The Athletic published my Minnesota Twins top 40 prospects list one week ago, so hopefully seven days was enough time to read all 7,000 words about Walker Jenkins, Emmanuel Rodriguez and the rest of a good farm system.
This is my 19th season ranking Twins prospects — Matt Garza was No. 1 on my first list, with Glen Perkins, Kevin Slowey, Pat Neshek and Alexi Casilla also in the top 10 — and it’s my favorite article to put together each year.
As a follow-up to last week’s piece, I thought it would be a good idea to have a prospect-focused mailbag, answering your questions about the Twins’ farm system, my rankings and the development of young players in general.
Note: Submitted questions have been edited for clarity and length.
Where would Brooks Lee and David Festa have ranked if they still had prospect eligibility? — Mario S.
MLB’s “rookie” status is based on having under 130 at-bats or 50 innings in the majors, which makes Brooks Lee (172 at-bats) and David Festa (64 1/3 innings) ineligible for my list, just barely. (I don’t abide by MLB’s additional service-time component of rookie/prospect eligibility because it’s silly.)
If they were eligible, my top six prospects would have looked like this:
1. Walker Jenkins
2. Emmanuel Rodriguez
3. Brooks Lee
4. David Festa
5. Luke Keaschall
6. Zebby Matthews
Lee ranked No. 2 last year and Festa held the No. 4 spot then as well, so no huge changes for either based on their first tastes of the majors.
Lee’s lower back problems and lack of hard-hit fastballs are worrisome, but he impressed defensively at multiple positions and made a ton of contact. I was already a big Festa believer last year and his rookie showing cemented my view that he’s capable of being a front-line starter with even slightly better control. They’re both very promising young players.
David Festa racks up a career-high nine strikeouts 🔥
MLB’s No. 87 prospect (@Twins) scatters two hits and two walks across five scoreless innings. pic.twitter.com/AhhauXye8N
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) August 6, 2024
Of the pitching prospects yet to debut, who will have the biggest impact on the 2025 season? — Perry L.
Festa is no longer a prospect and “yet to debut” rules out Matthews, so I’ll go with Andrew Morris (No. 5 on my list) or Connor Prielipp (No. 9).
They’re extremely different prospects on opposite ends of the floor/ceiling spectrum, but Morris should be ready to jump into the Twins’ rotation when midseason reinforcements are needed and Prielipp could quickly emerge as a late-inning reliever if his lengthy injury history leads to a bullpen move.
Rule 5 draft pick Eiberson Castellano (No. 22) is also a logical choice here, if only because there’s a realistic path for him to be on the Opening Day roster.
Where would recent addition Diego Cartaya have ranked? — Patrick K.
Two years ago at this time, Diego Cartaya was a consensus top-25 prospect, roughly equivalent in status to where Rodriguez ranks now. But his stock has plummeted following back-to-back seasons struggling against Double-A and Triple-A pitching, hitting a combined .205/.300/.371 with 230 strikeouts in 188 games to drop him out of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ plans.
Cartaya is a prime reminder that even very good prospects often don’t pan out, especially when they’ve yet to have high-minors success. However, Cartaya is still just 23 years old, and the Twins’ low cost to acquire him — rookie-ball pitcher Jose Vasquez and a spot on the 40-man roster that isn’t permanent — basically makes him a lottery ticket.
Catchers tend to develop much less linearly than other prospects because the physical skills required of the position are so different and the defensive focus can lead to late-blooming hitting ability. It’s not unreasonable to think Cartaya still has upside at 23 — he’s a solid defender with lots of raw power — but there’s no sense in clinging to what he looked like at 19 or 20.
My top 40 list was published two days before the Twins traded for Cartaya, but he would have slotted in the 25-30 range. He may end up as waiver-wire fodder or he may compete with No. 33 prospect Jair Camargo for third on the Twins’ catcher depth chart behind Ryan Jeffers and Christian Vázquez. And a Vázquez trade could shake everything up.
Stockpiling catcher depth is never a bad idea, particularly as Vázquez trade speculation swirls, but I’d be surprised if the Twins started the season with more than three catchers on the 40-man roster. They currently have four (Jeffers, Vázquez, Camargo and Cartaya), plus a fifth, Mickey Gasper, who is more of a first baseman with lots of minor-league catching experience.
GRAND SLAM AND TWO-HOMER GAME BY DIEGO CARTAYA!!! pic.twitter.com/0WYxbtlAaE
— Oklahoma City Comets (@okc_baseball) August 8, 2024
With no top first base prospects in the pipeline, could the Twins transition Jose Miranda there full time? — Brian V.
Teams often lack high-profile first base prospects because it’s the position where good-hitting prospects from elsewhere on the diamond end up when they slide down the defensive spectrum. Many of MLB’s best first basemen were not first base prospects, and the same is true in recent Twins history. For young hitters, it’s more likely to be a destination than a starting point.
Shortstop is basically the opposite. Every year across the league, there are lots of highly ranked shortstop prospects, because that’s where great young athletes tend to play, but the majority don’t get to the majors there. As they advance through the minors, a weeding-out process shifts many shortstops to center field, third base or second base, and sometimes even first base.
Jose Miranda is a perfect example. He was drafted as a shortstop in 2016, but soon slid to second base and third base in the low minors. By the time he reached Triple A, he was playing mostly third base. And now he sits atop the Twins’ first base depth chart, due to his defensive limitations and to their lack of other in-house options.
