Danchat

Larnach is a stud. He has the potential to have the discipline of Arraez combined with the power of Kepler. I expect him to start in AAA and pound the door down by the summer. He's one of very few prospects who would legitimately shock me if he ended up being a bust.

At least Shoemaker is a $2M lottery ticket, whilst Bailey was a $7M one.

There was quite an uproar here when Buxton wasn’t called up in late 2018, which caused the Twins to gain an extra year of control. That’s the only one that comes to mind.

Gibaut was DFA’d and went unclaimed for Shoemaker’s spot. The Twins are getting good at claiming guys and then sneaking them through waivers later on... 3/4 of their claims this off-season have already been DFAd.

He's pitched a single game at AA... Usually the jump between A+ to AA is considering the biggest in the minors, so I would think he needs to spend some substantial time there before getting a crack at the big leagues. If you did call him up, I'd expect to see what Berrios/Gibson/May did in their first stretch of starters - not because he's a bad pitcher, but because he simply isn't ready yet.

Last year the plan was "let's load up on players with prior playoff experience"... which I thought was a good premise, but it certainly didn't pan out. Hopefully this year's plan will lead to finally breaking the 18 game streak. Perhaps we'll see a Trade Deadline acquisition or two when the time comes.

I'd put him more in the 12/14 prospect ranks because of how far a ways he has to go. I would rather rank someone like Brent Rooker, who is basically MLB ready but doesn't have Cavaco's ceiling, higher simply because the odds of him contributing in the majors combined with how well he should do is higher. Cavaco might be a good 3B ready to take over in the 2025 season... if he makes it through the minors. I'd just prefer to rank him like one of the international prospects like Urbina, who are also massive question marks with tons of potential.

Right, but then once Polanco is at SS, you have no players on the team who can backup him up at SS, not to mention that Arraez is the primary backup 3B and he'd probably be a bottom-tier fielder there. I could see them going with a glove-first SS/3B on the bench, if Gordon can't be that guy.

I hope so, or else we're going to be seeing Tzu-Wei Lin or JT Riddle on the 26 man roster, and that won't be ideal. I like Blankenhorn's bat, but he won't be playing SS in the majors.

Dobnak was pretty good for an extended period last year. I wouldn't mind him starting another 10-15 games if needed. Duran is definitely closer, but I don't think he will be an option for the first half of the year. I think Balazovic is still a ways out and won't be close to making the team in 2021. At this point, I think Griffin Jax and Charlie Barnes are the next guys up after Smeltzer/Thorpe. Not ideal...

Twitter must know his nickname is Big Sexy!

Yeah, I think they're done. They spent more money than I (and I'm sure many others) expected, so I'm happy with the offseason they've had. Getting Cruz back, adding Simmons to the infield, and getting Colome for cheap were quality moves. I just would have preferred not throwing $10M at Happ & Robles, and instead made a trade for a starter and retain Wisler for $1M.

I'd much rather have somebody like Quintana or Paxton instead of Happ, as they signed at similar prices. Dobnak/Shoemaker are fine for the back end of the rotation. I would like better options than Thorpe/Smeltzer, but we are talking about the #8/9 spots.

I am hoping they will add another veteran starter to this list... I don't love the depth of the rotation at the moment. Charlie Barnes is going to be starting games in 2021 with the rate starters get injured.

Nope, you can DFA a guy immediately after adding him. They just DFA’d Ian Hamilton to make room for Colome despite claiming him a few days ago. It’s pretty silly, all things considered.

Benintendi to the Royals? Huh. Didn't see that move coming.

Should we just not try to trade for a good veteran on an extremely team-friendly deal? When you're taking such a macro-level approach, it's hard to really evaluate the trade. I mean, we couldn't win a playoff game this year, so I guess all the moves we made were pointless, then!

It looks like Anderson has 1 option left, so the Twins should be able to stash him in AAA if they so wish. Thorpe looks like the only guy who might who's in trouble.

Jeffers and Kiriloff should, Rooker will likely too. Wallner and Balazovic aren't close enough yet to help, and I don't think Lewis will be ready to contribute this year. Larnach definitely could this year. Maybe Duran breaks into the rotation at some point, but landing in the bullpen in September is a possibility too, and then he competes for a rotation spot in 2022.

Both of the pitchers listed project to be starters, Duran is just more likely to start out in the bullpen at the end of the 2021 season, like many top pitching prospects. They wouldn't be ranked so high if they were likely to end up in the bullpen. I wouldn't call the hitters sure things, though I think Larnach, Kiriloff, and Jeffers are close to that.

Marwin's numbers in Houston were inflated by cheating, which assisted him in getting a $21M deal from the Twins, and then hit just .211 as a near-full time starter in 2020. Astudillo was better at the plate (over a smaller sample size) and is playing at the minimum salary. I don't think the comparison is all that similar.

Maybe it's just me sensing that Lewis' career is going to go like Carlos Gomez's or Aaron Hicks'. Perhaps I am overreacting a bit to a single year of his minor league career, but I see a lot of red flags. Other prospect rankings don't seem to factor in risk as much as I did - that's not to say they're wrong to do so, I'm just looking at things from a more mathematical standpoint. The top 3 are very close and could be interchanged. Kiriloff and Larnach have their differences, but they're both the same level of prospect. I'll need to see more of Wallner to know where to better rank him, as he might end up in the 'teens' range.

