Thursday, February 16, 2017

The state of the Twins farm system

My copy of Baseball America's Prospect Handbook 2017 arrived this week. Also arriving this week, the Top 100 Prospects issue of that fine publication.

Each gave me something to grump about.

From the Handbook: The Twins No. 14 prospect on BA's list "is" Pat Light. Light was waived last week (well after the publication deadline) and is now in the Pittsburgh organization. My grumpiness isn't because the Twins arguably dumped their 14th best prospect, because I was quite unimpressed with Light during his late-2016 callup. It's because, if Light is No. 14, what am I to make of, let us say, No. 28 (Jake Reed)?

From the Top 100: The Twins system placed just two prospects on the list, shortstop Nick Gordon at No. 60 and left-hander Stephen Gonsalves at No. 99. Yes, the Twins graduated a lot of prospects the past couple of years -- Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano, Max Kepler, Jorge Polanco, Tyler Duffey, Jose Berrios -- but they've also been drafting pretty high since 2011, and the returns on those high picks aren't all that promising. One might reasonably expect a pipeline with more to offer.


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