were 17. Did you ever pinpoint what caused that injury?

Yeah, I was still a kid, a teenage boy, and I had pitched 70 innings in the Venezuelan Summer League season. I knew I had to rest. I didn't really have a concept of offseasons then. And then I got a call from one of the coaches from the academies and he was like, ‘You've been invited to the Arizona Instructional League to work with some of the coaches at the complex.’ And the moment I heard that, I thought, ‘I’ve got to get ready.’ I started long tossing. I started throwing bullpens again and eventually my arm couldn’t handle it and it just gave out. So, I didn't have enough rest after I stopped pitching, I ramped up way too quickly and it was hard for my elbow to withstand that.

You are obviously someone who loves baseball, but what do you like to do when you aren’t focused on the game?

I think about baseball a lot (laughs). I read a lot of growth books about thinking, mental toughness, communication skills, personal growth books, mainly. I have a laptop I carry with me to play video games. Offseason, I like playing pickleball a lot. I like playing ultimate frisbee and I like flying my drone. Flying drones, getting pictures, taking videos. I really like doing that.

I’ve read you seriously considered following in your parents’ footsteps and becoming a physician. Is that something still on your radar after you stop playing?

I think that’s now a little beyond me because of how long it takes. But I definitely want to go to college. And when I say go to college, I want to go to college. I want the college experience of going to a classroom. Granted, I’m going to be older than everyone there. But people say there is no age limit for educating yourself. I want to be a dietician, be a nutritionist. In a way, it’s something that would teach me things about the body. In my mind, it holds me close to medical school, but it’s also something that could keep me close to the game. Every team has a dietician, a sports nutritionist. So, I want to go to school for that. I want to get the college experience and I want to get a college degree. And then if I decide to use it, I’d like to use it close to sports.