Twins sitting pretty in MLB Draft with 5 prospects 'clearly' better than the rest
The MLB Draft isn't until July 9-11 but because the Minnesota Twins were the big winners of the inaugural MLB Draft Lottery they have a legitimate shot at finding a future star in the first round.
Minnesota moved up from 13th to fifth in the lottery and that's a very big deal since the 2023 draft class is loaded at the top with what MLB draft analyst Jim Callis describes as a group headlined by five players who are "clearly" above the rest.
Callis says LSU teammates Dylan Crews (outfielder) and Paul Skenes (right-handed pitcher) are the consensus top two players in the draft, with "virtually every team" agreeing that outfielders Wyatt Langford (Florida), Walker Jenkins (South Brunswick High School in North Carolina) and Max Clark (Franklin High School in Indiana) are the other three elite prospects.
In Callis's first mock draft he has the Twins taking Clark with the fifth overall selection.
"A no-doubt center fielder with four plus or better tools and at least average power, Clark would be a legitimate candidate to go No. 1 overall in many years," Callis wrote.
Adding one of the five elite talents in the draft will bolster a Twins farm system that is ranked middle of the road by most analysts. The top prospects include last year's No. 8 overall pick shortstop Brooks Lee, shortstop Royce Lewis, who was the No. 1 overall pick in 2017, and outfielder Emmanuel Rodriguez, who has about as much power as any prospect in the game.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.