Baseball America's Jim Callis on the Twins

Baseball America runs a series called "Ask BA", where readers can submit questions and have them answered by the experts. Yesterday's entry saw Jim Callis cover a number of topics, focusing this week on which players garnered votes for their top prospects list, which players might shoot up next year's list and, at the end, a brief evaluation of Miguel Sano. I suggest you read the entire article, but here are the highlights as relating to the Twins.

When BA puts together their Top 100 Prospect List, they start with a Top 150 submitted by their editors. This year there were submissions from eight editors. Here are the Twins that got a mention (but didn't make the Top 100 list, where only Sano and Joe Benson appeared at 18 and 99 respectively), including the number of times they appeared between the eight editors as well as their peak ranking.

I think most of us might be a little surprised that only two Twins made this list, but it's less surprising that the system had a handful of players who were just outside the Top 100 barrier. This organization does have some talent on the position player side, even if Sano is the only true blue chip in the stack right now.

Callis goes on to list Rosario as one of the five guys not to make the Top 100 who could make significant strides up the 2013 list, provided he plays well this summer, saying:

Rosario tore up the Rookie-level Appalachian League last summer, sharing the MVP award and leading the circuit in five categories, including homers (21 in 67 games) and slugging (.670). If he can make the transition to second base, which he began in instructional league, that makes his bat all the more valuable.

People are starting to take note of guys like Arcia and Rosario in particular, considering he appeared on the lists of five of the eight BA editors. He's still a long way off, but he was masterful in Elizabethton last year.

Finally, Callis answers a question from a fan pondering the similarities and differences between third base prospects Sano (18 overall on the BA Top 100), Xander Bogaerts (Boston, 58), and Cheslor Cuthbert (Kansas City, 84). Part of Callis' response:

Sano ranks ahead of Bogaerts and Cuthbert because of his power, which grades near the top of the 20-80 scouting scale. Sano hit 20 homers and slugged .637 in the Appy League as an 18-year-old last summer, and if it weren't for Bryce Harper, we'd be talking about Sano as potentially the best power prospect in the minors.

For more, be sure to check out the full entry. It's always fun to take a look when your team gets a bit more of a feature than usual.