The Minnesota Twins are hopeful that Opening Day, which is quickly approaching, marks the beginning of a trip that will take them even farther than it did last year.
The Twins halted the worst losing skid in sports history by winning a playoff series for the first time in twenty years. A few guys stepped up and had great seasons against overwhelming odds, which helped the squad get there in part.
As the team’s best starter and potential ace, Pablo Lopez lived up to his half of the major trade that Minnesota made prior to the season. Before the season, the Twins could not have imagined how the squad would be filled in by players like Michael A. Taylor and Donovan Solano. But Carlos Correa reminded everyone in the ALDS why the Twins paid him $200 million.
It’s imperative that this pattern of new players filling in for guys who had significant breakthroughs to support the Twins continue this season.
Five players who could be Twins breakthrough prospects in 2024
Bailey Ober, SP
Bailey Ober is the guy you should buy a ton of stock in before Opening Day.
He began the season as a sleeper to watch last year and finally turned into a pitcher the Twins started in a postseason series. That was more out of necessity, but Ober had begun to really establish himself as a valuable member of the rotation by the time the ALDS rolled around.
That’s something he can expand upon in 2024, and it appears from the early going that he will.
Although he has just pitched 4.1 innings this spring, he has already struck out 10 batters and has a stellar 1.150 WHIP. Against him, batters are only hitting 176, and the players he has faced are not simply non-roster invitees whom he is utilizing as cannon fodder. In his three innings pitched against the Philadelphia Phillies in early March, Ober struck out two of Kyle Schwarber’s batters in addition to Bryce Harper, Bryson Stott, Darick Hall, Rodolfo Castro, and Cal Stevenson.
This indicates that he struck out ten batters, the majority of whom were among the top hitters in the National League, all of whom he hit with a pitch.
After confronting Ober, Bryce Harper went so far as to yell at him, saying that his material was already that bad and he had only recently begun to recover from the winter rust. Even though it’s only Spring Training, Ober appears to have limitless potential and might be a starter in the postseason.
While Royce Lewis, LF Edouard Julien, and Matt Wallner received much of the attention for leading the Twins youth movement last season, Matt Wallner was equally as significant.
It’s difficult to emphasize Wallner’s stunning brilliance, given that he nearly equaled Julien and Lewis in terms of offensive impact while producing significantly less fan fodder. Wallner’s rookie season last year saw him slash.249/.370/.507, which was better than nearly half the league average. In addition, Wallner hit 14 home runs, one less than what Lewis finished with and tied for ninth on the club. All of it was an exhibition of his power hitting prowess, which is something he will undoubtedly continue honing this season.
ZiPS projects Wallner to slash.234/.336/.427 this year, with a WAR of roughly 1.5; neither of those numbers will put the team in the lead, but it appears more like a floor than what he’s likely to top out at. After dealing away Jorge Polanco, Wallner’s projected.817 OPS from Baseball Reference helps make up for the loss of power at the plate. If Wallner can extend his 2023 productivity into even more plate appearances, the Twins will have one of the best left fielders in the league.It’s important to keep a careful check on him to see if he can live up to the expectation, as MLB.com ranked him as a Top 10 player at his position in its early rankings.
RP Jorge Alcala
Jorge Alcalá, who appeared to be the next big thing to land in Minnesota’s bullpen a few years ago, had yet another disappointing season last year.
Alcalá pitched 85 innings between 2019 and 2021, recording a 3.42 ERA and a 1.043 WHIP. Together with a 124 ERA+, he also only walked 22 hitters and struck out 89, all of which indicated that he was rapidly becoming a more trustworthy late-inning pitcher. Due to injuries, all of that came tumbling down, and he’s only now beginning to recover. It’s encouraging enough that Alcalá appears to be making a comeback after two difficult years, but the specifics of his return point to the possibility that he may be able to recapture the qualities that first made him unique at the beginning of the decade.
This spring, he has been throwing a fastball that tops out at 98 mph while continuously hitting between 96 and 97 mph. Alcalá also possesses a slider in the low 90s that seems to have potential for further development. Despite only having pitched four innings, he has given up just one run on three hits.
which, given how he was burned up for a 6.23 ERA in just over 17 innings, is encouraging.
Though Alcalá still has some work to do, he is displaying the kind of performance that will enable him to come out of the shadows cast by his few years of inactivity in the bullpen. He’s ready for the kind of breakthrough we’ve been waiting years for if he can rediscover that promise.Jose Miranda, third base, first base
José Miranda had a tremendous year in 2022, cutting that year from early May to late July.335/.374/.571 and scoring 37 runs with only 50 games played. It was the kind of thing that seemed to suggest he would play a significant role in the future nucleus of the squad, to the extent that he participated in the unveiling of the new jersey later in the season.
After everything Miranda endured the previous year, that seems like a very long time ago.
Due to injury setbacks, Miranda was only able to record a meagre 56 OPS+ in 152 plate appearances and a -0.6 fWAR in 40 games. He was awful at the plate, but his defence was even worse, and after being placed on the 60-day injured list, he was shut down before the season was out. That concluded a season in which Miranda was also a victim of events because his hardships contrasted with Royce Lewis’s ascent to prominence. Miranda, who was once hailed as the third baseman of the future, has been kept out of the starting lineup but may yet develop into a trustworthy player.
This spring, he’s showing us exactly why we were all so enthusiastic about him—in 11 plate appearances, he’s hitting.455 with a 1.045 OPS.
Despite appearing to have lost his chance to play regularly, Miranda should be a valuable backup behind Lewis and at first base, given Alex Kirilloff’s current situation. In the best-case scenario, Miranda, Kirilloff, and Carlos Santana form a platoon at first; Miranda is breaking out, just as we witnessed in 2022, when they get there.
Despite the incredibly tiny sample size of his spring performance, Twins fans should keep a watch on him as a breakout potential this season.Royce Lewis, third base
After everything that Royce Lewis has been through, it’s difficult to think that he was a major league rookie just a year ago. He seems to have existed forever, which is sort of the case. Although he was selected in the 2017 draft, he has struggled with injuries over the past several seasons, raising doubts about whether his rise would be impeded.Lewis had two ACL tears, but he triumphantly returned in May of last year and hasn’t looked back. He had an immediate effect, turning around a game that the Twins should have lost in Houston with his single-handed assistance. That marked the beginning of Lewis’s offensive explosion for Minnesota, which ultimately resulted in his hitting four grand slams in the course of eighteen games in late August.Although he still struggled with injuries last season, they weren’t as bad as they had been previously. It also didn’t stop him from having a.921 OPS, driving in 52 runs, and concluding the season with a slash of.309/.372/.548 in 58 games. Last year, Lewis was precisely what the Twins needed, and the lineup was much improved with him in it.
That would imply that he made a big splash last year, which he did, but it was more of a setup for him to really live up to his seven years of promise. Lewis is considered a dark horse candidate for MVP, and he has cemented his position as the team’s future face. Lewis will have a 4.1 WAR, which is second only to Carlos Correa, if he meets his 80th percentile forecasts, according to ZiPS. This is only his second season in that company, and it will be his first in which he opens the season with a spot on the MLB roster.While it excites Twins supporters, it scares the rest of the league that he may still be developing and has not yet reached his full potential.
