Four Triple-A Players (Not Named Walker Jenkins) That Can Help the Twins

[Cody Christie]

Image courtesy of Rob Thompson, St. Paul Saints

The Minnesota Twins have plenty of questions to answer as they navigate the final weeks of the regular season. Some of those questions will be answered by players already on the major-league roster. Others could be answered by someone currently playing for the St. Paul Saints.

Walker Jenkins is the obvious name to watch. The top prospect has continued to make his case at Triple-A, and there is plenty of interest in when the Twins might decide he is ready for the next step. But Jenkins isn't the only player in Triple-A who could potentially help Minnesota during the stretch run.

Whether it's an injury, a matchup, a need for defensive versatility or simply a desire to add another option, the Twins have several players in St. Paul who could get the call. Here are four names worth watching.

OF Matt Wallner

Truthfully, it feels like Wallner's place in the organization's long-term plans has all but evaporated. That doesn't mean the Twins can't find a use for him this season.

Wallner recently set a new single-season home run record (23 homers, 135 wRC+) for the Saints, continuing to show the type of power that made him such an intriguing prospect in the first place. His ability to change a game with one swing remains valuable, even if his path to consistent playing time in Minnesota isn't particularly clear.

The Twins don't necessarily need another left-handed bat right now. That's one of the biggest obstacles standing in Wallner's way. Still, injuries have a way of changing roster needs quickly. If an outfielder or another left-handed hitter goes down, Wallner becomes an easy name to consider. He's already on the 40-man roster, which eliminates another potential hurdle.

Perhaps the Twins want to give Wallner one more opportunity to show that he can translate his power into consistent major-league production.

OF/1B Gabriel Gonzalez

Gonzalez's stock has taken a hit this season after he enjoyed a breakout 2025 campaign and was named Twins Daily's Minor League Hitter of the Year. His overall numbers haven't matched last year's production, but there are reasons to keep watching. Gonzalez owns a .753 OPS at Triple-A this season, which isn't overwhelming. However, his August performance has been much more encouraging. Through his first 12 games of the month, Gonzalez has posted a 1.054 OPS with four home runs.

Perhaps even more encouraging, he's walked six times compared to only three strikeouts during that stretch. The Twins could eventually need another right-handed bench option, and Gonzalez has the offensive upside to make that role interesting.

The August numbers don't erase the struggles from earlier in the season, but they do provide a reminder of why Gonzalez was once viewed as one of the organization's more promising young hitters. If he continues to produce, Minnesota could have an interesting decision to make.

UTL Ben Ross

Ross offers something the Twins could find particularly useful during a playoff push: defensive versatility. Like Gonzalez, Ross is a right-handed hitter. Unlike Gonzalez, however, Ross can provide the type of defensive flexibility that could allow the Twins to move him around the field and find favorable matchups.

And he's not simply surviving offensively. Ross has posted a .917 OPS for the season, making him one of the more productive hitters in the Saints' lineup. He's been particularly effective against left-handed pitching, where he owns a 1.003 OPS.

That combination could make Ross an intriguing bench option. A player who can cover multiple positions while providing a legitimate offensive threat against certain matchups can be extremely useful over the final month of a season.  The Twins don't necessarily need another everyday player. They could need someone who makes the roster more flexible. Ross has a chance to be that player.

RHP Marco Raya

The bullpen has been much better for Minnesota in recent weeks, but that doesn't mean the Twins can stop looking for reinforcements. At some point, every team needs to dip into its minor-league depth.

Raya's first season as a full-time reliever has been consistently inconsistent. There have been flashes of the pitcher who made him one of the organization's more interesting pitching prospects (25.6 K%), but the results haven't always been there (5.88 FIP).

He's also been less effective when asked to work multiple innings. That could actually help define his potential role if the Twins decide to call him up. Rather than asking Raya to be a multi-inning weapon, Minnesota could look to simplify his assignment. One inning. One appearance. Attack hitters. Let him use his stuff in shorter bursts.

