The Top 20 Minnesota Twins Player Assets of 2025: Part 3 (6-10)

i still think Lee will be all star caliber player... Rodriguez..ive never seen play..But Wallner IMO just K's way too often..will never be a reliable 3,4,5 hitter.... unless he starts hitting .280 + , 30 = HR's and 100 RBI's . so sick of the K Kings coming thru the Twins system

I still have yet to see anyone on the list that is a greater organizational asset than Correa. And I'm not his greatest fan. But he is our top asset.

I'm nitpicking here, but even though Jax had a great season last year (and the year before that) I would switch him and Duran in the #10/#11 spots.  Duran is 3-years younger and he's the 104 mph beast that is our closer.  

I think Eddie Julien is a prime trade piece with Lee, Lewis and Keaschall all ahead of him and his value still decent.  One more poor season out of Julien and his value will crater.  With someone like Culpepper coming up behind him, Eeles and whoever we draft 1st, 2nd, 3rd in June, Julien to help us get a young catcher prospect or a LH arm for the rotation or bullpen.  I would be looking for a trade opportunity.

Payton Eeles is 15 months older than Brooks Lee. Lee will play this year as a 24 year old and Eeles at 25. Eeles has similar numbers at AAA to Lee but Payton has more speed. An argument could be made that Eeles was much better in his first go at AAA than Lee. I wonder whether Eeles will get a shot in the Twins organization. He only received a bus ticket (Lee was #1 draft choice, #8 overall for $5.675M) for a bonus so the team has nothing financial tied to him. I feel Lee is a really good prospect still and I do not question his potential, but somehow what Eeles did last year has been overlooked. Is a .419 OBP and a .919 OPS from a guy who doesn't strike out much, runs well, and seems to have a decent glove noteworthy? What is wrong with Eeles?

Wallner belongs. He's pretty underrated by a lot of Twins fans because the K's aren't pretty when he's missing the ball, but at the end of the day he's put up an OPS+ of 139 in MLB to date with a ton of power, which is awfully good production for a corner OF. His arm will play nicely in RF, and I'm hoping he might improve defensively a bit with it being his only home outside of some action at DH. He can actually cover a surprising amount of ground, so with a little improvement on his route-running he can get up around average as a fielder. His stats won't show his complete defensive impact (how exactly do you show the number of baserunners that didn't go for an additional base because they feared Wallner's arm?) but he will be appreciated by his pitchers even if he doesn't have a ton of OF assists.

The aesthetics may drive some Twins fans bonkers (I get it, 3K days are not fun to watch and he's never going to look particularly graceful in the field) but the dude can absolutely play and I'm looking forward to him getting 140 games in RF. He might not be Juan Soto (who is?) or Kyle Tucker but he certainly could be a borderline all-star if he gets a full season producing like he has over his MLB career to date. Very valuable to the Twins.

39 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

Payton Eeles is 15 months older than Brooks Lee. Lee will play this year as a 24 year old and Eeles at 25. Eeles has similar numbers at AAA to Lee but Payton has more speed. An argument could be made that Eeles was much better in his first go at AAA than Lee. I wonder whether Eeles will get a shot in the Twins organization. He only received a bus ticket (Lee was #1 draft choice, #8 overall for $5.675M) for a bonus so the team has nothing financial tied to him. I feel Lee is a really good prospect still and I do not question his potential, but somehow what Eeles did last year has been overlooked. Is a .419 OBP and a .919 OPS from a guy who doesn't strike out much, runs well, and seems to have a decent glove noteworthy? What is wrong with Eeles?

MiLB has Eeles as the Twins 30th best prospect, so I am guessing if the Twins were to trade him they wouldn't get much in return, thus the he isn't a great asset at the time of this writing. Doesn't mean he won't turn into a MLB player.

ON a different note, Having two relief pitchers in the top 11 is kind of strange to me and if they are truly that high and with the Twins payroll issues I am trading one of them for sure because a top 10 asset in any system should return multiple pieces.

22 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

Wallner belongs. He's pretty underrated by a lot of Twins fans because the K's aren't pretty when he's missing the ball, but at the end of the day he's put up an OPS+ of 139 in MLB to date with a ton of power, which is awfully good production for a corner OF. His arm will play nicely in RF, and I'm hoping he might improve defensively a bit with it being his only home outside of some action at DH. He can actually cover a surprising amount of ground, so with a little improvement on his route-running he can get up around average as a fielder. His stats won't show his complete defensive impact (how exactly do you show the number of baserunners that didn't go for an additional base because they feared Wallner's arm?) but he will be appreciated by his pitchers even if he doesn't have a ton of OF assists.

The aesthetics may drive some Twins fans bonkers (I get it, 3K days are not fun to watch and he's never going to look particularly graceful in the field) but the dude can absolutely play and I'm looking forward to him getting 140 games in RF. He might not be Juan Soto (who is?) or Kyle Tucker but he certainly could be a borderline all-star if he gets a full season producing like he has over his MLB career to date. Very valuable to the Twins.

