The Top 20 Minnesota Twins Player Assets of 2025: Part 2 (11-15)

[Nick Nelson]

Our countdown of the top 20 most indispensable players in the Twins organization, majors and minors, continues today as we cover our picks for 11 through 15.

Image courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff, David Richard, Matt Blewett-Imagn Images

You can get a full explanation for the parameters used to develop this list in Monday's intro post, but the short version is this. We're answering the question: Which current players in the organization are most indispensable to fulfilling the vision of building a champion? To rank Twins players and prospects, I account for age, contract, controllability, upside, and more. 

Here's where I landed with my selections for the list so far in Part 1 (16-20):

• 20. Edouard Julien, 2B
• 19. Simeon Woods Richardson, RHP
• 18. Marco Raya, RHP
• 17. José Miranda, 3B/1B
• 16. Carlos Correa, SS

And now, my choices for No. 11 through 15 in the rankings.

15. Ryan Jeffers, C
Age: 27
Controlled through: 2026
2024 Ranking: 5

On the one hand, Jeffers is coming off a huge letdown season. His wOBA dropped by more than 50 points, his defense steeply declined, and Jeffers was a total zero in September while the Twins spiraled out of contention. On the other hand, he was still an average-ish player overall and when it comes to the catching position ... Jeffers is pretty much all the Twins have. 

Christian Vázquez is in the last year of his deal and the front office is known to be shopping him aggressively. Jair Camargo has no catching experience in the majors. The system is otherwise very short on viable catching talent. Jeffers is one of those guys that probably has more value to the Twins than to other teams in trade, because without him the catching position is pretty dire in this organization. As much as he fell off in the second half I still think there's an all-around standout in there waiting to re-emerge.

14. Trevor Larnach, LF
Age: 27
Controlled through: 2027
2024 Ranking: NR

Larnach finally pulled it together last year. He arrived in the majors midway through April and turned himself into a lineup fixture, regularly batting second or third against righties while posting a 116 OPS+ in 400 plate appearances. Solid as his production was, Larnach's underlying peripherals were even better, and unlike most other Twins hitters he stepped up in the second half with an .811 post-break OPS. His improvement was primarily driven by a stunning reduction in strikeout rate, which the outfielder was able to slice nearly in half.

As a fairly limited defender who's mostly restricted to platoon matchups, Larnach's value ceiling is capped to an extent, but a prime-aged lefty slugger with three remaining years of control has plenty of luster. I'm expecting even bigger things from Larnach's bat in 2025 if he can stay competitive against offspeed.

13. Luke Keaschall, CF/2B
Age: 22
Controlled through: 2030+
2024 Ranking: NR

Keaschall's rise has been meteoric since joining the Twins as a second-round draft pick out of college in 2023. Following a fantastic pro debut, he took another step forward in 2024, slashing .303/.420/.483 in 102 games between High-A and Double-A while showcasing discipline, power and speed. The only thing that could slow him down was an injury – in August he underwent season-ending elbow surgery, with the timing intended to have him back and ready for the start of spring training.

Defensively, he's mostly been used at center field and second base so far. If there's a belief he could play either of those positions capably in the majors that would be quite handy for the Twins, given their depth questions at both, but this remains to be seen. Either way, Keaschall is a sneaky candidate to make a significant impact as a rookie in 2025.

12. Zebby Matthews, RHP
Age: 24
Controlled through: 2030+
2024 Ranking: NR

His 2024 season opened at Single-A and ended with nine starts for the Twins. Matthews carved through the minors, posting a 2.60 ERA and 114-to-7 (!) K/BB ratio over 97 innings between three levels to earn a big-league call-up in mid-August.

During his first exposure to MLB, Matthews struggled (6.69 ERA, 5.71 FIP, 11 HR in 37.2 IP) but he was not overwhelmed. The stuff continued to play as evidenced by a 43-to-11 K/BB ratio. He was rushed a bit due to Joe Ryan's injury, but Matthews should now have an opportunity to move along at his own pace as he works toward becoming an inexpensive long-term rotation fixture. If he doesn't ultimately end up panning as a starter Zebby has the makings of a surefire dominant reliever.