That doesn't guarantee success, but the role could give Raya a better opportunity to succeed at the major-league level. And with the number of innings a bullpen has to absorb over the final weeks of a playoff race, another arm could become necessary sooner than expected.

Who Gets the Call?

The Twins don't have to make a move with any of these four players. That's part of what makes the situation interesting.

They have options in Triple-A, and each player offers something different. Wallner brings power and familiarity with the organization. Gonzalez has started to show signs of rediscovering his offensive stroke. Ross offers right-handed production and defensive flexibility. Raya could provide another arm if the bullpen needs reinforcements.

Then there's Jenkins, whose situation will continue to draw the most attention. The stretch run isn't just about the players currently on the roster. It's also about knowing which minor-league options can help when circumstances change. The Twins have several of those options in St. Paul.

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Will any of these players be added to the roster? Who else could help the Twins down the stretch? Leave a comment and start the discussion.

 

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[thelanges5]

The offense has scored 3.8 runs per game in the 2nd half (league average is 4.3)

Only 4 of their batters have an above average OPS+ in that time - Keasch, Lewis, Bell, Jeffers (Culpepper has looked good)

They need offensive help or the season is cooked. 

[Patzky]

Who should get sent packing..

Alex Jackson. He doesn't play enough to demonstrate his worth.  Alan Roden. He's not as bad as Larnach of late but he's also got options.  Kody Funderburk. Releasing Taylor Rogers would be just mean. Byron Buxton. Get well my guy, to the ten or sixty day medical office.

Who should get called up..

Walker Jenkins. Adds talent, cred, fan interest. Jack Anderson. Better than other options not named Marco Raya. Emma Rodriguez. It's time to see. Ben Ross. All purpose talent. 

Who will get called up.. Tristan Gray, Walker Jenkins, Gabby Gonzalez. Garrett Acton. 

[mikelink45]

Buxton going down again, Larnach in a prolonged slump, Roden mediocre, Kreidler offering little, Jackson offering nothing.  I think the Twins need a lot of help and watching Clark now with Detroit I am even more perplexed with the way the team ignores Walker Jenkins.

I would call up both Ross and Gonzales as well.  A team that can't stay up to 500 has a lot of parts that can be exchanged.

Raya has always been overrated for me and I do not seem him being a good addition. 

[twinfan]

I give the nod to Wallner. Ross is just another utility and we have 2-3 of those. Larnach has come back to normal but hopefully can find his touch again soon. Grey has ML experience but isn't as good as others. I don't expect to see Jenkins this season but you never know. But we need a RH bat.

[MinnInPa]

No Raya...Jenkins is only possibility that could provide any help..slight maybe to Gonzales

[stringer bell]

Acton and Merryweather have pitched well. 

[JD-TWINS]

1 hour ago, thelanges5 said:

The offense has scored 3.8 runs per game in the 2nd half (league average is 4.3)

Only 4 of their batters have an above average OPS+ in that time - Keasch, Lewis, Bell, Jeffers (Culpepper has looked good)

They need offensive help or the season is cooked. 

2 runs Tuesday …….. Agreed, offense and it’s lack of consistency has been the central issue with Wins/Losses.

[JD-TWINS]

24 minutes ago, twinfan said:

I give the nod to Wallner. Ross is just another utility and we have 2-3 of those. Larnach has come back to normal but hopefully can find his touch again soon. Grey has ML experience but isn't as good as others. I don't expect to see Jenkins this season but you never know. But we need a RH bat.

My assumption is that they don’t screw around waiting for a couple days to “see how Buxton feels”……….. when they get back to Minneapolis, Buxton goes on IL retroactive to today & Jenkins is up to play CF.

72% of pitchers are RH so I’m not too worried which side of the plate the guy hits from.

Last, Roden isn’t going to move the needle - right? Gonzalez or Wallner for Roden could be a shot in the arm - getting desperate!!