I keep hearing fans thinking that Wallner and Martin will improve in the OF this year based on...idk. Wallner has spent thousands of innings in the OF in his life. He's not going to suddenly become better there. He is who we think he is. 

He's going to hit about 230 with great power and poor defense while striking out in a third of his plate appearances. He will be a fine player, anywhere in the 1.5 to 3.5 WAR territory depending on how (un)lucky he is with the balls he does put in play. Maybe even a 4 WAR player with a 250 average if his BABIP numbers stay in that lofty territory he's seen. 

Truth be told, he could easily be replacement level, looking like someone like Nolan Gorman with around a 220/300/420 line at the end of the year. Even though he had a 373 BABIP in his last 102 PAs, he still only hit 242/324/396 and his K rate remained very high. 

13 minutes ago, NYCTK said:

I keep hearing fans thinking that Wallner and Martin will improve in the OF this year based on...idk. Wallner has spent thousands of innings in the OF in his life. He's not going to suddenly become better there. He is who we think he is. 

He's going to hit about 230 with great power and poor defense while striking out in a third of his plate appearances. He will be a fine player, anywhere in the 1.5 to 3.5 WAR territory depending on how (un)lucky he is with the balls he does put in play. Maybe even a 4 WAR player with a 250 average if his BABIP numbers stay in that lofty territory he's seen. 

Truth be told, he could easily be replacement level, looking like someone like Nolan Gorman with around a 220/300/420 line at the end of the year. Even though he had a 373 BABIP in his last 102 PAs, he still only hit 242/324/396 and his K rate remained very high. 

It's not that unusual for players to improve defensively in the MLB career if they get settled into a position. I'm not expecting him to turn into Kepler out there, but it's not unreasonable for him to slide up a little more towards average. (Martin I really don't know about; I thought he'd be better in the OF from the jump and he has the tools for it, so his poor performance in the OF was bit surprising and very disappointing. Wallner wasn't awful, but looked tentative or unsure at times, and that's the sort of thing that can improve with reps IMHO)

Also, which is more likely: a player who has generated more than 2 bWAR in each of the past 2 seasons playing about half a season each in MLB generating 3-4 bWAR in 2025 at age 27, or sliding down to replacement level with a huge drop in power?

48 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

MiLB has Eeles as the Twins 30th best prospect, so I am guessing if the Twins were to trade him they wouldn't get much in return, thus the he isn't a great asset at the time of this writing. Doesn't mean he won't turn into a MLB player.

The MLB prospect list was from mid summer so not up to date. I was more asking if anyone had seen him play a few dozen times. I have only seen Eeles about half a dozen times and only via milb.com, thus my knowledge of him is extremely limited. It sure feels like most evaluators have not seen him either based on the nebulous or mere references to simply stats. Gleeman also referred to stats re: Eeles on his top 40 column today. It is totally understandable that few know anything about Eeles because he is out of indy ball, but I was curious whether there was someone who had gone to a dozen Saints games and watched Eeles play last summer.

I see Jax had no rating last year from 2023 , but now has a rating after the 2024 season , I find that odd  because he was very good in 2023 also ...

I also would switch larnach with wallner  , larnach improved his hitting  and should continue to get better , wallner got off to a terrible start in 2024 but put together a good not great season in 2024  ...

It's a interesting essay to say the least , and if a team wanted a really good shortstop  , Correa would fetch a good return from a high revenue team  able to take the salary off our books , I've seen it before , Boston would be my guess needing a shortstop and right handed bat , we'll see  ...

1 hour ago, tony&rodney said:

Payton Eeles is 15 months older than Brooks Lee. Lee will play this year as a 24 year old and Eeles at 25. Eeles has similar numbers at AAA to Lee but Payton has more speed. An argument could be made that Eeles was much better in his first go at AAA than Lee. I wonder whether Eeles will get a shot in the Twins organization. He only received a bus ticket (Lee was #1 draft choice, #8 overall for $5.675M) for a bonus so the team has nothing financial tied to him. I feel Lee is a really good prospect still and I do not question his potential, but somehow what Eeles did last year has been overlooked. Is a .419 OBP and a .919 OPS from a guy who doesn't strike out much, runs well, and seems to have a decent glove noteworthy? What is wrong with Eeles?

I don't think there's anything wrong with Eeles, but he's had relatively little exposure to professional and high level competition. he did great last season, and deserves a ton of credit for grinding his way into professional baseball moving all the way up to AAA already. I don't think it's crazy for the Twins to want to see him repeat it in AAA this season, maintaining those excellent hitting skills he put on display last season, showing he can keep making good hard contact consistently and seeing where his skills defensively land him.