#8 - Matt Wallner OF (1st Round 2019, Southern Miss) | Another bat-first prospect, Wallner has some serious power behind his bat after hitting 58 HRs at Southern Mississippi (in just 872 PAs!). He did alright at Elizabethton, and his main concern as a hitter will be limiting the strikeouts. Defensively he's a subpar runner and will be limited to corner OF, if not 1B. He also pitched part-time in college, which means he's got the arm to throw out runners. | #7 - Brent Rooker 1B (1st Round 2017, Miss State) | Rooker's very similar to Sabato and Wallner, but unlike them, he's ready to play in the majors. He did well in his first week of games in the majors before fracturing his wrist on a pitch, and we saw a glimpse into his upside. He's got the power to hit 25+ HRs a season and his batting average did not suffer much in the minors. Strikeouts will be a concern, as he had a dangerously high 33.8% strikeout rate at AAA. Despite that he still hit .928 OPS with a super strong .399 OBP. Defensively, he really shouldn't be playing in the outfield. He hasn't played a ton of 1B, but hopefully he's given plenty of practice there because that would be an ideal place to end up. Otherwise he'll be a DH his whole career. | #6 - Jordan Balazovic RHP (5th Round 2016, HS) | The Twins have gone through a drought of starting pitcher prospects for at least 10 years, and have been desperate to get a guy like Balazovic up and going. He mowed through Fort Myers A+ in 2019 with a strong 2.84 ERA, a phenomenal K/9 rate (11.8) without a bad BB/9 rate (2.6). He uses a strong mix of a 94-95 MPH fastball that acts a sinker, and sprinkles in similar-looking curveballs and sliders. He needs to get more innings under his belt and I don't think he profiles as a #1 or #2 starter, but he has a clean injury history and he'll likely be starting in AA at the young age of 21. Balazovic has a bright future in the big leagues if he continues down the path he's headed. | #5 - Jhoan Duran RHP (International from Dominican Republic, acquired in 2018 trade) | The top pitching prospect, Duran turned his career around once arriving in the Twins organization, going from a #20-30 prospect in Arizona to top-tier prospect. Duran's fastball has sped up the past couple season, sitting in the upper 90s and he'll hit 100 every once in a while. His secondary pitch is a splitter that can hit 94, and consistently fool hitters with its fastball-speed. His command can be a bit shaky at times, but that's even been a huge problem for him. Duran does have the toolset to be a dynamite reliever, but he's successfully pitched a starter's workload in the minors and should land in the rotation. Perhaps he pitches in the Twins' bullpen down the stretch in 2021 as his first dip into the MLB pool. | #4 - Royce Lewis SS (1st Round 2017, HS) | Most prospect rankers won't agree with this, but I'm not as high on Lewis as most are. The first overall draft pick in 2017, Lewis had very strong 2017 and 2018 seasons, but he hit poorly in 2019 at A+ and AA. He was promoted to AA despite hitting .665 OPS, and proceeded to hit .649 OPS there. Critics have pointed out that Lewis' swing does not look good and his approach at the plate needs heavy refinement, and his pitch recognition is currently poor. He's still young, turning 22 this summer, but I don't think he's particularly close to being MLB-ready. There has also been debate about whether he will end up at SS or CF, as he has the raw speed to handle both. This ranking has mostly been negative, but Royce has the potential to become a talented hitter with 60-65 power potential and has the highest ceiling of any prospect on this team. I just get the sense that Lewis will become a hitter whose approach at the plate won't click until Year 4 or 5 of his career. | #3 - Alex Kiriloff OF (1st Round 2016, HS) | The Twins are poised to make Kiriloff their starting LF in 2021, and it's not hard to see why. He has a career .317 batting average in the minors, and that's no fluke. Scouts rave about his ability to make consistent contact on tough pitches, he has has some serious power behind his swing, with the potential for 20+ HRs a year. Kiriloff's focus on contact has kept the number of walks low, but that's not a big concern if he hits > .300. He's had a couple of wrist injuries and missed the entire 2017 season. Defensively Kiriloff is one of the lower prospects on this list, and while he has a good glove and a great arm, he may end up at 1B. Hopefully his bat will end up somehwere in the #2-4 spot in the lineup one day. | #2 - Ryan Jeffers C (2nd Round 2018, UNC Wilmington) | This is probably the highest you've ever seen Jeffers on a prospect ranking, but I am comfortable putting him this high. Good catching prospects are rare, and Jeffers is the entire package. He was yet another 'questionable draft pick' in the 2nd round, but the Twins organization sculpted him into one of the best defensive backstops in the minor leagues after initial scouting reports claimed he wouldn't be able to stay at catcher. He ranked as a top-notch pitch framer, and showed as much in his 26 game debut in 2020. His bat was always his calling card, and it didn't disappoint in the minors with a very strong (.296/.383/.453 .836 OPS). He'll take a lot of walks and has the potential for more power. Jeffers is ready to graduate off this list and will push for the starting role as the Twins' catcher. | #1 - Trevor Larnach OF (1st Round 2018, Oregon State) | I conclude with another bat-first position player, of whom has the best minor league track record to this point. Larnach covered 4 levels of the minor leagues through only two years (2018-19) and held his own at every level, never dipping below a .295 batting average or .840 OPS. In total he's recorded a (.307/.385/.468) triple slash, and that's even with only 18 HRs in that stretch. He's got more power in that bat, no doubt. Larnach will take plenty of walks too, as his K/BB ratio was very healthy too. Defensively he's a bit on the slower side, but I think he will work as a RF with a decent glove and strong arm. Once he figures out the big leagues, Larnach is a hitter whose name should be penned into the #3 spot in the lineup and be let loose to rake to his heart's content. || I will add one more blog post soon going over my formula of how these rankings were calculated. Until then, let me know what you think!

Alright, I think that’s enough AAAA pitchers on the 40 man... I’d DFA Gibaut.

Let’s not forget the White Sox had the division wrapped up until they collapsed... they absolutely should have won it. I’d definitely consider them to be the favorite, but by a small margin.