Matt Canterino hadn't thrown live in months, and he could hardly contain his excitement when he turned up at the Twins' facility in Fort Myers, Fla., for a mini-camp in January.

"I had butterflies in my stomach," Canterino said Friday in a video call. "… It was super fun to be out there again, even if it just means throwing 16 simulated pitches to guys. It was a lot of fun. I definitely had to settle myself down after a little bit."

The 24-year-old pitching prospect has been getting as much out of this offseason as possible, with training camp set to officially start Monday, albeit without the 40-man roster because of the ongoing lockout. The Texas native missed out on most of last season, appearing in just six games while a lingering right elbow injury — his pitching arm — hampered him.

He initially hurt his arm in May and made a brief return in August before re-injuring it and sitting out the rest of the year. He took some time off to rest, had another MRI to confirm he didn't need surgery and then started the slow buildup for this year, having a fairly normal offseason.

"It was super relieving," Canterino said of finding out his injury wasn't serious. "My injury was just kind of nagging this entire time, and I never really had a feeling that anything was wrong, just in general."

Through his 23 innings pitched last season for High-A Cedar Rapids, Canterino managed a 0.78 ERA in his six starts, and he felt good about improvements made to his changeup. Now that he feels totally healed, he's hoping to reproduce those results throughout an entire season.

Since the Twins' took Canterino in the second round of the 2019 draft, he's had a stop-and-go start to his professional career. The pandemic canceled all minor-league ball in 2020, and his injuries sidelined him for much of last year. That has Twins player development director Alex Hassan and others thinking about the best way to manage their developing starters' workloads, as seen last season with Bailey Ober, who averaged around 70 pitches per outing.

"We've tried to move their report date up … to have a longer buildup," Hassan said. "… We're trying to take as responsible an approach as we can to those guys, but ultimately, we want to get them healthy and on the mound and recoup some of that work that they missed. It is a balance there, listening to the player and trying to monitor them in every way you can, from an assessment standpoint, from a strength standpoint, from a mobility standpoint, where they're at."

Petty's placement

Hassan is still mulling at which level 2021 first-round pick Chase Petty should start. The 18-year-old Floridian joined the Twins right out of high school and pitched in two rookie Florida Gulf Coast League games last season.

"That's still up in the air," Hassan said of Petty and fellow 2021 draftee Noah Miller playing for the Low-A Fort Myers Mussels. "We want to see how they come in and what type of shape they're in, and how they ultimately perform in spring training. There are arguments probably pro and against sending those guys out there right at the start of the year. But we're going to evaluate them, try to get as many eyes on them as possible and then see where they're at and if they're ready or not."

Petty said his velocity as a starter in high school averaged more around 94-97 mph, topping out at 99 mph.

"[My goals this year are] obviously to have the best season possible for myself and move up the ranks as much as I possibly can," Petty said. "Whether that be finishing the season in Low-A, High-A, wherever that may be. Just pushing myself to have the best season I possibly can."

Julien walks the walk

Edouard Julien was one of the most prolific walkers in the minors last season, taking a base on balls 50 times in 47 games with Fort Myers and 60 times in 65 games for Cedar Rapids.

"Sometimes I was getting caught up during the season of being too patient and letting good pitches go," Julien said. "I think that's one of my adjustments I'm trying to make this year to be more aggressive early and challenge, and when I get my pitch, to go for it. Whenever you go up a level, the pitching gets better, and the mistakes, they don't do it as much, and I'm aware of that."

But at least for the 22-year-old infielder's first half of the season in Florida, he also learned how to work with MLB's Automated Ball-Strike technology, which debuted in Low-A Southeast League in 2021 and is coming to some Triple-A parks this summer.

"It's always been part of my game to have a good eye and to swing at good pitches and not chase out of the strike zone. … I knew what I wanted to hit and what I didn't want to hit," Julien said. "… With that strike zone, it was the first time really playing with a strike zone that's consistent like that. With the umpires sometimes, they give calls to the pitcher or they give calls to you. So it's different. And with the automatic strike zone, you get the same thing every day. So I kind of liked it for me."