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

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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 ) ....

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.

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.

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 ....

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.

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).

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. 

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.

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.

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!

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.