Rosario’s strengths are tantalizing, but the weaknesses are terrifying. This is a player with impressive offensive gifts that he continues to hone. There’s also a lot of swing-and-miss, though, and he’s one of the worst defensive outfielders I’ve seen come through the Twins system.

After a 2023 season in which Rosario was named Midwest League MVP and won the Arizona Fall League home run derby, it might be easy to view 2024 as a step back. He missed a good chunk of time due to an elbow injury, which stings, but there were some positives from when he was on the field.

While many of Rosario’s 2023 Midwest League champion teammates fell flat on their faces making the big leap up to Double-A, he held his own. This was Rosario’s age-21 season, and 93% of his plate appearances were against pitchers older (and you’d figure more developed) than him. Despite those challenges, he slugged comfortably above the average in the Texas League (Rosario had a .405 slugging percentage with Wichita; the league average was .374).

With the jump to Double-A came a small increase in strikeouts (0.8% increase) and a more significant dip in walks (3.5% decrease). And while the power was solid, it’s not like Rosario’s overall line of .235/.321/.405 really jumps off the page.

In the field, Rosario struggles to track balls and make adjustments. To be fair, it seems he did take steps forward in 2024, and the Twins managed to help Matt Wallner overcome similar issues along his journey to the majors. Rosario will likely never be a plus defender, but there’s hope some of these rough edges may be smoothed out. And there’s no questioning the arm. He has a cannon.

Rosario comes in at No. 13 in our rankings after being placed in the No. 12 spot on last offseason’s list. That seems fitting, as there isn’t much that happened in 2024 to really change his prospect stock one way or the other.