[The Great Hambino]

I'm hoping for Jenkins, but not holding my breath.  I think they're too concerned with working Jenkins around the current roster instead of just working the current roster around Jenkins.  But they gotta try something

I am completely unconcerned with the risk of anyone they call up sputtering and failing to provide the spark they need.  When the status quo isn't good enough, the potential reward that a call-up can provide outshines any associated downside by a mile.  Worst case, someone got their feet wet now and they have some experience to rely upon going into next season

[JADBP]

The his topic is kind of silly!  There is another topic saying Jenkins has been “Superhuman.”  There is no one else that makes any sense at all.  Period. Bring up the superhuman player.  
 

Really, you would rather bring up Wallner than Jenkins?  Geez…that makes zero sense.   Wallner is a dream that never comes true when you wake up.  

[umterp23]

It’s tiring to hear a reason for a call up is defensive flexibility to sit on the bench. No to Ross as we have 3 guys who fit that bill already. Defensive flexibility means your aren’t really good at any position. No to Ross, spring training he can fight for that one spot. We don’t need 4 guys with that ability.

Wallner to show what? Hit some bombs but is awful on defense. You benching Bell?

Raya and not sure who are you demoting at moment. Rogers, thank him for his time but he isn’t a leverage guy high or low.

gonzalez doesn’t move the needle enough for me.

Twins mgmt with a move to Gray would be another punch in the face for the fans, not to mention Jenkins. None of the guys on the team are center fielders with Buxton being injured for 2+ months now. Twins roster is bandaids and lipstick on a pig organization.

Jenkins or bust. No service time issue to worry about a hope for rookie of the year next year. Hope is Twins front office mindset. Play him now and it would prep him for next year full time. Don’t want to hear, well there maybe or will be some form of lockout. Maybe there won’t be and you get 140 games vs 162. No one has a crystal ball but deep down players wont like missing paychecks and owners well they won’t like missing write offs 

[Road trip]

Jenkins and EmRod are the semi-obvious candidates, plus there will be another pitcher added Sept 1... might be Raya.

Wallner immediately IF Bell would get hurt.  Otherwise I don't think he has a route to playing time.  He started hitting in AAA two months ago and didn't get called back so I don't think he will now either.  Look for him next year in KC/Cincy/Colorado/etc.   Or a 1% chance of somehow hitting 30 bombs for the Yankees...because that's how we roll.

Instead, of course, it'll be Gray... 

[DJL44]

Are they keeping Jenkins down as leverage to negotiate a pre-debut extension?

[bean5302]

I think Buxton to the IL, call up Jenkins. Option Roden, recall Emma.

[jmlease1]

Ross certainly makes more sense than Jackson? At least he can legit slide around and cover from some of our LH hitters. But putting out there that he's got a .917 OPS for the season is deceptive: he's only at .845 in AAA and juiced his season stats a little by annihilating AA pitching for a few weeks. The .845 OPS is less impressive in context, when the Saints team OPS is sitting at .833.

Even Alex Jackson had an .803 OPS in Saint Paul. Kreidler had an .889 OPS in Saint Paul this year. It's a bandbox and there's a lot of AAA pitching that is far below MLB standard.

[Patzky]

2 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

Buxton going down again, Larnach in a prolonged slump, Roden mediocre, Kreidler offering little, Jackson offering nothing.  I think the Twins need a lot of help and watching Clark now with Detroit I am even more perplexed with the way the team ignores Walker Jenkins.

I would call up both Ross and Gonzales as well.  A team that can't stay up to 500 has a lot of parts that can be exchanged.

Raya has always been overrated for me and I do not seem him being a good addition. 

I think Acton will be the guy but Jack Armstrong deserves it 

[HarmonK03]

2 hours ago, twinfan said:

But we need a RH bat.

We need talent and stop worrying about what side of the plate they stand on.

[LastOnePicked]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

Are they keeping Jenkins down as leverage to negotiate a pre-debut extension?

I don't think there's any grand plan or vision here. They believe in veterans, they believe in their "way," and suppressing service time is definitely seen as a bonus.

[Coach]

Not bringing up Jenkins is the definition of fear of success.

