Ober gets back to basics for fresh start in 2026

This story was excerpted from Matthew Leach’s Twins Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. -- Bailey Ober looks a little trimmer. He looks a lot happier.

Much of the 2025 season was a grind for Ober, and that might be putting it gently. A pitcher who had established himself as one of the more consistent and dependable starters in baseball suffered through easily the worst year of his career. He posted a career-worst ERA by nearly a full run and allowed a career high 30 home runs despite spending all of July on the injured list.

Ober never gave in to despair, but it was obvious the struggles weighed on him. As he prepares for a fresh start in 2026, it’s clear he expects things to be different. The veteran right-hander chatted with reporters for more than 10 minutes at TwinsFest on Saturday, and he seemed at ease and confident.

Ober is walking a line between trying to make sure he learns what he can from the challenging year, while also not dwelling on it any more than necessary.

“It's a little bit of both,” he said. “You need to reflect and see what you can take away from last year. A little bit of it is trying to listen to your body more, seeing if it's the right move to push through stuff. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. You get a little better awareness of how you're feeling and how, if you can still help the team, in that aspect pushing through injuries.

“But a lot of it is flushing it because I know that's not the pitcher I am. I know what I'm capable of when everything is feeling the right way and I'm not compensating for certain stuff. Attack each day in the offseason, get the body back to feeling healthy, getting mechanics in order, and I should be in a good spot.”

Ober explained that the main trouble that bothered him was discomfort in the hip of his landing leg. That led to inconsistency in his delivery, since he never knew whether he’d fully have his leg under him when he landed.

He pitched through it, effectively at times, early in the year. But all the while he was falling into bad habits. So although he was mostly feeling OK physically when he returned from the injured list, his mechanics remained out of whack.

“I just never felt like I had a stable base throwing,” Ober said. “It felt like my release was off almost every single throw. Sometimes I'd have 10 throws in a row where it felt great, and the next 10 are like, 'I don't know where this is going.' It was a sharp pain, and I didn't feel strong in my front leg to block.”

The challenge was knowing when to try to pitch through it and when to pack it in. With some hindsight, Ober acknowledges he might handle things differently if he had another opportunity.

“At the time, I thought I was able to contribute and help,” he said. “Looking back, obviously I did not for that month of June. It was my decision to go into the coaches' office. We had talks earlier in the season. Rocco [Baldelli, manager] or Pete [Maki, pitching coach] would come up to me and say, 'Let me know how you're feeling. If you need a breather, let me know.' At that time I said I was good and could keep pushing through it. I got to the point at the end of June where I said, 'Hey, it's time to take a little break to let this calm down before I go out and pitch again.'”

As he prepares for ’26, Ober feels like he’s in a good place physically and getting there mechanically. Which could be huge for a team with a lot of potential but also a lot of uncertainty in its starting rotation.

“Feeling good,” he said. “Been working on a lot of stuff this offseason. Just trying to get the hip back to being healthy was the main thing. Now it's just getting my mechanics back in order so I can build up on that. Obviously, that takes a little bit of time and a lot of repetitions to really hone in the muscle memory of getting it back. It's feeling pretty good right now.”