The Twins’ star prospect duo continues to rank highly among talent evaluators.
If you’ve been keeping up with prospect lists this offseason, the Twins have seen two of their players consistently ranked well among everyone. Walker Jenkins has become a consensus top-five prospect while Emmanuel Rodriguez has been in everyone’s top 20. MLB Pipeline hasn’t yet released their Top 100 list, but both players were featured on their outfield-specific list earlier today. MLB Pipeline will release their full Top 100 rankings on MLB Network and MLB.com Friday, January 24 at 7 PM ET.
Jenkins was ranked second behind only Boston’s Roman Anthony. His hit tool was tied for the best among outfield prospects, which is pretty clear to see with his career .302 minor league batting average with just a 12.6% strikeout rate. Jenkins has been highly ranked since he was drafted, but 2025 will be his first major test as he is likely to start the season at Double-A Wichita and face advanced pitchers for the first time in his career. Jenkins has mostly played centerfield, but at just 19-years-old there’s always a chance he will move to an OF corner as he bulks up. Luckily, his range and arm strength would make him an impact defender in the corner instantly rather than an overtaxed centerfielder.
The Twins and prospect evaluators alike are still waiting for him to display more power than he has thus far, but at 6-foot-3 with plenty of bat speed and ability to turn on fastballs, he has all the tools to develop into a power-hitting mid-order bat. Plus, check out this scouting report video below and tell me you don’t see some Joe Mauer in Jenkins’ swing. His Mauer-esque ability to use the left-center field gap should get him plenty of extra-base hits. Should Jenkins excel and stay healthy, there’s an outside chance he could debut this season, especially if the Twins continue to sit idly this offseason.
Rodriguez, meanwhile, is a very different type of prospect. Where Jenkins comes with a built in floor thanks to his hit tool and defense, Rodriguez is a prototypical low-floor/high-ceiling prospect thanks to his three-true-outcomes offensive approach. Rodriguez’s astronomically high walk rates (22%) and game-changing power (.510 SLG) in a quick, compact frame made him a darling among scouts in the lower minors years ago, making it easy for him to shoot up prospect boards as he has advanced through the ranks. Also helping Rodriguez out: a surprising ability to stick in centerfield despite his bulk.
This time last year, I wrote that 2024 was make or break for Emmanuel Rodriguez. Luckily for us and the Twins, he largely measured up to the expectations, albeit in very limited action. In 47 games, Rodriguez hit .280/.459/.567 with 9 homers, 9 stolen bases, and his walk and strikeout rates both around 30%. Most of the games came in Double-A before a late-season promotion got him a week St. Paul. Barring a slew of outfield injuries, Rodriguez will need more time to develop and prove himself in St. Paul before he debuts with the Twins, but he’s a safe bet for midseason call-up like Brooks Lee in 2024.
The issues for both Jenkins and Rodriguez seems to be health. Rodriguez has played more than 50 games just once in four minor league seasons, playing 99 at High-A in 2023. There haven’t been any major injuries, but nagging issues have kept him out of the lineup for months. Last season, Rodriguez injured his thumb on a stolen base attempt in late May, re-injured it on a rehab assignment in July, and then aggravated it a third time after his lone week with the Triple-A Saints.
Jenkins, meanwhile, ran into an outfield wall on Opening Day and missed the following six weeks, though was able to play the rest of the season from there, splitting time between DH and CF. He also came into the 2023 draft with injury concerns after getting hip surgery as a high school freshman and breaking his hamate bone (an injury known to sap power) his senior year.
Somehow, some way, the Twins have once again ended up with two of the toolsiest prospects in baseball with injuries slowing them down. Like Byron Buxton and Royce Lewis before them, both have been remarkably productive when on the field, but the key will be keeping them there.