I'm definitely rooting for him. And he's definitely going to be pushing guys like Brooks Lee, Ed Julien, etc to play well or find him pushing for a chance. because you know he's got the motivation and drive! He jumped 4 levels in 1 season, which is remarkable. but right now Eeles is still a bit of an uncertainty, having only 1 season in MLB-sponsored professional baseball going into his age-25 season.

1 hour ago, Nick Nelson said:

If you traded Correa, would you get much more than salary relief? I don't think so, which is why they are (hopefully) not seriously considering it. As others have noted, the field of teams that would even be capable of acquiring him is quite small. 

Is Correa the best player in the organization right now? Yes. Is he the most individually critical to their chances in 2025? Probably. But in this exercise I'm trying hard to weigh risk and downside as part of the equation. 

Through an asset evaluation lens: The Twins signed Correa for market value as a free agent in 2023. Since then, in the two years of the contract where he was supposed to be most valuable, he had his worst season ever and then missed half a season. Multiple major foot injuries have cast serious doubt on his durability going forward. He's suddenly now in his 30s and the ankle issue that cratered two contract agreements still looms. The same things apply to Buxton to some degree, and I say this as someone who is personally a huge fan of both players. They're just super volatile, high-risk assets at this moment.

I could be very wrong Nick, I often am, but I thought this exercise wasn't about trade value. I thought I perceived that in the opening article. When it comes down to it Correa actually in a way has zero trade value since he has a NTC in his contract. Thanks for posting.

Edit: Correa was never signed to be traded. His value isn't in trading him. His value is as an All Star caliber SS. Which after him we have no other in the organization.

3 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

right now Eeles is still a bit of an uncertainty, having only 1 season in MLB-sponsored professional baseball going into his age-25 season.

Thing is that he outplayed our top 6 guy, Brooks Lee, in a similar look at AAA. Again, he clearly needs to bust down the wall of getting a bus ticket versus actually being drafted and getting a big check. I just wanted to know or hear from someone who has seen him play in person at least 12-24 times for the Saints. 

On a different player but in a somewhat similar vein, I managed to watch about 50 plate appearances of Carson McCusker in the past year plus almost all of them with Wichita. I cannot recall a player making better adjustments in their approach and swing over a year. It sure seemed like McCusker was a better hitter every month than the previous month. I actually hope he gets a fair look as well, although his defensive skills are behind what one would wish.

26 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

It's not that unusual for players to improve defensively in the MLB career if they get settled into a position. I'm not expecting him to turn into Kepler out there, but it's not unreasonable for him to slide up a little more towards average. (Martin I really don't know about; I thought he'd be better in the OF from the jump and he has the tools for it, so his poor performance in the OF was bit surprising and very disappointing. Wallner wasn't awful, but looked tentative or unsure at times, and that's the sort of thing that can improve with reps IMHO)

Also, which is more likely: a player who has generated more than 2 bWAR in each of the past 2 seasons playing about half a season each in MLB generating 3-4 bWAR in 2025 at age 27, or sliding down to replacement level with a huge drop in power?

Wallner isn't a 23 year old that just moved off 3B where this sort of thinking has some merit. He's a 27 year old career corner outfielder. I'm just saying fans should stop hoping on miracles that aren't happening and instead accept that Matt Wallner is a poor defender whose arm makes up a bit of the slack. 

And I'd say it's as likely he reproduces his output in his last 100 PAs where he was about a 1.2 WAR player as it is for him to produce a 4 WAR season.

If I were in charge I would be shopping him, but that's because I've completely punted on the 2025 team looking forward to 2026 instead. And I think Wallner's value is at it's very apex right now. 

18 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

On a different player but in a somewhat similar vein, I managed to watch about 50 plate appearances of Carson McCusker in the past year plus almost all of them with Wichita. I cannot recall a player making better adjustments in their approach and swing over a year. It sure seemed like McCusker was a better hitter every month than the previous month. I actually hope he gets a fair look as well, although his defensive skills are behind what one would wish.

As a 26 year old minor league player he put up numbers required to continue his quest for the a sniff in the majors and that is about all. If the Twins solution to problems is 25 year old rookies or older they are in worse shape than I thought.

With that said I hope McCusker and Eeles make the majors, help the Twins (or really any team) and make fulfill their dream of making it and making themselves some money.

38 minutes ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

Overall I agree with your comments here except the bolded part.  He had his ankle issue in the minors several years ago and had it repaired.  Since then, he's not had one issue with it and the PF foot issues the last few years are totally unrelated.  The Giants and Mets were using it as a negotiation tactic to get his cost down.  When can we move on from this?  IMO, if the ankle problem has not reared its ugly head in many years, it probably won't in the future.

No, no, no.

There is zero evidence of that. If that were the case, the Giants or Mets would have been satisfied with his eventual contract signing. 

Giants: 13 year agreement

Mets: 12 year agreement 

Twins: settles for 6 years