11. Jhoan Durán, RHP
Age: 26
Controlled through: 2027
2024 Ranking: 11

Speaking of pitchers who didn't pan as starters and turned into dominant relievers, Durán is entering his fourth season as a stalwart in the Twins bullpen, where he's been one of the top (radar) guns in the American League. His performance was pretty much on par in 2024, despite a small drop in velocity and some statistical noise leading to an unimpressive 3.64 ERA.

Now in arbitration, Durán is past his ultra-cheap days, and the clock has begun to tick down on free agency, which is why the Twins may be inclined to shop him this offseason. He'd have plenty of value on that front, but he also has plenty of value to Minnesota as co-leader of a potent late-inning bullpen mix. 

Check back tomorrow morning as we crack into the top 10 of our countdown. Feel free to voice your thoughts or disagreements with the rankings so far in the comments!

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[Doctor Gast]

Indispensable- someone we need to hang onto, that'll be difficult to replace. Correa should be closer to the top of the list. We are hurting when he's not in the lineup because he took more time off this last season. It doesn't distract from that. SWR is underrated he was pushed beyond his limits & he remained healthy. He's not flashy but he gets the job done. 

Jeffers is very dispensable. As a backup, he's an average-ish defensive & above-average offensive catcher. He gets worse and worse, the more he's used beyond that duty. Because of Falvey's failure to develop catching & obtaining a reasonable primary catcher, isn't a reason to think Jeffers is indispensable. Jeffers isn't or ever will be a primary catcher. We need a future primary catcher if we have any hope to compete. I've advocated trading him from the Garver/ Rortvedt days. Because of the lack of depth at catching, I'm afraid that'll be an excuse for extending Jeffers via Boras to an albatross of a contract worse than Dobnak's. When we finally wake up, we can't get rid of him. Trade him now while we still can get something for him. Use him as a trade chip to get a promising young MLB-ready catcher. Don't wait until Vazquez is gone & everything is in shabbles before we wake up. Jeffers need to be replaced. So like Julien he shouldn't be on the list.

[DJL44]

I don't get why Matthews would rate higher than Woods-Richardson. They're basically the same age but SWR has actually had MLB success.

[Fire Dan Gladden]

Matthews and Larnach both do not belong in this quadrant, they belong lower.  The Twins really don't yet know what they have with Matthews, considering how quickly they were forced to rush him to the majors.  His prospect value is not extremely high...

Larnach has been underwhelming until this past season.  His value is not high yet...

Neither of these two should be above Correa, SWR, or Jeffers.

[tony&rodney]

Always enjoy seeing these type of lists put together. 

Agree that Matthews was greeted rudely to MLB, but I'm high on the guy and he seems like a pitcher who will put what he experienced and learned to good use in developing his quiver of pitches. 

[Blyleven2011]

Sorry to say this list so far is way out of wack , but its only numbers ...

Correa on yesterday's list  ...

Matthews on today's list ahead of SWR  ...

There isn't much we know about our young players because they really haven't been in the league long enough to evaluate what they are capable of ( need 3 years to determine what type of player they will be ) ....

[jmlease1]

Larnach is probably a bit high for me; he did well last season despite the turf toe, but he's got almost 1000 ABs now in MLB and there's been a lot of stretches where he's struggled. Maybe he's figure out how to survive against off-speed pitches, but maybe not. If he's healthy then he should be a useful player; he's not a bad fielder.

Jeffers I might have higher. Catchers who can hit are really valuable and while he may not be able to hold up under a 125 game workload, he's still a solid backstop who can hit. So many catchers are just garbage at the plate, as either no contact or no power swingers that can't get on base enough and add nothing else on offense. Jeffers will take his walks and give you some pop and he's a really valuable player.

