Tom Froemming

Awesome writeup! This guy is a bulldog, competes his tail off. I love watching him pitch. Tons of strikes, good tempo, pitches with emotion.

With a limited spending budget, the Minnesota Twins are expected to be more active on the trade market this offseason. There's been plenty of talk about the possibility of trading away some of their current MLB talent, but what about minor leaguers? In this video, I call out five Twins prospects who I think would be very marketable in trade talks. These are talented guys I believe in, but they could potentially fetch some pretty impressive packages if the Twins were open to trading them. View full video

The Minnesota Twins are reportedly open to the possibility of moving stud reliever Griffin Jax to the rotation. There have been several success stories of arms converting from relievers to starters, could Jax be next? In this video, I discuss whether taking that risk really even seems necessary. View full video

Adams is also two years older than Culpepper, about to turn 25. He was very good in Double-A last year, but if we zoom out to look at his overall body of work there, including 2023, it's not great. He definitely gets overlooked, and maybe he's flying too far under the radar, but I don't think you'll see anywhere have him flirting with the top-20 in the system, let alone the top-10.

More whiffs, fewer walks, more grounders, ball stays in the yard, better stuff. Edit: And more hair.

My personal rankings (which did factor into this list) agree with you wholeheartedly. I have Hill 11, Rosario 18, DeBarge 21. That being said, it does feel like this full staff list at the site balances floor vs. upside better than my own, to be honest. Sorta a best of both worlds situation.

