I finished my conversation with Twins Assistant General Manager Rob Antony this afternoon. I'm going to get it transcribed for you as soon as possible, but realistically the first half (it was a long chat) will go up tomorrow and the second half will post on Wednesday. In the meantime, we have a lot of prospect talk to go through.
Keith Law has already released two lists of note to us: his organizational ranking, where Minnesota came in second to the Cubs, and his Top 100 prospect list, which featured six Twins. But how does he rank the club's top ten prospects for 2015?
- Byron Buxton, CF
- Miguel Sano, 3B
- Alex Meyer, RHP
- Nick Gordon, SS
- Kohl Stewart, RHP
- Jose Berrios, RHP
- Lewis Thorpe, LHP
- Eddie Rosario, CF/2B
- Jorge Polanco, SS
- Amaurys Minier, LF/1B
You can have a full look at Law's Twins breakdown here (Insider required), but I don't mind sharing the top ten with you. There are a couple of surprises here, namely that the Australian southpaw Thorpe comes in at number seven and that talented but young slugger Minier somehow cracks the top ten.
We have a tendency, when it comes to these lists, to compare it to what "everyone else" has come up with and then to pick apart something that dares to be a bit different. When it comes to Law, he seems to value upside far more than proximity to the Majors or how close a player is to being who he could be, and that makes a difference in how his list is created. Because when it comes to upside, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a starting pitching prospect with a higher upside than Thorpe who isn't already ranked above him - nor a position player whose offensive potential is as tantalizing as Minier's.
Law's list still contains most of the players every other top ten list boasts. The top six are always the top six. Trevor May makes the top ten from John Sickels; Nick Burdi makes our top ten as well as Baseball America's, Seth Stohs', Jeremy Nygaard's, and FanGraphs' lists; Baseball Prospectus features Burdi as well as Stephen Gonsalves, eschewing both May and Eddie Rosario; Cody Christie's top ten lists both May and Burdi but is without Thorpe. It's actually fascinating to see where the lists diverge. (I'll be covering more on this later in the week.)
Here are just a few other takeaways from Law's review of the Twins' farm system's best players.
- From what I can gauge, he also ranks Twins prospects from 11 to 20 as: Trevor May (11), Jake Reed (12), Nick Burdi (13), Max Kepler (14), Levi Michael (15), Chih-Wei Hu (16), Travis Harrison (17), Michael Cederoth AND Stephen Gonsalves (18).
- He likes Polanco's future as a regular better than Danny Santana's.
- Kepler's "limited experience" prior to being drafted by the Twins has meant a slow development; great tools and athleticism but limited upside.
- He likes Meyer's prospects in the rotation this year better than May's.
- Levi Michael is still the 15th-best prospect in the system?
Be sure to read the whole of Law's article if you can. That's all for today, folks. We'll see you back here tomorrow for Round 17 of our prospect vote.