[tony&rodney]

17 minutes ago, Blyleven2011 said:

There isn't much we know about our young players because they really haven't been in the league long enough to evaluate what they are capable of ( need 3 years to determine what type of player they will be ) ....

While I don't  disagree with this notion of needing three years, that leaves out quite a few of the Twins team. All of Miranda, Julien, Lewis, Lee, Martin, Larnach, Wallner, and Keirsey Jr. have less than three years of experience from the position side. I can't remember .... was it 1500 plate appearances to know what you have in a player. 500 PA per season for 3 years seems reasonable for when one can have a strong idea on a player.

[Blyleven2011]

4 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

While I don't  disagree with this notion of needing three years, that leaves out quite a few of the Twins team. All of Miranda, Julien, Lewis, Lee, Martin, Larnach, Wallner, and Keirsey Jr. have less than three years of experience from the position side. I can't remember .... was it 1500 plate appearances to know what you have in a player. 500 PA per season for 3 years seems reasonable for when one can have a strong idea on a player.

The team is young and yes that is most of them  , are they major leagues or not , yes you need 3 years and 1500 PA  ...

arraez was an exception to the rule , I knew his first years he was a major leagues ....

[chpettit19]

Zebby being ahead of Correa doesn't make sense to me. Zebby, SWR, and the other handful of guys on that MLB/AAA bubble right now are all in the same boat to me. Because there's a whole group of them you have a better chance of finding one of them to pop. None of them are likely to be a #1 or 2 starter in my eyes so they're not as important as your starting SS. Correa was too low on this list, even with the foot problems the last 2 years. 

Jeffers is a tricky one. The pitchers have performed better with him behind the plate the last 2 years than with Vazquez which is the only defensive stat I care about for a catcher, especially when they're getting this even of play back there. And he's an above average hitter. They have no meaningful catching depth that any of us seem to be able to see anywhere in the system. Really hard to replace that guy. But he's not a star and goes ice cold for long stretches while not being a defensive stud so he's not overly vital or irreplaceable. He's important due to lack of other options. Which is not an ideal situation.

The others feel about right. Larnach seems to have found his stride and stayed healthy enough to perform all year. Let's hope for more health this year. They need top prospects to perform (every team does) so Keaschall is important. And pens, especially the back ends of them, are showing more and more how important they are in today's game so Duran is important.

[bean5302]

Larnach? I'll just link my other post on the other 15-20 topic. When it comes to Larnach, his ceiling is higher than it was, but that ceiling is still just a 2 WAR left fielder, and he's already arb eligible. Larnach's effort amounted to just 1.5 fWAR in 112 games last year. Given Larnach's lengthy injury history, and Baldelli's extreme platoon tendencies, it seems unlikely Larnach will see more than 135 games a year so that's going to limit his value as well.

His contributions are being over-sold again, just like they were a couple years ago when he and Alex Kirilloff were future perennial All Stars around here.

I think the rest of the list is probably justifiable.

https://twinsdaily.com/news-rumors/minnesota-twins/top-twins-players-2025-julien-miranda-correa/
 

Quote

Jenkins +58.4
Ober +54.1
Ryan +53.5
Lopez +47.8
Lewis +47.3
Rodriguez +45? Nobody is asking for him on BTV
Wallner +38.1
Lee +37.0
Jax +28.8
Correa +25.8
Duran +24.7
Keaschall +23.3
Larnach +22.6
Festa +19.5
SWR +19.1
Julien +16.5
Jeffers +16.2
Miranda +16.1
Matthews +12.9
Buxton +10.4

 

[rdehring]

Interesting and certainly can be differing opinions.  Personally, I like Larnach a lot and believe that had he not dealt with his foot injury much of the year his numbers would have been even better.

Also agree with others that Matthews may be higher than he should.  But where do you put a kid with his ride the last year or so?  After all, its your list Nick and I for one will just sit back and enjoy the read, thanks.