Our journey through the Minnesota Twins' top prospects continues with Nos. 11-15. This group features a pair of 2024 draftees, followed by a trio of prospects who’ve been holding steady in this range. Image courtesy of © Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images Before we take a look at this block of prospects, make sure you check out the list of guys who just missed the top 20, as well as the Nos. 16-20 prospects. 15. Dasan Hill, LHP What’s the catch? That’s the question I kept asking myself when first getting acquainted with Hill. A 6-foot-5 lefty, Hill has a fastball that has consistently hit 97 mph; his slider is seen as an above-average offering that can be relied upon to get whiffs; and he has a quality curveball and feel for a changeup. This profile seems almost too good to be true for the part of the draft where the Twins got him. I don’t want to paint it as if he was someone they completely unearthed without having to make an investment (like a bunch of the other top arms in the system), but it seems like there’s excess upside. Hill was selected in the second round this year, No. 69 overall, and was paid a bonus that approached $2 million. So, what really is the catch? Well, Hill is still only 18 years old, and is listed at 165 pounds. He has a long way to go and a lot of gains to make. In terms of a physical comp, it’s easy to look toward current Twin David Festa, the "Slim Reaper". If Hill is this big and wiry at 18, might he be able to at least fill out to a similar frame as the 6-foot-6, 185-pound Festa? It’s far from a slam dunk, but with how difficult it can be to build a pitching staff, I love seeing the Twins prioritize a potentially high-reward arm over some of the safer investments that were available. Sometimes you have to take a chance. This is an exciting arm, added to a pitching pipeline that’s finally producing major-league talent. Hill pitched for Grapevine High School in Texas and was committed to Dallas Baptist prior to being drafted. He has yet to make his pro debut, but the sheer stuff and the physicality make full-season ball a plausible first assignment for him. 14. Kyle DeBarge, 2B/SS DeBarge had a massive power breakout prior to being drafted. If that’s real, this ranking is going to look low before long. If it’s a mirage, this ranking is going to look high before long. DeBarge hit 10 home runs over his first 510 plate appearances at Louisiana-Lafayette, but exploded for 21 homers in just 290 PAs there last season. His stature alone is also enough to call his power potential into question. He’s listed at 5-foot-9 and 175 pounds. Then there’s the discouraging early returns from his brief time in Fort Myers (only one home run in 115 PAs), but it was a small sample in a tough environment for power hitting. Taken in the first round (33rd overall) of this year’s draft, it’s not as if DeBarge’s value is completely tied to power. He brings plus contact skills, solid on-base ability, value added on the bases and reliable glovework that establishes his floor. He’s a ballplayer. The big question on defense, similar to most college shortstops, is where will DeBarge end up on the diamond? With Fort Myers, he logged more innings at second base than shortstop, but that was largely due to the org prioritizing getting first-round pick Kaelen Culpepper reps at the position. The Twins have had a lot of success with this type of profile. Think guys like Brian Dozier or Spencer Steer. Yes, I know Steer was traded, but they still get credit for drafting him and doing most of the development. Luke Keaschall is another one of these types, though he hasn’t fully climbed the ladder yet. Will the Twins strike gold again? We should have a much better idea a year from now. DeBarge hit .235/.322/.343 with a 24.3 K% and 10.4 BB% in 26 games for the Mighty Mussels, but that's only a problem if he stays at a similar level once he has his legs under him. 13. Kala’i Rosario, RF Rosario’s strengths are tantalizing, but the weaknesses are terrifying. This is a player with impressive offensive gifts that he continues to hone. There’s also a lot of swing-and-miss, though, and he’s one of the worst defensive outfielders I’ve seen come through the Twins system. After a 2023 season in which Rosario was named Midwest League MVP and won the Arizona Fall League home run derby, it might be easy to view 2024 as a step back. He missed a good chunk of time due to an elbow injury, which stings, but there were some positives from when he was on the field. While many of Rosario’s 2023 Midwest League champion teammates fell flat on their faces making the big leap up to Double-A, he held his own. This was Rosario’s age-21 season, and 93% of his plate appearances were against pitchers older (and you’d figure more developed) than him. Despite those challenges, he slugged comfortably above the average in the Texas League (Rosario had a .405 slugging percentage with Wichita; the league average was .374). With the jump to Double-A came a small increase in strikeouts (0.8% increase) and a more significant dip in walks (3.5% decrease). And while the power was solid, it’s not like Rosario’s overall line of .235/.321/.405 really jumps off the page. In the field, Rosario struggles to track balls and make adjustments. To be fair, it seems he did take steps forward in 2024, and the Twins managed to help Matt Wallner overcome similar issues along his journey to the majors. Rosario will likely never be a plus defender, but there’s hope some of these rough edges may be smoothed out. And there’s no questioning the arm. He has a cannon. Rosario comes in at No. 13 in our rankings after being placed in the No. 12 spot on last offseason’s list. That seems fitting, as there isn’t much that happened in 2024 to really change his prospect stock one way or the other. 12. Connor Prielipp, LHP If you had a crystal ball and could tell me that Prielipp will be healthy going forward, he’d be my No. 1 pitching prospect in the system. Seriously. As things stand, the injury risk is enough to sink his prospect status, at least this far. This is a special arm. It comes with a suspect elbow. Prielipp is clearly miles ahead of low-minors hitters. He has a mid-90s fastball, a slider that’s routinely over 3,000 RPMs of spin and a changeup that doesn’t seem like it’s trailing much behind those two excellent offerings. It’s a big-league arsenal. In addition to having Tommy John surgery back in 2021, Prielipp has had several other shutdown periods due to elbow soreness and had an internal brace surgery prior to the 2024 season. The possibility this elbow is a ticking time bomb is enough to cloud his future and deflate his prospect stock. One X-factor for Prielipp is he’s finally having a healthy offseason. Don’t expect that to mean he’ll be active to start the 2025 season. Coming off just 23 1/3 innings, they’ll look for ways to avoid a significant jump in workload, such as having him stay behind at the complex for a bit. Still, the hope would be that he'd head out to an affiliate fairly early. Prielipp pitched to a 3.86 ERA and 0.90 WHIP in his brief stint last year, while only surrendering 14 hits, all but one of them singles. Opponents hit .173/.256/.185 against him. He also missed an abundance of bats, striking out 45% of the batters he faced, a rate of 15.8 K/9. On the downside, Prielipp only made nine starts, seven for Cedar Rapids. He threw 23 1/3 innings, with his longest start being just three frames. The most pitches he threw in any outing was 49. Prielipp climbs up a handful of spots from last offseason’s list, where he was No. 17. 11. C.J. Culpepper, RHP Culpepper had an up-and-down year, but his strong finish helps paint a positive outlook for 2025. After hitting a bit of a speed bump in High-A the prior year, Culpepper passed the test in 2024. A forearm strain halted his momentum in early June, but thankfully, that injury wasn’t a precursor to anything more serious. After two months of recovery, Culpepper was back with the Kernels. Three outings later, he was promoted up to Wichita to make his Double-A debut. The early returns weren’t great, but he was also still working on getting stretched back out. In September, Culpepper put an exclamation point at the end of his season. In 13 innings with the Wild Surge, he struck out 14 batters while issuing one walk. He gave up just a pair of runs on eight hits. He pounded the zone, throwing 69% of his pitches for strikes, and missed bats at a 15% swinging strike rate. What makes Culpepper special is his deep arsenal. I’ve lost count of how many pitches he throws. It’s at least six for sure, and maybe seven. He’s able to look like a completely different pitcher versus lefties than against righties, and can shapeshift as an outing progresses to flash different offerings he protected the first time through. It feels like Culpepper is still feeling out who he is and how best to deploy that deep arsenal. He only threw 58 1/3 innings this season, but the 3.55 ERA, 1.13 WHIP and 9.9 K/9 he posted is plenty impressive enough to maintain belief. He has a chance to be a big-league starter despite being a former Day 3 pick in the draft. What Sean Johnson and his team have done late in drafts, particularly that 2022 class, is remarkable. Culpepper was the No. 13 prospect in our rankings from last offseason. Final thoughts: Culpepper being outside of our top 10 (along with Prilipp and Hill, for that matter) is a great show of how much pitching there is in the pipeline. Not long ago, we as Twins fans basically had one arm this exciting to pin our hopes on. Now, there are about a dozen of them. Will those hopes materialize? Tough to say, but I’m excited to find out. While the three arms in this grouping are easy to get excited about, the bats are both profiles the Twins have had success with. Maybe DeBarge and Rosario don’t have the upside of the trio of arms here, but are they more likely to realize their potential? It’s certainly possible. To have prospects this intriguing sitting outside of a top-10 list is a big flex for the system. This depth is part of why the Twins shot up minor league organizational talent rankings after the draft. View full article

