Besides Walker Jenkins, Who is the Twins' Top Prospect?

[Chembry]

22 hours ago, TopGunn#22 said:

If the timeline "WHEN" a player could make their MLB debut with the Twins is the primary consideration as to who should be the Twins #2 prospect behind Walker Jenkins, I'm on board with the guys being listed.  If the timeline is not the primary consideration, to me it's Tait if he stays at Catcher.  

Otherwise, my sneaky pick for #2 would be LH SP Dasan Hill.  So far, he doesn't have the injury bug of Connor Prielipp and I like his potential.  I have to admit I am VERY intrigued with the possibility of him in a future Twins rotation.  He kind of reminds me of Jim Merritt/Dave Boswell when they first came up from a youth/potential standpoint.   

Dasan Hill was also in consideration for Baseball America's top 100.  

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/20-mlb-prospects-who-just-missed-the-2026-top-100/

[rdehring]

10 hours ago, dxpavelka said:

Santana is NOT a really good comp.  By the time he was Prielipp's age he had four years in the big leagues and in that age 25 season won the first of those Cy Youngs.

My comment had nothing to do with age.  Merely stating that the Twins once had a guy who broke in working out of the bullpen before converting back to a starter.  Then mentioned he went on to be pretty good.  Age wasn't mentioned and had nothing to do with what I was trying to say.

[dxpavelka]

21 hours ago, rdehring said:

My comment had nothing to do with age.  Merely stating that the Twins once had a guy who broke in working out of the bullpen before converting back to a starter.  Then mentioned he went on to be pretty good.  Age wasn't mentioned and had nothing to do with what I was trying to say.

That's fine.  But the age difference takes away from any comp.

[tony&rodney]

If you have a mlb.com TV account you can watch milb.com (minor league games). At least one could the last several years and hopefully this is continued this year. MLB has a habit of shooting itself in the foot.

I think it will be interesting to watch how Tait develops as a catcher. He looked really rough last summer but players his age often improve dramatically when shown the tricks of the trade. Dasan Hill will be another guy to watch. The stuff looked good last summer but command and control is important. 

While I am hopeful that Walker Jenkins shows enough in Spring Training to be in the Opening Day Twins lineup, I'm not expecting that and the first guys called up are often in positions of need. Thus it is hard to identify a player that gets "best" prospect besides WJ. For example, does Andrew Morris make the roster? John Klein?

[bean5302]

Culpepper is #2 right now for me, but a distant #2.

For me, grading prospects is about ceiling, floor and projectability. It's very difficult to project low minors players who are not absolutely dominant because there are so many single flaws which can be exposed. I'm not a pro scout so I have to lean heavily on scouting reports which are fraught with personal biases on how a player looks or what big time MLB player a prospect resembles in the mind of the scout.

Lots of excitment around Gonzalez. Gabriel Gonzalez has a low ceiling in my opinion. He's not going to be a plus defender in the corners, he doesn't take walks so his OBP is capped, and he isn't going to be a plus power hitter. I love what he did last year to re-establish his status as a prospect worth note after a poor end to 2023 and an unimpressive 2024 season, but wRC+ 120 at AAA is league average at the MLB level (which is right where projection models place him wRC+ 89 to 100). I kind of view Gonzalez as mid-career Eddie Rosario right now. Gonzalez needs to improve his plate discipline dramatically or his speed/defense to raise his ceiling to be considered a top prospect IMHO.

[Greglw3]

On 1/22/2026 at 7:17 AM, bunsen82 said:

For me Gabriel Gonzalez is our #2 prospect.   He has the best hit tool currently of anyone in the Twins minor league system.  He had a .329/.395/.513 slash line across 3 levels (utterly ridiculous).   He does not play an elite position or have above average defense,  but that bat will play at the MLB level and will likely lead him to some all star appearances.    

If anyone was at Wichita in late July to early August - you had Jenkins, Culpepper and Gonzalez stacked in the lineup.   Some will say Culpepper struggled wore down a bit which is true.  But at that point Culpepper no longer had the protection of the other 2.  When those 3 were on together they were steamrolling teams.   Gonzalez showed he wasn't slowing down at AAA either,  although we do need to see a bit more power.  

 

I agree, for me Gabriel Gonzalez is the clear #2 prospect for the Twins. I think he’s a pure hitter who will put the ball in play, hit for a high average with moderate power on HR but possibly more on doubles!

[h2oface]

It looks like, once again, the Twins feel Tait is way better than the rest of the league does, as he is only the 8th best rated catcher in the new prospect ratings. It will take a much better catcher to ever make up for losing Duran, and at this point, it is unknown whether Tait will even make it to the show, and he is a long ways away right now.