After a couple of fastballs at 100 mph, a devastating curveball drops right when the batter believes he has identified the pitch coming in time, but his swing was not precise enough to hit it.
That has been a common scene when we have watched the Minnesota Twins ' right-hander, Taj Bradley , pitch this year. He has done it with a repertoire of just four pitches. Bradley, 25, can repeat himself with a mix of his steaming fastball above 100 mph, along with the cutter, curveball, or split-finger.
The Twins acquired Bradley from the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for reliever Griffin Jax at the 2025 trade deadline. The Rays had sent him to Triple-A Durham on July 24 and, after the trade, when he arrived in Minnesota, he was also assigned to Triple-A St. Paul.
It was not until August 24 that he was called up to MLB by the Twins. In six starts, his performance was a failure, pitching to an 0-2 record and a 6.61 ERA. Before the trade, Bradley had pitched to a 3-4 record and a 4.87 ERA in his previous 13 starts, with a considerable drop in his dominance and command problems.
So that final stretch left many questions around Bradley's immediate future, especially whether his talent was really going to be able to take off as Minnesota needed for its 2026 rotation.
Now, 31 starts and 178 1/3 innings later, Bradley has just become only the tenth Twins pitcher to record 200 strikeouts in a single season since the team moved to Minnesota (1961).
Pablo Lpez had been the last Twins pitcher to enter that group when he struck out 234 batters, but Walter Johnson (7) and Bert Blyleven (6) remain the pitchers with the most seasons accomplishing the feat. Lpez also leads the select group of eight pitchers with 10.8 K/9 in the first 31 starts of a single season. Bradley follows him with 10.3 after tying Johan Santana .
Bradley has reached the club in just his fourth season, which makes us think that he could be a candidate to repeat 200 strikeouts for the first time since Santana recorded four consecutive seasons with 200 or more strikeouts for the Twins between 2004 and 2007. In that 2004 season, Santana also set the franchise record with 240 strikeouts in the first 31 starts of a single season.
Minnesota Twins catcher Victor Caratini (37) with Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Taj Bradley (26). Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Bradley has always stood out for his ability to strike out batters, but when this campaign began, that ability still had not rewarded him with enough dominance to take the leap in the league and be close to the expectations with which he arrived in Minnesota. In his first three seasons-which included part of the second half of 2025-, he pitched to a 19-27 record with a 4.86 ERA, 4.38 FIP and recorded 4.0 fWAR.
Bradley is 12-6 with a 3.73 ERA in 31 starts this year, and almost half of them (48.4%) have been quality starts. His 3.97 xERA and 3.80 xFIP ranked at the highest point of his career, as did his 2.8 fWAR, which represents 40.6% of his 6.9 fWAR in MLB. So the adjustments he has made have provided him with much more dominance, and his consistency turned him into one of the leaders of Minnesota's rotation.
Without a doubt, the first thing that impresses about Bradley is how he has been able to sustain the velocity of his fastball throughout the campaign. In fact, this September he has averaged 97.7 mph with 177 pitches, the highest in any month this year.
What adjustment has the opposition been able to make? Almost nothing! They are hitting .182 with no extra-base hits in 41 plate appearances and have the highest whiff rate (24.4%) of the entire campaign.
Bradley usually throws his fastball almost 50% of the time-46.7% to be exact-and around 38% when he gets to two-strike counts against both lefties and righties. Most of his strikeouts (66) have come with the four-seam fastball, but he also has 61 with the cutter and 41 with the split finger.
All of his secondary pitches have generated whiff rates above 36%, and the exclusive mix of curveball plus split finger has generated the fourth-highest strikeout rate (39.2%) in the Majors this year, a category led by Zack Wheeler of the Philadelphia Phillies at 43.7%.
Minnesota Twins pitcher Taj Bradley (26). | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
Bradley finished the season with 31 starts, and closed the year looking for his 17th with more strikeouts than innings pitched this season. Bradley also has five games with 10 or more strikeouts and two performances with 11.
Part of the most interesting thing about his consistency in striking batters out is that, when he has not been able to record more strikeouts than innings, in seven of his nine starts he has secured at least five innings.
Even when his repertoire did not manage to evade opposing swings, Bradley was dominant. He managed to go deep into games and give Minnesota the opportunity to win. The Twins have an 18-13 record in his 31 starts, and this seems to be only the beginning of high expectations to strengthen a starting rotation that has just bet on one of the most talented arms in the league.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/mlb/twins/onsi as How Twins' Taj Bradley Surpassed 200 K and Took His Dominance to Another Level .
