Will the Twins Have Two Top-5 National Prospects by 2025?

In a perfect (for TC) world Lee and Rodriguez are ripping MLB up in '24 along with Julien, Kirilloff, Lewis, and Wallner.  My baseball dream.

45 minutes ago, Parfigliano said:

In a perfect (for TC) world Lee and Rodriguez are ripping MLB up in '24 along with Julien, Kirilloff, Lewis, and Wallner.  My baseball dream.

Possible, E-Rod is quite the longshot though.  Do they all have to be on the same team?

These prospect list rankings are interesting and they can be as varied as every evaluator will be slightly different in what they value.  The end game is the same though, how many can you develop to the big club and there are only so many slots.  Like everything else in baseball, the hindsight is the only true evaluation but these discussions are fun. 

Obviously the Orioles are going to be close to the top because so many of their prospects look like they will be impact players in the majors.  That adds up, but if the Twins get the same number of impact players out of their system which was was better?  Julien wasn't exactly a hot prospect until last week, but he can be an impact player.  A Julien gets no attention in the Orioles system and probably doesn't get the same development chance being behind so many guys. 

The Twins and their good drafting fortune the last two years could have 7-8 major contributors from the farm system in no time.  There won't be room for everyone but 2026 could easily feature Lee, Lewis, Jenkins, E-Rod, Kirilloff, Ober, Varland and Buxton as drafted successes.  Insert one of Wallner, Larnach, Miranda, Julien etc as you see fit.  I would also count Duran, Martin, SWR etc if they make it as farm system successes as they were prospect trades.

These ranks are interesting but ultimately mean very little.  The money is made on picking the right ones to keep and developing them once you have them in the building.  Developing an 18th round pick into something that can be traded for a legit starting pitcher is a huge win. 

I don't know getting to top 5 on a top 100 list is really hard to do.  I am not sure Lee would ever even make it there as the player has to be tooled up and considered special to make top 5.  Even Jenkins who has the best chance to make sense at a top 5 candidate would have a hard time as 4 players from his own draft were selected ahead of him and they all are doing just as well or better than he is right now.  I just don't see one let alone two guys making it to top 5 status.  Maybe top 10 or 20 but top 5 is tough to crack IMO.

That being said top 100 rankings are fun and a way to identify top players but not the be all end all for elite players.  Arraez is a good example of that.  Can't get too caught up in farm rankings as rating players is so subjective.  It feels like the Twins have been good at getting the most out of lower drafted players but have had issues finding elite players that work out.  It feels like the current farm is light on those types of players which is why the Twins are middle of the pack.  Hopefully guys like Winokur or Soto or De Andrade or some of those International signings find a way to excel beyond expectation's and move up into those top 100 lists. I am not worried about top 5 just getting elite talent to the MLB club.

49 minutes ago, Trov said:

Keep in mind 3 of the guys drafted ahead of Jenkins are college guys, of which they all will likely lose their prospect status before Jenkins even makes Majors, unless Jenkins just goes ham next year.  Skene was mentioned if needed could have just went right to majors, only reason he will be held back is that Pirates may want to control him longer.  

That is the thing with rankings too is as guys fall off others move up, and sometimes the top whatever are a lot weaker top whatever because the top say 5 to 10 all moved off the list, so a guy that was say top 20 now may be a top 10 but did nothing to move up other than no get worse. 

I do agree that those college bats are likely to move quickly to the majors as they both look like generational bats at this point. As you said Skenes can probably play in MLB right now but likely slow played to some degree to add innings and make sure he is ready for a starters load.

Still, you also have to keep in mind that 2022 had a lot of high drafted high school players in Jones, Holliday, Green, Johnson, Collier and Williams.  Also Next year will have other players up for top 5.  Not saying Jenkins can't be one of the best 5 just that it is really hard to do as those spots are given to elite talents so performance is key to get into and stay in the top 5. 

You never know when a relatively unknown international player is going to breakout and move up ala Chourio or Salas.  It takes a lot to be top 5 but again I will agree unless super young,  guys that are in those spots generally don't stay long as they are valuable assets at the MLB level as well.

I would be a little surprised if the Twins had two top 5 prospects any time soon, but I’m not sure I really care about it much.  If you knew those guys would turn into Mike Trout, by all means I would love to have them, but they also sometimes turn into Miguel Sano (ineffective) and Byron Buxton (injured, a lot).  I think it is a better option to have many more players in the top 100 because there is not some great chasm of ability levels between #5 and #50 or #100.  Given the choice of two players in the top five and 10 players all ranked between 80 and 100, I would gladly take the latter.  Many more chances at someone (or multiple someone’s) being really great. 

1 hour ago, Rod Carews Birthday said:

I would be a little surprised if the Twins had two top 5 prospects any time soon, but I’m not sure I really care about it much.  If you knew those guys would turn into Mike Trout, by all means I would love to have them, but they also sometimes turn into Miguel Sano (ineffective) and Byron Buxton (injured, a lot).  I think it is a better option to have many more players in the top 100 because there is not some great chasm of ability levels between #5 and #50 or #100.  Given the choice of two players in the top five and 10 players all ranked between 80 and 100, I would gladly take the latter.  Many more chances at someone (or multiple someone’s) being really great. 

Exactly!  Rankings are just fuel for debate.  I would rather see St. Paul and Wichita win their leagues' titles by large margins every year.

6 hours ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

So are you saying you prefer the idea of having a AA and AAA team full of older non-prospects and winning, then having a bunch of stud young guys and not winning as much?

Never said that or even thought that.  I just said that I would prefer the farm teams be very good over having some prospects highly ranked by some "experts".