Baseball Minnesota -- er, America

Miguel Sano, wearing No. 24, moves for
a ground ball during spring training drills.

A fresh issue of Baseball America showed up in my mailbox Tuesday, and it's loaded with Twins-specific stuff, starting with the cover shot of power-hitting prospect Miguel Sano (with the cover line Manchild Miguel Sano could be the best Twins prospect since Joe Mauer).

Also inside:

• A Jerry Crasnick column on the return of Terry Ryan. (This, I'm sure, is a slightly revised version of one of Crasnick's pieces for ESPN.com).
• A Jerry Manuel column on Gene Glynn and the importance of winning at Rochester this year. This is, I'm convinced, a bigger deal than most of us fans realize. Keeping Rochester as their Triple A affiliate is very important to the organization, and the contract is up after the 2012 season.
• The Twins top 10 prospects story. The issue is built around the prospect ratings for the five AL Central teams, including the Twins.

A few things gleaned from the rankings:

• Last summer's first-round draft pick, infielder Levi Michael, was known to be playing with an injury as North Carolina made it to the College World Series. Michael signed late and not only didn't play in the minors last season, he didn't play in instructionals either. BA says Michael's injury was "initially misdiagnosed."
• A reason to try to get to some Midwest League games next summer: The Beloit Snappers infield is likely to have Sano (prospect No. 1) at third base, Eddie Rosario (No. 3) at second base and Michael (No. 6) at shortstop. That could be the infield in Minnesota by the end of 2014.
• BA is not as high on Chris Parmelee (No. 9) as I am. Their write-up on him concludes: "He'll have to improve against lefties to be more than a second-division regular or platoon player."
• Those of us eager to see Brian Dozier (No. 10) get his shot in the Twins middle infield in 2012 may be disappointed. BA's summary on him is "Dozier is similar to Jamey Carroll, whom the Twins signed for two years this offseason. He could replace Carroll at the end of that contract, or learn under him as a utility player before that."

The Twins' top 10 prospects, according to Baseball America:

Sano; outfielder Joe Benson; Rosario; outfielder Aaron Hicks; outfielder Oswaldo Arcia; Michael; pitcher Liam Hendricks; pitcher Kyle Gibson; Parmelee; Dozier.

It's all worth checking out.