Twins Prospect Retrospective: OF DaShawn Keirsey, Jr

On Sept. 1, when MLB rosters could be expanded from 26 to 28, the Minnesota Twins called up RHP Diego Castillo and Utilityman Michael Helman. Castillo pitched once and was optioned to make room for Louie Varland. 

We were all excited for Michael Helman to finally get this opportunity after overcoming several injuries.

At the same time, I noted my disappointment for outfielder DaShawn Keirsey. 

But here we are, just days later, and Keirsey has received The Call. He will be joining the Twins this morning in Tampa and then head with the team to Kansas City. 

Tools and Skills
Normally a Prospect Retrospective would start with a player’s background and what brought him to the big leagues. However, I want to start with what skills DaShawn Keirsey possesses and how they can help the Twins. 

Keirsey’s best tools are his speed and his defense. No one in the organization, with the possible exception of a healthy Will Holland, is faster than Keirsey. Obviously that speed helps him on defense. Keirsey has spent a lot of time at all three outfield positions over the past couple of years, but he is at his best manning center field. 

He throws left-handed, and I’d place his arm at average or slightly above average. However, he generally has a very accurate arm. 

Offensively, when he has been healthy, he has performed. In the minor leagues, he has been a top of the order hitter, though in some lineups with the Saints he has hit third or fourth. A quick look at his 2024 numbers shows that he does a very nice job filling out the stat line. In 103 games with the Saints, he has hit .292/.362/.477 (839) with 20 doubles, seven triples, and 14 home runs. He drove in 75 runs and scored 69 runs. On the bases, he was 36-for-43 in stolen base attempts. 

Keirsey bats left-handed. This season, he has walked in 9.7% of his plate appearances and struck out 23.0% of the time. That has been pretty consistent the past three seasons which have been spent in Double-A and Triple-A. 

Over the past three seasons, he has been really good at using the entire field. He pulls the ball about 36% of the time, hits the ball to center about 26% of the time, and he hits the ball the other way about 38% of the time. 

As for power, the 27-year-old Keirsey is listed at 6-1, 195 pounds. He is fast and looks fairly thin. However, he is strong and does have the ability to drive the ball, mostly to the gaps, but he does have more power than you think. That said, a full season might yield 12-15 home runs in the big leagues. 

So how can he help the Twins down the stretch? It’s easy to say that he can be a speed and defense guy, a pinch-runner and defensive replacement. And he certainly can do that. However, with his defense in center and with the offense that he has posted, he can fit a center field platoon with Austin Martin or someone else in center field. Really all the things that you would say that Michael Helman can do, DaShawn Keirsey can do, just left-handed. 

So why haven’t we seen him in the big leagues to this point? It’s all about opportunity. And I know that sounds a little cliche, but it’s also true. He wasn’t added to the 40-man roster last November, and he went unpicked in the Rule 5 draft. He bats left handed. So do Max Kepler, Alex Kirilloff, Trevor Larnach, and Matt Wallner, and All Star Willi Castro is a switch hitter. The club has paid Byron Buxton, and they acquired Manuel Margot before the season started to provide right-handed bats. When Buxton got hurt, the team turned to Austin Martin. When Manuel Margot got hurt last week, they turned to Michael Helman. 

What can DaShawn Keirsey be long-term for the Twins (or other teams)? I feel like saying that he would fit the “fourth outfielder” definition is almost limiting. In the right situation with the right organization, he could get an extended look and be a 130 game guy. In the Twins organization, as it is right now, he really fills out the skill set needed to succeed in that role. And, with Rocco Baldelli at the helm, he does a nice job of keeping his bench players fresh. 

Max Kepler is a free agent after the season. Alex Kirilloff’s prospects in the Twins organization are uncertain. We’d like to think that Larnach and Wallner can be the team’s corner outfield for the next decade, and Buxton has another five years on his contract extension. So with the Twins, Keirsey (and Martin and Helman, etc.) can fill platoon roles and part time gigs. 

And with his background and story and injury history, and probably his fair share of doubters, any role in the big leagues probably sounds really good to Keirsey, and his family. 

The Background 
I’m going to keep this fairly short. Keirsey has been on a couple of podcasts with me that I will include in this article. In the Twins Spotlight episode, we talked for a good 45 minutes about his background and goals and such. In mid-2023, when he was still in Wichita, I wrote an article calling him the Twins most underrated prospect. With the article, we had a quick 20 minute interview at that time to talk about his improvements and such. You’ll certainly want to watch those. 