Minnesota Twins player Alex Kirilloff has announced he has decided to retire from baseball. The decision was influenced by the multiple injuries he's sustained during his career, the most recent being a back injury. View full video

It's at 47 at this very moment. There are four free agents, so that brings them down to 43. If you expect the options on Margot and Farmer to be declined (which seems likely), that brings them down to 41. But then they have guys to protect in the Rule 5 Draft (covered in that video) and, of course, outside additions. It's crowded. I hesitated to say there was a true roster crunch, but there are definitely going to be some guys removed from the 40 man at some point.

Here is some analysis on five Twins topics that have been on my mind. I ask about Max Kepler's impact on the 2024 team, provide updates to my Twins prospect list, react to the 2024 Diamond Award winners, relay info on the new Twins hitting coach (Matt Borgschulte) and review some of the early returns from the Arizona Fall League. Talking about a dramatic postseason win would be a lot more fun right now, but it is what it is. View full video

The Minnesota Twins have had a busy start to their offseason. Four coaches will not be back. Thad Levine is gone. They're parting ways with Bally Sports. While I was hoping for changes, it's easy to be suspicious if these will be positives right now. That can be said with basically anything regarding this organization at the moment. Also discussed in this video are the Twins projected arbitration salaries and Arizona Fall League participants. View full video

I never thought I'd see the day. The Pohlad family has announced that they're going to explore selling the Minnesota Twins. Here's my reaction to the news, a discussion about the chances of a new owner being motivated to move the Twins out of Minnesota and some speculation on whether it's all that likely the sale will actually happen. View full video

Despite an embarrassing collapse, the Minnesota Twins don't appear to be making any major changes this offseason. Derek Falvey will be back. Rocco Baldelli will be back. My question is this: Why should Twins fans be optimistic things are going to work in 2025 with the exact same leadership and no expectations of increased payroll? In this video, I discuss Falvey, Baldelli and Joe Pohlad. I also react to some of the quotes coming out in the wake of the collapse. From the outside looking in, it seems like we can speculate there may be some friction between Carlos Correa and the veterans and Royce Lewis and the younger guys. View full video

With the St. Paul Saints closing their season Sunday, this also brings the 2024 Twins System Recap season to a close. Thanks to everybody for watching, I appreciate you. To close things out, we take a look at some of Marco Raya's Triple-A debut plus some Payton Eeles highlights. We'll also discuss the Twins a bit, though that's very much a sore subject at the moment. View full video

