Mike Paredes is not throwing the most overpowering stuff in the world, with a 93.5 MPH fastball and an 89.9 MPH cutter.
However, St. Paul’s pitching staff is cycling through numerous names, whether it’s due to the Twins calling pitchers up to the big leagues or veterans opting out of deals. Therefore, Mike Paredes has become a stabilizing force for the St. Paul Saints.
Paredes started the 2026 season at Double-A Wichita and didn’t have a great start. He owned a 7.07 ERA, .298 opponents’ average, and 3.96 FIP in 14 innings over four outings. The one encouraging sign was his command of the strike zone. He only allowed one walk while striking out 21 batters in that stretch.
Since being called up to Triple-A St. Paul on April 21, he’s fared much better. In nine outings with the Saints, Paredes has had a 3.38 ERA, .237 opponents’ average, 23.4% strikeout rate, and 5.7% walk rate. He continued building off the success of his season on Wednesday afternoon in Louisville, going five full for the second time this season and allowing just one run in the Saints’ 10-5 loss to the Bats.
“Yeah, this is the guy we had last year in Wichita,” said Saints manager Brian Dinkelman on Paredes during the Saints’ last homestand. “He pitched really well for us all year. I think any time you go to a new level, you’re always nervous and want to perform right away. So yeah, his last couple of outings have been the guy we’ve known for the last couple of years.”
Minnesota’s 18th-round pick from the 2021 MLB Draft spent all but one game in Double-A Wichita last season, with a brief stint in St. Paul. The Wind Surge primarily used him as a long reliever, averaging three innings per outing. He’s one of many pitching prospects the Twins have on the ‘Travis Adams plan’ this year, going four innings and throwing 65 pitches every four days.
Even with a switch in his role from last season, Paredes feels he’s adjusted well and that the long innings out of the bullpen last season helped him for what he’s doing in St. Paul this year. As for the key to his success, it’s just a matter of focusing more on the smaller stuff than the big when it comes to his game on the mound.
“I’d just say having a little bit more attention to detail,” Paredes said. “A lot of different kind of minuscule things that Carlos (Hernandez) and (Ryan) Ricci have kind of had me try to not necessarily reinvent myself, but kind of just going back to what I usually do very well, which is throwing a lot of strikes in zone, getting early outs when I can, when it’s time to get that punch out with two strikes.”
Paredes’s catchers, Noah Cardenas and Ricardo Olivar, have also helped him out. They’ve come up the Twins farm system with him. Olivar was just called up to the Saints on May 20 and caught Paredes in his last outing at CHS Field on May 23.
Paredes ran into trouble in the second inning of that outing, allowing a couple of runs on a bunt and an RBI double. But he came back in his last two innings, retiring six of his last seven batters faced. It ultimately came down to the help Olivar offered him in between innings.
“The communication in between innings has been key,” Olivar said via pitching coach Carlos Hernandez, who translated on his behalf. “The way Mikey actually bounced back after the one inning he had something going on, but I think that’s the most important thing today. Because we were just talking between innings and I knew what Mikey wanted at some point in a particular AB.”
“I definitely was falling a little bit behind early on in those at-bats,” Paredes said. “Which is kind of like what I just said, that’s the main thing that I’ve been trying to do better at. I’d say the last two innings of that outing really did reflect that. Did a lot better job of trying to get ahead of guys and executing pitches better, especially late in counts.”
The last outing at CHS gave Paredes something to improve upon. He was stellar aside from his one run allowed to Bats on an inside-the-park home run to right fielder Héctor Rodríguez. Paredes struck out the side in the second inning on Wednesday, getting ahead of hitters in each of his seven strikeouts on the day.
Even if he’s not overpowering opposing hitters with high heat, Mike Paredes has the stuff to complement his fastball and cutter with a slider, curveball, and changeup. As long as he can keep up this strong stretch of outings that he’s currently riding with the Saints, there’s a good chance Paredes can be the first 18th-round pick to debut with the team since Edouard Julien in 2023.
“I’m just going out there executing really well,” he said, “basically just better execution in terms of, you know, pitch location and just keeping hitters off balance.”