[Nick Nelson]

3 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

Jeffers is very dispensable. 

Who would they replace him with if he was gone? No one in the system. The catching market in free agency is a disaster. Finding a capable defensive backstop who can actually hit in a trade is very challenging.

I went back and forth on Jeffers for this reason. I originally actually had him higher but knocked him down a few spots at the last minute because it was hard to justify based on his performance. But scarcity is a HUGE factor with him. 

[nicksaviking]

52 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Zebby being ahead of Correa doesn't make sense to me. Zebby,

Yeah, if the Twins were to trade for Correa, I think they'd have to give up more than Matthews. They wouldn't get Correa+ for Matthews.

I guess the one argument to be made is that Correa's hypothetical landing spots are so much smaller as only about ten teams can afford him in today's game.

[Nick Nelson]

Is it controversial to suggest Zebby Matthews would have more value in a trade than SWR? I don't think so. I mean I really respect and appreciate what Woods Richardson did as a rookie but I don't realistically think it's gonna make front offices excited about his outlook. He's a contact-heavy fly ball pitcher with mediocre control. It's not a strong profile.

[DJL44]

1 hour ago, Nick Nelson said:

Is it controversial to suggest Zebby Matthews would have more value in a trade than SWR? I don't think so. I mean I really respect and appreciate what Woods Richardson did as a rookie but I don't realistically think it's gonna make front offices excited about his outlook. He's a contact-heavy fly ball pitcher with mediocre control. It's not a strong profile.

I would rather trade for SWR than Zebby. SWR clearly has the higher floor, showing he can be reasonably effective over the course of an entire season. Zebby got lit up in his debut and has a lot to work on. The ceiling might be similar for each, but SWR probably has more potential to add velocity (projectability).

[Doctor Gast]

24 minutes ago, Nick Nelson said:

Who would they replace him with if he was gone? No one in the system. The catching market in free agency is a disaster. Finding a capable defensive backstop who can actually hit in a trade is very challenging.

I went back and forth on Jeffers for this reason. I originally actually had him higher but knocked him down a few spots at the last minute because it was hard to justify based on his performance. But scarcity is a HUGE factor with him. 

Jeffers is a great backup catcher but he's not a primary catcher, going forward trying to force him there will be disastrous, As I said trading for a promising young defensive MLB-ready catcher should have been done a long time ago. If we can't develop them we have to trade for them, Longer we wait the worse it'll be. Jeffers will be too expensive us to extend & will be worthless if we wait until his last year & his performance w/o Vazquez won't help either. Catching isn't like DHing where only hitting matters, Defense is the top priority. CWS has 2- I've had my eye on Kyle Keel since his college days, Edgar Quero is a good defender but even better hitter. Rushing (LAD), Jefferson Quero (MIL), Harry Ford (SEA) Samuel Bassallo (BAL) are blocked. CO has 2 that I like- underrated (BH) Drew Romo & IMO the best potential to be elite is Cole Carrigg. There are others but these are the top of the list, Some won't come cheap others are reasonable to very reasonable. 

[Nick Nelson]

Was curious so I posted a twitter poll asking if people felt Zebby or SWR have higher trade value. With a couple hundred votes in, looks like Zebby is favored but not by a ton (57-43).

 

[Andrew Ratliff]

Anyone else on Da Funderbus?? I Think the kids got some real talent! 

[jmlease1]

17 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

Jeffers is a great backup catcher but he's not a primary catcher, going forward trying to force him there will be disastrous, As I said trading for a promising young defensive MLB-ready catcher should have been done a long time ago. If we can't develop them we have to trade for them, Longer we wait the worse it'll be. Jeffers will be too expensive us to extend & will be worthless if we wait until his last year & his performance w/o Vazquez won't help either. Catching isn't like DHing where only hitting matters, Defense is the top priority. CWS has 2- I've had my eye on Kyle Keel since his college days, Edgar Quero is a good defender but even better hitter. Rushing (LAD), Jefferson Quero (MIL), Harry Ford (SEA) Samuel Bassallo (BAL) are blocked. CO has 2 that I like- underrated (BH) Drew Romo & IMO the best potential to be elite is Cole Carrigg. There are others but these are the top of the list, Some won't come cheap others are reasonable to very reasonable. 