On Thursday, Cory Lewis delivered five solid innings for the St. Paul Saints in his Triple-A debut. Tonight, it was Marco Raya’s turn. In his first outing for the Saints, Raya impressed with five shutout frames. Image courtesy of Rob Thompson, St. Paul Saints CURRENT W-L Records Minnesota Twins: 81-73 St. Paul Saints: 70-77 Wichita Wind Surge: 58-80 (season complete) Cedar Rapids Kernels: 67-63 (season complete) Fort Myers Mighty Mussels: 66-59 (season complete) FCL Twins: 27-31 (season complete) DSL Twins: 30-25 (season complete) SAINTS SENTINEL Indianapolis 8, St. Paul 6 Box Score Prior to tonight’s game, manager Toby Gardenhire was asked about Marco Raya making his Triple-A debut by Saints broadcaster Sean Aronson. “Maybe seeing Cory go out there and do what he did yesterday, maybe that’ll give Raya some confidence, “ Gardenhire said. “I think he’s a pretty confident guy, though, anyways.” Raya not only answered Lewis’ performance, he one-upped him. Indianapolis was threatening in the first inning, but Raya struck out Jack Suwinski to strand a runner on second base. While Suwinski isn’t exactly a contact guy, he does have over 1,100 big-league plate appearances to his credit. Not a bad first feather in your Triple-A cap. Impressive debut. Raya pitched five scoreless innings, did not walk a batter, struck out four men and threw 67.7% of his pitches for strikes (44 of 65). He topped out at 96.2 mph. Raya finishes the season with 97 2/3 innings pitched. I would have loved to see the Twins take the training wheels off Raya sooner. He didn’t complete five innings in a game until his 17th start of the season and eclipsed 80 pitches in a start just one time. On the other hand, their plan did keep him on the mound. Not many pitchers make it through an entire season healthy these days. As far as innings go, Raya logged more this year than David Festa (tonight’s Twins starter) did last season. Festa has stayed healthy, and look at him now. Maybe the Twins are onto something here. Once Raya’s day was done, Justin Topa took over for his first game action since Aug. 7. The Twins bullpen could certainly use help, so it’s great to see the right-hander back on the mound. As for Topa’s outing tonight, uh, it was great that he got some work in. Did I mention he hadn’t pitched in a long time? Topa walked the first man he faced, which was immediately followed by a hit by pitch. It looked like he settled in after inducing a flyout to center field and a strikeout, but then Joshua Palacios smoked a three-run homer. The velo on Topa’s pitches were roughly three ticks down from his 2023 averages. Again, it was just great that he got some work in. Another arm trying to get back to the big leagues, Kody Funderburk, followed. In the fourth outing of his rehab assignment, Funderburk gave up two runs on four hits over 1 2/3 innings. He struck out three of the nine men he faced, but his velo was also down from usual. Luckily, the Saints lineup managed to tally three runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to regain the lead. Chris Williams drove in Jeferson Morales on a homer before Rylan Bannon and Payton Eeles tacked on another run with back-to-back doubles. Indianapolis tied the game at 5-5 in the eighth inning by scoring a run on a Ryan Jensen wild pitch. They scratched across the go-ahead run in the ninth before Jack Suwinski delivered the knockout blow with a two-run homer later that inning. Topa, Funderburk and Jansen combined to give up eight runs over 3 1/3 innings pitched. And you thought the Twins bullpen was struggling … Chris Williams added his second home run of the game in the bottom of the ninth inning. He went 4-for-4 and hit a double in addition to the two home runs. The Saints still lost 8-6. DaShawn Keirsey Jr. got picked off at first base in the sixth inning before committing an error in center field in the ninth (a ball rolled under his glove, allowing the runner to advance an extra base). It wasn’t all bad, though, as he also went 2-for-4 to push his average to an even .300. Speaking of guys having great seasons, Eeles went 2-for-4 with a double, a walk and his 38th stolen base of the season (17 of which have come with St. Paul). TWINS DAILY MINOR LEAGUE PLAYERS OF THE DAY Pitcher of the Day: Marco Raya, Saints Hitter of the Day: Chris Williams, Saints PROSPECT SUMMARY Check out the Prospect Tracker for much more on our recently-updated Twins Top 20 prospects after seeing how they did on Friday. #2 Brooks Lee (Minnesota): 0-for-2 (entered the game in the top of the eighth as a pinch hitter) #6 David Festa (Minnesota): 5 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 6 K, 103 pitches #10 Marco Raya (St. Paul): 5 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K, 65 pitches TOMORROW’S PROBABLE STARTERS St. Paul vs. Indianapolis, 5:07 pm CT: Randy Dobnak View full article