Daniel Santana vs. Levi Michael

Levi Michael was the Twins'
first-round pick in 2011 out of
North Carolina. Last winter,
Baseball America ranked him as
the Twins' sixth-best prospect;
now he's not in BA's Top 10.

The most recent issue of Baseball America lists the Top 10 prospects for the five teams in the AL Central.

For the Twins, they are: 1) Miguel Sano; 2) Byron Buxton; 3) Oswaldo Arcia; 4) Kyle Gibson; 5) Aaron Hicks; 6) J.O Berrios; 7) Eddie Rosario; 8) Max Kepler; 9) Daniel Santana; 10) Luke Bard.

BA is to post its Twins material on Nov. 20; some of it will be password protected.

The guy I want to comment on today is Santana, a switch-hitting middle infielder out of the Dominican Republic who turned 22 last week. He spent last season in High A ball, splitting time between shortstop and second base for the Fort Myers Miracle with Levi Michael, the Twins' 2011 first-round pick.

Michael is notable for his absence from the BA list. Santana outhit Michael at Fort Myers pretty substantially (.739 OPS for Santana, .650 for Michael) and, according to the magazine summary, finished the season as the Miracle's regular shortstop, relegating Michael to second base.

2012 was easily Santana's best so far, and his 29 walk/77 strikeout ratio is not encouraging.

The magazine's wrapup on Santana: Santana reminds some scouts of Pedro Florimon, the light-hitting minor league veteran who finished the year as Minnesota's regular shortstop. The Twins believe Santana has more offensive upside and will send him to Double-A in 2013.

I don't regard this as a positive. The best shortstop prospect in the system is reminiscent of Florimon? The 2011 first-rounder isn't better than that? Yikes.