Twins top twenty (-two)

Adapted from my preliminary prospects list at Battle Your Tail Off.  I didn't put anyone with MLB experience on the BYTO version, but I'm slotting Revere on this list for consistency with John's list.  Also, as you can see from the post date, this was made before I saw John's list.  The only change I made was adding Stuifbergen, who was an inadvertent omission from my initial list.

1. Kyle Gibson SP (RH)
2. Aaron Hicks CF
3. Miguel Sano 3B
4. Alex Wimmers SP (RH)
5. Joe Benson OF
6. Ben Revere OF
7. Liam Hendriks SP (RH)
8. Oswaldo Arcia OF
9. Angel Morales OF
10. Adrian Salcedo SP (RH)
11. David Bromberg SP (RH)
12. Max Kepler-Rozycki OF
13. Eddie Rosario OF
14. Manuel Soliman SP (RH)
15. Bruce Pugh SP (RH)
16. Tom Stuifbergen SP (RH)
17. Pat Dean SP (LH)
18. Chris Parmelee 1B/RF
19. Carlos Gutierrez RHP
20. Billy Bullock RHP
21. Nate Roberts OF
22. Martire Garcia SP (LH)

Commentary:

The Outfielders

Hicks is the best true CF in the system. He has great defensive instincts, great raw speed, and a tremendous arm. He has a very patient plate approach that some criticize for bordering on passive, but it leads to a lot of walks. It also causes him to strike out too much. When he does square up the ball, he tends to hit it pretty hard, and his GB/FB rate is fairly neutral, which implies power potential. Assuming he starts out in Ft. Myers to start next year, he should be in AAA sometime in 2012 and in the bigs by 2013. A top-twenty prospect in baseball in my mind.

Benson is a good defender whose glove and arm should be a plus at a corner spot, assuming Hicks is the long-term CF. He's built like a linebacker. He walks and strikes out quite a bit, and the latter tendency is going to keep his average in the .250 range in the Majors. Still, as a righty with power potential and defensive ability, he could be the heir to Cuddyer in right.

Revere is a nice player, especially if he can be a plus defender in the outfield.  He has the raw speed to do it but has a noodle arm and is prone to taking Billy-from-Family-Circus-esque routes.  Still, he looks like a pretty good bet to hit .300, take a few walks, steal a few bases, and do all of those "little things" that the Twins love ever so much.

Arcia destroyed the Appy league this year as a nineteen-year-old. Hitting .375/.425/.675 will get you noticed no matter how offensively geared a league is. He's not a tremendous athlete, and he's a pudgy six feet tall, so his bat will need to carry him into the bigs. Still, most sources are high on his future hitting ability; Jim Callis thinks he projects for both above-average contact and power ability. He was the #3 prospect in the Appy league, ahead of several first-round picks from the 2010 draft.

Morales is a very good athlete who has a swing-happy approach but still manages to walk a lot. Except at Ft. Myers this year, he has been able to turn his raw bat speed from his wiry frame into power. Ft. Myers kills power (see Kubel and Morneau's trips through there), so I'm still somewhat high on Morales. He'll be 21 in A+ next year, and has enough defensive value to make the Majors if he can hit for some power and draw some walks. Still has a pretty high ceiling if everything breaks right.

Kepler isn't much more than promise and a sweet swing at this point. He's a very good athlete with an advanced approach and great contact ability for his age. He didn't flash power in his GCL stint, but he was also taking high school classes and is only seventeen. Also, he's German, related to noted laws of astronomy creator Johannes, and got the highest bonus ever given to a European position player.

Rosario is a well-rounded player who flew under the radar prior to the draft. He has an advanced approach that results in few strikeouts and a decent number of walks. Has drawn Bobby Abreu comparisons. Projects as a good corner defender with speed on the basepaths (22-5 SB-CS in 51 games in the GCL, where he OPSed .781. Like John, I'm a big fan.