[Cris E]

2 hours ago, LastOnePicked said:

I don't think there's any grand plan or vision here. They believe in veterans, they believe in their "way," and suppressing service time is definitely seen as a bonus.

Culpepper is up and they've stayed with Keaschall as he worked his way around the field looking for a place to stand between at bats. The pitching is very young and would be even younger if Abel and Rojas and Festa and a herd of other guys could have stayed healthy.

The plan would be to only pick up vets that won't block actual prospects, play the kids that are ready and hope that injuries don't derail the development of the future. There have been no decent 1B candidates since Kiriloff left and no excess of hitting so they hired a DH in Bell. He's been pretty good, certainly no Joey Gallo. The OF situation has been made worse by injuries to the youngsters. ERod would have been called up months ago if he were available. Gabby G was up. Jenkins was not that good until August; this team has an OPS over .800 and he hasn't been above it for very long at all. 

There's enough going on with this roster that you don't need to make things up. Jackson? Roden? Rogers?  Jackson again?!?  

[HarmonK03]

1 hour ago, Cris E said:

The pitching is very young

They have six pitchers 30 or older, Funderburk has been up and down for a few years and is 29,  And one of our youngest starters is Bradley at 25, who is in his third, so is experienced.  And another starter will be back soon who is 30 probably replacing a younger starter.

I would not consider this staff that young.

[Cris E]

27 minutes ago, HarmonK03 said:

They have six pitchers 30 or older, Funderburk has been up and down for a few years and is 29,  And one of our youngest starters is Bradley at 25, who is in his third, so is experienced.  And another starter will be back soon who is 30 probably replacing a younger starter.

I would not consider this staff that young.

The pitching is young when compared to an assertion like "They believe in veterans."

They tried leading with a lot of young guys that broke down.  I know you can't count on players to just succeed when you promote them, but the number of kids that were given a shot and came up injured was amazingly high.  Morris, Mathews, Preilipp and Gomez made it, Festa and Abel and Rojas and Paredes tried and got hurt. That's a lot of very young players (not including Bradley) for a team that supposedly only plays veterans. And you know that if another couple kids had stayed well that another one or two names would have been pushed down the Morris path and fewer mid-season reclamation projects would have been engaged. 

[Cory Engelhardt]

I'm surprised you didn't list Emma. He's on the 40 and doesn't have minor league options next year.

I also like the idea of Ben Ross in some capacity.

I'd very much be open to sending Roden down, putting Buxton on the IL, DFA'ing (and hopefully getting through waivers again) Alex Jackson, and then bringing up Emma, Jenkins and Ross. To me that rounds out the roster nicer both on offense and defense, and Ross would bring everything to the table in terms of pinch running that Jackson provides. I mean, in the last week I've pinch ran as many times in a game as Jackson has.

The other players you listed, all of them I'd imagine are out of the organization before next season.

[bjorks]

I feel like the fact it's a debate is the best example of how flawed this roster has been constructed regardless of who you point the finger(s) at. With 30 some games left, at a minimum they're gonna have to go 20-10'ish to make up and hold ground IMO and anyone named Ross, Wallner, Gonzalez, etc. may help with 2-3 wins, but Jenkins and possibly ERod are the only realistic options who can make a big enough difference. 

On the other hand, not sure if MN has gone 20-10 at any point during the season so if the concern is lockout and development related, bring up whomever but don't try and sell fans on the fact they really want to try and go win the division or 3rd WC spot. Call it what it is. I'm hopeful for season next year and think if the Pohlads are forced to spend $40-$50 on payroll, I'm very optimistic on the future and would rather punt this year's opportunity. 

[Road trip]

2 hours ago, HarmonK03 said:

They have six pitchers 30 or older, Funderburk has been up and down for a few years and is 29,  And one of our youngest starters is Bradley at 25, who is in his third, so is experienced.  And another starter will be back soon who is 30 probably replacing a younger starter.

I would not consider this staff that young.

 

1 hour ago, Cris E said:

The pitching is young when compared to an assertion like "They believe in veterans."