Almost all of the water has been drained from the free agent first baseman pool, so unless the Twins replace Carlos Santana by making a trade for an established first baseman, Miranda is seemingly the default answer.
How much do the Twins value/teach positional flexibility for prospects in the minors? — Gregory E.
A lot. Nearly every hitting prospect in my top 40 saw at least some time at multiple positions last season and many of them received substantial reps at multiple spots. There’s also a ton of behind-the-scenes work that takes place in the minors to develop fielding skills, so prospects are sometimes more experienced at a position than their game logs may suggest.
They want to prepare prospects for eventual major-league roles that could require moving around defensively and they also want to expose players to different positions to help determine where their skill set fits best. As noted in the preceding answer, not everyone is going to be a big-league shortstop or center fielder just because they played there at 18 or 21 or even 24.
Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa are rarities in that regard, and it’s possible Correa will be surrounded in this season’s Twins infield by former shortstop prospects Miranda, Lee and Royce Lewis. Similarly, if things go according to plan, it may not be long before Buxton is flanked in the Twins’ outfield by current center field prospects Jenkins and Rodriguez.
Which prospect in the middle of your top 40 is equally as likely to either be bumped up to the top 10 or fall off the list entirely next year? — Jack K.
Rookie-level prospects usually carry the highest variance, because they’re young and have very small performance samples, without track records of any kind versus full-season competition. I intentionally rank that type of prospect more conservatively than many lists, preferring to wait an extra year to cast fuller judgment, if possible.
Examples of that mindset in the middle of this year’s top 40 include Yasser Mercedes (No. 14), Eduardo Beltre (No. 18), Daiber De Los Santos (No. 19) and Dameury Pena (No. 30), as well as various 2024 draft picks.
Why didn’t Adrian Bohorquez make the top 40? — Kyle G.
Adrian Bohorquez was in consideration for one of the final few spots, but I generally shy away from including pitchers with such minimal experience above rookie ball. Bohorquez has thrown just 77 career innings in two pro seasons, with only 16 1/3 of them coming outside of rookie-level competition, and he walked 10 batters in those 16 1/3 frames.
Of the 15 pitchers in my top 40, only 19-year-old left-hander Dasan Hill has logged fewer than 50 innings beyond rookie ball, and he’s a 2024 draft pick who has yet to make his pro debut. I’ve seen a lot of promising rookie-ball pitchers come and go in 19 years of doing this, and save for rare exceptions, I’m most comfortable waiting for them to at least pass the Low-A test.
I should also note: In the process of compiling my list, I talked to more than a dozen major-league prospect evaluators, inside and outside of the Twins organization, and the consensus on Bohorquez is that he still has plenty of question marks attached to what is undeniably a very live arm. He has the mid-90s velocity and upside to be in next year’s top 20 … if 2025 goes well.
Some Adrian Bohorquez whiffs. pic.twitter.com/ZbYb35aaYH
— TFTwins (@TFTwins) August 3, 2024
Why didn’t Yunior Severino make the top 40? — Eric W.
Yunior Severino cracked my top 40 each of the previous five years, but his stock has faded enough that he’s more organizational depth at this point.
Severino is now a 25-year-old first baseman/designated hitter who’s batted .249/.337/.450 with 210 strikeouts in 164 games for Triple-A St. Paul, which equates to a mediocre 101 wRC+ in the hitter-friendly International League. He spent all of last season on the 40-man roster without being called up and was removed from it in November, passing through waivers unclaimed.
Severino is a switch hitter with power, so there’s certainly a chance he can find a big-league niche eventually, but it seems pretty clear he’s not part of the Twins’ plans, and none of the other 29 teams felt he was worth a 40-man roster spot and the $20,000 waiver claim fee. Given his fielding limitations, Severino likely needs to be a lot better than an average Triple-A hitter.
Signing independent league players hasn’t contributed much value to the major-league team (yet). Are the Twins spending resources in the wrong place or is this a competitive advantage? — John P.
“Resources” are relative, and in this case the investment required to scout and sign a handful of independent league standouts each year is a rounding error within the Twins’ overall budget. And keep in mind players signed out of indy ball were either undrafted or got cut by their original team. Like any prospect, they need time to develop, but also often have limited upside.
Beyond that, Payton Eeles (No. 26) and Carson McCusker (No. 38), the two indy ball signings in my top 40, have both advanced quickly. Eeles reached Triple A just two months after being signed and McCusker got there for his 145th game. Think of players from indy ball as simply being very late-round picks. It’ll keep expectations in check and put results in better context.
Are there any Twins not currently considered top-100 prospects who could be by the end of the season? — Dan B.
Absolutely. In fact, the nature of prospect lists and big-league graduations makes it likely at least one Twins prospect will gain top-100 status in most seasons. Last season, it was Festa, Keaschall and Matthews.
Last year’s first-round pick, Kaelen Culpepper (No. 7), is probably the best bet to do so among hitters, with Brandon Winokur (No. 11) as another high-upside possibility. For pitchers, I’ll highlight the two highest-ceiling arms in the system, Charlee Soto (No. 6) and Prielipp (No. 9), as top-100 talents.
GO DEEPER
Twins top 40 prospects for 2025, led by Walker Jenkins and Emmanuel Rodriguez
(Photo of David Festa: Jaiden Tripi / Getty Images)
