2025 Cleveland Guardians Prospect Scouting Report: #22 LHP Matt Wilkinson

Will Tugboats fastball have enough life to compete in the majors?

Bio

• Age (2025 season): 22

• Acquired: Draft (2023, 10th round)

• 2024 Level: High-A

• Height: 6’1

• Weight: 270

• Throws: Left

First impression

The everyman athlete with a great nickname. Tugboat is one of the best nicknames in sports right now. Sneaky athleticism in a figure that doesn’t look like it upon first look. Command, pitchability and confidence.

2025 Scouting Grades

• Fastball: 45

• Slider: 50

• Changeup: 55

• Command: 50

• Overall: 40

• Risk: Moderate

• ETA: 2027

What Makes Wilkinson Fun

The athlete that doesn’t look like your typical athlete, but goes out there and dominates against what looks like typical way to get it done. When you combine that with humble confidence, charisma, great nickname, along with his pitchability, you get a lot of fun. So far, Wilkinson has not just survived but excelled with below average fastball velocity thanks to some very unique traits. He commands the fastball well, because he has to, but it has strong deceptiveness because of his very unusual release height and low-¾ delivery. It doesn’t appear as your typical straightline fastball and a lot of hitters swing over it or take it, expecting it to move like something else. His changeup plays very well off the fastball despite not having a ton of separation velocity-wise. It has plenty of tumble and run and he commands it well. His slider is a bit slurvy but he’s able to manipulate the shape so it looks like he has a curveball and a slider at times. He avoids walks and has missed a lot more bats than you’d ever expect from someone with his stuff and size.

What Could Hold Wilkinson Back

While not trying to be a buzzkill on a great story, velocity matters, to a certain point. There is a minimum threshold to meet for a certain level of success. That doesn’t mean he can’t succeed at his current velocity thanks to his command and deception. It’s just that it would be a unique outcome that is different from what we see leads to success today. So he’s either a unicorn or a great story that eventually reaches a pre-imposed ceiling. So it’s important to define what success might looks like for Wilkinson based on his current velocity, and what it could look like if he gains more. Even at 89-92 and hitting say, 94, there’s a different level he can reach with his command and deception. The fact is, hitters train for velocity and better hitters are prepared for 96+ these days, so even the most deception isn’t going to work every time and not consistently. Each mile an hour gained gives you an added level of success and a margin for error. So at 88, Wilkinson can’t afford to ever miss his spots with it. Could further conditioning improvements lead to better velocity? If so, that raises his ceiling a little more. Otherwise, it’s unwise to bet that the best deception and command can beat upper level hitters as he moves up when throwing 88.

Key Metric

65.4% - The contact rate against Tugboat in 2024 would have been the lowest in the majors among all qualified starters in 2024 (Dylan Cease was the lowest at 69.3%). It was still just 67.9% at High-A after being 60% at Low-A before. It really makes you re-think if a non-traditional looking pitcher with below average velocity can succeed against the worlds best hitters.

Intangibles

The 15 strikeout game in his fourth appearance of 2024 put Tugboat on the map among the baseball/prospect community in a big way. He was on shows everywhere and on sportscasts. That didn’t change Tugboat. He continued to be as confidently humble as ever. Wilkinson knows exactly what he’s good at, knows his game and is very confident and what he can do. He’s also continued to improve his conditioning since the Guardians drafted him and should be well below his initial 270lb weight as it is, showing a dedication to get into more serious baseball shape.

Future

The big picture is that it is still hard to believe that 86-88 can succeed at the big league level with regularity. Any fastball velocity in that range, I would be tempted to not rank or report on a prospect because it’s unlikely they would have enough to get by at the upper levels of the minors. But Wilkinson is unique because of his delivery, deception and command. His secondaries are good enough. Bringing up the floor of his velocity and improved conditioning could make him a back of the rotation type starter. Until we see that his velocity and deception work enough against hitters in the upper minors, predicting anything more would be declaring him a unicorn. Other pitchers with his velocity have dominated the lower minors, even Double-A (think Will Dion recently) but at Triple-A it wasn’t enough, let alone the majors. It’s not all velocity, but as said, there’s still a minimum threshold that probably needs to be met against the best hitters in the world who are training for 96+ and are used to it that make him seem like an up and down arm or a middle relief option. As a unicorn, Tugboat could be a fifth starter that gets by on command and secondaries sort of like a Josh Tomlin

Role/Risk

40/High - Up/down depth starter/middle relief