Twins farm system ranked fourth best in baseball

The Twins jumped from No. 9 to No. 4 in ESPN's latest rankings.

May 15, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minneapolis and St. Paul are featured in a display in the outfield of the home of the Minnesota Twins, Target Field. / © Matt Blewett-USA TODAY Sports

The silver lining to the Minnesota Twins doing just about nothing at the deadline, is that they didn't give up any of their top prospects. Keeping those top-end prospects has seen the Twins' farm system jump into top-five status.

The Twins' farm system jumped from No. 9 in ESPN's preseason rankings to No. 4 in its latest rankings released on Tuesday. ESPN's Kiley McDaniel notes that a strong draft class and a lack of top-end talent moving up to the minors has seen the Twins' farm system jump in ESPN's standings.

"The Twins have moved up in these rankings because they haven't graduated anyone of note with the same three guys still in the top half of my Top 100 from the preseason addition and they also have had some notable arrow-up prospects including 2B Luke Keaschall and RHP Zebby Matthews. By this time next year, I'd expect (Walker) Jenkins, Emmanuel Rodriguez and Keaschall to be in the upper minors with a chance to debut as the next wave of impact talent," McDaniel wrote.

In his most recent prospect rankings, McDaniel had Jenkins and Rodriguez as the No. 9 and 10 best prospects, respectively, in all of baseball. Brooks Lee, who has since been promoted to the majors, was No. 27 in those rankings published in late May.

Keaschall was promoted to Double-A in late May and has slashed .289/.406/.442 in 55 games, which is a dip from the .335/.457/.544 slashline he had in High-A to begin the season.

However, Keaschall has hit the same amount of homers —seven — in Double-A as he did in High-A while also driving in four more RBIs.

Matthews has been a quick mover this season, jumping from High-A to begin the season to now starting for Triple-A St. Paul. He has struggled in his early appearances with St. Paul posting a 1-2 record with a 7.07 earned-run average. Before making the jump to Triple-A, Matthews registered a 2.77 ERA in 55.1 innings for Double-A Wichita this season. Across all three levels this season, Matthews has fanned 109 batters while issuing just six total walks.

A solid draft class that included shortstop prospects Kaelen Culpepper and Kyle DeBarge added to an already deep farm system.

The only farm systems that were ranked higher than Minnesota's were the Baltimore Orioles (No. 1), Tampa Bay Rays (No. 2) and Los Angeles Dodgers (No. 3). The next closest AL Central team was the Detroit Tigers who came in at No. 6, with the Cleveland Guardians at No. 7, Chicago White Sox at No. 8 and the Kansas City Royals at No. 26.