They tried leading with a lot of young guys that broke down.  I know you can't count on players to just succeed when you promote them, but the number of kids that were given a shot and came up injured was amazingly high.  Morris, Mathews, Preilipp and Gomez made it, Festa and Abel and Rojas and Paredes tried and got hurt. That's a lot of very young players (not including Bradley) for a team that supposedly only plays veterans. And you know that if another couple kids had stayed well that another one or two names would have been pushed down the Morris path and fewer mid-season reclamation projects would have been engaged. 

You are both kinda correct, depending on what part of the season you are looking at.  Their pitching staff started the year relatively young, but injuries and trades led to adding Kremer (30), Nance (35), Minter (32), and Hoffman (33).  With pitching staffs "healthy" is a more important qualifier that "age" anyway, and health has been an issue amongst both young and old pitchers this year.

Now the position players... unforgivably old for a small spending franchise.  The Twins rank 10th in age of position players (see https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2026-misc.shtml), but the 9 teams above them and the 3 teams below them are big spenders, almost all of them with double to triple the Twins payroll.  The Tigers, Guardians, and White Sox have much younger squads, which doesn't bode well for future AL Central races.

[weitz41]

looking at Kreidler's numbers lately makes me really want to give Ross his 26-man spot. Clemens and Ross seem like a solid pair on bench guys for 2027.

Wallner. What do you do with a guy that really just can hit homers for you? DH? No room for that on this roster.

Raya. Some constancy would really help to figure out if he's part of the future or not.

Gadriel Gonzalez is one of the tougher ones on this list for me. The Twins need a better RH outfield option then Marin. But GG hasn't shown that in AAA this season. He's still young for AAA. maybe one more season there will do it?

 

[HarmonK03]

2 hours ago, Cris E said:

The pitching is young when compared to an assertion like "They believe in veterans."

They tried leading with a lot of young guys that broke down.  I know you can't count on players to just succeed when you promote them, but the number of kids that were given a shot and came up injured was amazingly high.  Morris, Mathews, Preilipp and Gomez made it, Festa and Abel and Rojas and Paredes tried and got hurt. That's a lot of very young players (not including Bradley) for a team that supposedly only plays veterans. And you know that if another couple kids had stayed well that another one or two names would have been pushed down the Morris path and fewer mid-season reclamation projects would have been engaged. 

You are forgetting they had Topa and Garcia and took longer than they should have moved off of them.  And they kept Eric Orze around because he had pitched in the majors and let him appear in 36 games.  They do prefer fringe veterans over the younger players, that has been shown time and again.

[DJL44]

25 minutes ago, weitz41 said:

looking at Kreidler's numbers lately makes me really want to give Ross his 26-man spot. Clemens and Ross seem like a solid pair on bench guys for 2027.

Ross is optionable AAA depth on the 40-man but off the 26-man roster. I would give him Tristan Gray’s roster spot but not Kreidler’s.

[HarmonK03]

26 minutes ago, weitz41 said:

looking at Kreidler's numbers lately makes me really want to give Ross his 26-man spot. Clemens and Ross seem like a solid pair on bench guys for 2027.

Wallner. What do you do with a guy that really just can hit homers for you? DH? No room for that on this roster.

Raya. Some constancy would really help to figure out if he's part of the future or not.

Gadriel Gonzalez is one of the tougher ones on this list for me. The Twins need a better RH outfield option then Marin. But GG hasn't shown that in AAA this season. He's still young for AAA. maybe one more season there will do it?

 

Agree on Ross over Kreidler, either way we have to upgrade the utility for next year.

I think Wallner is done with this organization and it is probably for the best for both side.  It just hasn't clicked here and I don't think they have much interest in him.  I personally hope he can have success but it will be somewhere else.

I want the 13 most talented position players on the team next year.  I don't care what of the plate they hit from.  What position they play should be the only consideration.  If there is somebody better GG or Martin I want them up here.  This RH outfield obsession over how many years has not led to success, let's find talent.