The Twins 2018 draft has been a solid one to this point. Trevor Larnach was the team’s top pick out of Oregon State. In the second round, they selected catcher Ryan Jeffers from UNCW. They selected Cole Sands out of Florida State in the fifth round, and Josh Winder out of Virginia Military Institute in the seventh round. Lefty Kody Funderburk was their 15th round pick out of Dallas Baptist. Michael Helman was the team’s 11th round pick out of Texas A&M. Others still in the organization yet to debut are C/1B Chris Williams who is the Home Run King in St. Paul. He was the team’s 8th round pick that year from Clemson. Finally, RHP Regi Grace was the team’s 10th round pick out of high school in Mississippi. 

The Twins didn’t have a third-round pick that year after signing veteran Josh Donaldson to a nine-digit contract that offseason. In the fourth round, they selected DaShawn Keirsey, Jr., out of the University of Utah.

Born and raised in San Diego, California, Keirsey attended Helix Charter School. You might have heard of some of their alumni. 

• Football: Reggie Bush, Alex Smith and literally a dozen more. . 
• Basketball: Bill Walton graduated in 1970.
• Actor: Dennis Hopper graduated in 1954.
• Twins fans may remember that long-time prospect Jake Reed (5th round, 2014) went to Helix before heading to play baseball at the University of Oregon. 

At Helix, Keirsey was an all-league and all-county wide receiver in football. However, it was on the baseball diamond that his future would be. 

After high school, he went to the University of Utah where he was first-team All-Pac 12 and a Freshman All American. He played in 54 games and hit .293/.349/.358 (.707( with nine doubles and 11 steals.  

As a sophomore, he played in 50 games and hit .327/.388/.461 (.848) with 10 doubles, five triples, and three home runs.  However, in a late-May home game, Keirsey was in center field when a ball was hit over his head. 

The next spring, Keirsey told the Salt Lake Tribune, “At Smith’s Ballpark, center field is 420 [feet]. You don’t really, especially in games, see people hit the ball over the center field wall at this level. I just remember thinking, with the trajectory of the ball, I thought it was going to have a chance. In the back of my mind, I knew I was going to collide with the wall some way, but I thought it was going to be like a jump into the wall. I didn’t think it would be, obviously, the way it happened.” 

He hit the wall. The wall did not move. Keirsey was on the ground for 30 minutes before being taken off in an ambulance. The diagnosis? Keirsey had a dislocated hip and a fractured hip. Instead of playing in a top college wood bat league, or even just doing things on the southern California beaches he had his whole life. Instead, he was working on things like being able to walk again and swinging a bat without it hurting. 

When you see how bad the injury was, it’s incredible to find out that he was ready on Opening Day of 2018. And not only was he simply able to play, he contributed huge offensive numbers. In 50 games, he hit .386/.440/.609 (1.049) with 23 doubles, five triples and four home runs. 

The Twins drafted him in the fourth round and were very excited about his athleticism and upside. He went to Elizabethton and hit .301 in 26 games there. 

In 2019, he went to Cedar Rapids, but missed so much time with leg injuries. He played in just 36 games. Especially with the completely lost season of 2020, it had to be frustrating. He went back to the Kernels in 2021 and was limited to just 45 games with more leg injuries. He hit just .199, but he did have four doubles, four triples and seven home runs. He also stole 10 bases.  

Since 2022, Keirsey has been relatively healthy. That season, he played 121 games in Wichita. He hit .271/.329/.395 (.724) with 26 doubles, three triples and seven homers. He also stole 42 bases in 49 attempts. 

He returned to the Wind Surge in 2023. In 91 games, he hit .305/.363/.488 (.850) with 17 doubles, five triples, and 13 homers. He finished the season in St. Paul where he hit .264/.375/.364 (.739) with a double, three triples, and two homers. Combined, he had 39 steals in 44 attempts. 

There was some concern that Keirsey might be lost in the Rule 5 draft last year, but he went unselected. This offseason, Keirsey would have become a free agent had he not been added to the Twins 40-man roster. He could have stayed in the organization, but I certainly wouldn’t have blamed him had he gone elsewhere.

How He Got His Shot
As previously noted, Keirsey wasn't the team's first choice when rosters expanded. He wasn't even the second. Finally, though, with Kepler hitting the injured list, the door is open for him. Presumably, since Byron Buxton is also being reevaluated after feeling discomfort during his latest rehab appearance, Keirsey is especially welcome as a solid defensive center fielder, but his immediate value is in replacing Kepler on the roster. That might mean only sparing starts, but he does round out the outfield defense nicely, especially in center and against right-handed pitchers.

For much, much more Twins Daily content on DaShawn Keirsey, click here to see articles in which he has been tagged. There are a full four pages of articles linked.