You act like Jeffers is a poor defender at catcher, which really isn't borne out by his play. Jeffers is probably best suited to more of a job share at catcher to keep him healthy and shouldn't be looked at to play 130+ games at catcher, but he certainly can be the primary, getting 90-100 games there. 

Look at someone like Ben Rortvedt, who is a quality defensive player at catcher (and a poor hitter). Who do you think TB would make their primary catcher if they had both players? Pretty sure Jeffers would get more time...and would be substantially more productive, just like he was in 2024.

the teams with the best success at catcher (Milwaukee, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Dodgers, KC, etc) all had catchers who could hit getting the majority of the time, rather than the defense-only guys. You just bump up on the ceiling too fast with guys like Rortvedt, who is a quality defender, but can't hit.

[Doctor Gast]

2 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

You act like Jeffers is a poor defender at catcher, which really isn't borne out by his play. Jeffers is probably best suited to more of a job share at catcher to keep him healthy and shouldn't be looked at to play 130+ games at catcher, but he certainly can be the primary, getting 90-100 games there. 

Look at someone like Ben Rortvedt, who is a quality defensive player at catcher (and a poor hitter). Who do you think TB would make their primary catcher if they had both players? Pretty sure Jeffers would get more time...and would be substantially more productive, just like he was in 2024.

the teams with the best success at catcher (Milwaukee, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Dodgers, KC, etc) all had catchers who could hit getting the majority of the time, rather than the defense-only guys. You just bump up on the ceiling too fast with guys like Rortvedt, who is a quality defender, but can't hit.

I'll state again Jeffers is a great backup catcher, at that duty, he's an above-average hitter & average-ish defensively. By nature, he's not that great defensively so he (to his credit) really has to work at it to get to that level. If put in a situation beyond the role of backup, from equal tandem where after some time he tires & his offense & especially defensively starts & continues to wane. To primary catcher where he catches almost every day over an extended amount of time like '22, where quickly his production fell off & his body couldn't take it & he landed on the IL. I'm all for keeping Jeffers in a weak-side tandem. But the image that the Twins has given Jeffers is that he's our primary catcher, & they have painted themselves in a corner by not developing or obtaining a very good primary catcher. Therefore Boras will demand top primary catcher dollars to extend Jeffers & Twins will blindly do that. That is what I'm against.

MIL is great at developing defense, they took a reject, Willian Contreras (who could hit but couldn't catch) & turned him into an elite catcher. PHI has no idea how to develop catching, they traded for Realmuto, as Realmuto declines so does PHI catching. Wilson Contreras was a better defensive catcher but on his last year of availability, he focused on his hitting, because people like to look at WAR & hitting is where you can raise your WAR not defense. In his FA he was one the top-ranked MLB catchers. STL was the winnest team in the 21st century. They picked up Contreras believing they'd continue their reign. They tanked- they blamed it on unstable pitching, poor catching, lack of leadership & chemistry. I never heard them say it but you can sum all that up as no Molina. Molina (the main reason for their legacy) is noted for his defense & everything that went with that like handling the pitchers, command & feel on the field not his offense. Wilson is a much better hitting & defensive catcher than Jeffers but now he's not catching.

 

[D.C Twins]

On 1/7/2025 at 7:30 PM, Andrew Ratliff said:

Anyone else on Da Funderbus?? I Think the kids got some real talent! 

You've been.....FUNDER-STRUCK!

[Fatbat]

If LK busts out as a Rookie this year. There are a couple guys that may get sent out via trade by the deadline.  Most of our top 20 assets has at least 3 seasons of team control. We are young and have a large window of playoff success ahead of us.