Parmelee still played about a third of his games in RF, though his future is clearly at 1B or DH. Before this year, he always had a major problem with strikeouts. This year, he dealt with that problem, but saw a major dropoff in power. Still, ample walks and emerging strike zone control (and a not-awful .731 OPS in AA coupled with a .893 OPS in 100 PA at Ft. Myers) mean that he's still a prospect to watch. If he can regain his in-game power while maintaining his new low-K approach, he could become an all-around hitter. I still like him, probably more than most. Parmelee is an illustration of one of the approaches I take to prospecting: when a player needs to make and adjustment and does, and doesn't suck completely, I tend to bump that player up in my rankings even if the production isn't ideal.  Parmelee still did a lot of pretty good things even though he basically halved his K rate.  That impresses me.

Nate Roberts has underrated tools and a lot of polish. I think he's probably a Randy Winn type at best. John likes him a lot, so that's mainly why I'm watching him. He destroyed the Appy League like a fourth-round college player should.

The Starters

Gibson is going to have a solid K rate and a very good GB rate. Basically, he could be Scott Baker with a dozen fewer homers every year. That's one of the best pitchers in baseball, even without a K rate near one per inning. Gibson stayed healthy (at least arm-wise) this year, but there are health concerns moving forward, since he slid in the draft because of arm trouble.

The 15 or so innings that Wimmers racked up at Fort Myers are probably too small a sample to judge much.  Still, it's always better to dominate than not, and he did dominate. Advanced A isn't necessarily a league that college pitchers handle right off the bat, so the fact that he hit the ground running is very encouraging. His stuff is not overwhelming, but he does have a legitimate strikeout pitch and above-average fastball velocity at the upper end of his register.

Hendriks is a classic Twins' strike-thrower. Depending on how he develops, he could turn out anywhere from flameout to Blackburn to Baker/Slowey to Radke. He looks to be a moderate fly ball pitcher, but probably not as prone to FBs as Baker or Slowey.

Salcedo has a lot of projection and already throws lots of strikes. He got quite a few GBs, even when he was tested beyond his current abilities at Ft. Myers. He already flashes MLB-average velocity and could fill out his pitcher-ideal 6'4" frame to show even more velocity in the future. His secondary stuff is still developing, but he does keep his velocity into games, which means that he'll get lots of chances to be a starter.

As long as we're sticking to Twins comps, Bromberg reminds me of Kyle Lohse. His velocity is decent-not-great, his control is right around average, and his secondary stuff is alright but not plus. He showed much better K and BB rates upon promotion to AAA, so we'll see if he can carry that improvement forward into next year.

Soliman is a converted infielder who has a good fastball (with projection) and pretty decent secondary stuff for someone so raw. I've read in a couple reports that he holds his velocity late into games, so I expect he'll get plenty of chances to start.

Pugh looks like a pen arm to me. He has velocity that doesn't last into games, and his secondary stuff and control isn't sharp. Still, he'll get chances to clean up his issues and has a decent ceiling because of his velocity.

I forgot about Stuifbergen for some reason on my initial list.  Another strike-throwing dude with a higher floor/lower ceiling combo.  We'll know more when he hits AA.

Dean is somewhere on the Brian Duensing/Glen Perkins/Jeremy Sowers hierarchy of finesse college lefties. If he can consistently throw in the low 90s like Duensing has been able to, he could be a valuable piece. Too early to tell much, but he did dominate E-Town like a college pitcher should.

Garcia is a short lefty with decent velocity and good numbers. I don't know much more, but that makes him stand out above most of the other filler in the organization.

The Others

I don't have any particular insight on Sano other than that I tend to like high bonuses and elite tools that are paired with good production.

Gutierrez has better stuff than production at this point, though he could take off if moved permanently to the bullpen.  Mid-90s sinkers are always exciting.

I'm a little worried that Bullock doesn't have the secondary stuff to make up for his walk rate, though as a fellow admirer of how those fascist strikeout artists make the trains run on time, I respect John's love of Bullock's Ks and velocity.

Overall

I'm pretty happy with how this system has rebounded since the days of Nick Blackburn as the #1 guy on the farm.  As you can see from the commentary, nineteen of the twenty-two guys I listed are either outfielders or starters, so it would be really nice to see some IF talent in the system, especially with how ugly the major league infield could become if Hardy and Hudson move on and Valencia regresses.