Matthew Boyd Addresses His 2015 FanGraphs Scouting Report

Matthew Boyd has exceeded most outside expectations. Selected in the sixth round of the 2013 draft out of Oregon State University, the 34-year-old southpaw was ranked 29th when our 2015 Toronto Blue Jays Top Prospects list was published that March. He’d pitched well the previous year — a 3.17 ERA between High-A and Double-A — but as our then-lead prospect analyst Kiley McDaniel wrote, “Some scouts still think there isn’t enough here to stick as a starter.” Given Boyd’s relatively short track record of success, the skepticism was understandable.

The left-hander’s own expectations were loftier, and he wasted little time in proving his doubters wrong. Boyd made his major league debut three months later, and not only did he do so as a starter, he’s gone on to make 170 of his 184 career appearances in that role. Now in his 11th big league season, and his first with the Chicago Cubs, Boyd has never been front-of-the-rotation good — his career ERA and FIP are 4.79 and 4.56 respectively — but he’s been effective when healthy. The problem is that Boyd often hasn’t been healthy; over the past four years alone, he’s missed 390 days of the season due to injury. It’s early, of course, but so far in 2025, Boyd has been both healthy and effective. Across his two starts, he’s thrown 11 scoreless innings.

What did Boyd’s 2015 scouting report look like? Moreover, what does he think of it a full decade later? Wanting to find out, I shared some of what McDaniel wrote and asked Boyd to respond to it.

———

“Boyd was a senior sign out of Oregon State in 2013 that got $75,000 in the 6th round after making real progress in his last amateur year.”

“That’s pretty spot on,” Boyd said. “It was my first season starting after relieving, playing first base, and DHing. I turned down the Reds, went back to school, and got the chance to pitch on Fridays all year. I got to showcase all of my pitches and how I could attack hitters multiple times through the lineup. People finally got to see what I had. Personally, I have no doubt I’d have done what I did had I started all four years. I have a lot of confidence in my ability. So yeah, there is definitely truth to that. I finally got to show something I hadn’t shown the first three years.”

“He’s always been a little funky, but Boyd went from a LOOGY to a possible starter after raising his arm slot and smoothing out his delivery a bit.”

“Yeah, so true,” Boyd replied. “After my junior year I had a talk with Pat Casey and Nate Yeskie, the head coach and pitching coach at Oregon State. I was like, ‘Hey, I want to come back, but there are things I believe I can do, and want to do, if I come back.’ I told them that I wanted the opportunity, the runway, to show that I could take a starting job there.

“One of the [adjustments] was raising my arm slot. That would help my whole pitch mix. It would help my changeup and curveball be more consistent. I would be a four-pitch pitcher who could attack both righties and lefties.”

“He sits 88-92 and hits 94 mph with a solid average changeup, a fringy curveball, and a below-average slider.”

“I mean, that’s probably how they would rank it out,” Boyd responded. “But at that level, no one was hitting my slider. My curveball has always been my fourth pitch, but it was effective as well. So, that might have been true, but it’s not how I believed in it.

“I leaned on my slider a ton,” added Boyd, referring to his 1-0 win over Indiana University in a College World Series elimination game. “That last outing in Omaha, I probably used it around 35 times in my complete-game start. But it’s one of those things. [Scouts] were making honest evaluations for it at the next level. They were doing their best interpretation of ‘Do we think that plays in professional baseball?’ So, that’s not too surprising. Everyone has always kind of said that about me, even though I’ve believed in myself. I’ve always held myself in higher regard.”

“Fastball command and a consistent breaking pitch is what’s holding him back.”

“Interesting,” Boyd said. “Maybe somebody caught me on a bad day? I had pretty good command, and I thought my breaking pitch was pretty consistent. Maybe it just wasn’t consistent through the framework of how they were projecting me at the next level. To them, consistent at the college level wasn’t consistent in the pro level. But I’ve always prided myself in the ability to adapt, and continue to develop my game.”

“The likely outcome is a spot starter/long man that can match up on lefties and be a valuable member of a staff, but the lack of a breaking ball would make him a non-traditional LOOGY.”

“I love that,” Boyd said. “I love it because I believed that I was much better than that. It’s always good to be aware of how people view your skills, but ultimately, your belief is going to carry how far you go.”

——

Previous “Old Scouting Reports Revisited” interviews can be found through these links: Cody Bellinger, Dylan Cease, Matt Chapman, Ian Happ, Jeff Hoffman, Matthew Liberatore.