Twins embracing unpredictable nature of '25 Draft

MINNEAPOLIS -- If pre-Draft projections are anything to go on, the 2025 MLB Draft appears unusually unsettled at the top. That’s welcome news for the Twins.

Picking at No. 16, Minnesota knows that when the Draft gets weird, sometimes pleasant surprises turn up as the first round goes on. So Sean Johnson, the club’s vice president of amateur scouting, knows that opportunity could knock.

“We’re always going into the Draft ready for things to not go the way we think they will, or even [according to] the Plan B that we come up with,” Johnson said. “So I think that will be the case again this year. We know inside the top-10, those names are somewhat interchangeable, and depending on who takes certain deals and who doesn’t, it may push some players toward us that may get closer to us than we would have imagined.”

The Twins’ second pick is a Competitive Balance Round A selection, No. 36 overall. Then they pick in the second and third rounds on Sunday night.

• Day 1 picks: 16, 36, 54, 88
• Bonus pool allotment: $12,653,000, 12th in MLB
• Last year’s top pick: Kaelen Culpepper, SS, No. 21 ... A polished hitter with all-around skills, Culpepper is already making the organization look good for taking him. The shortstop out of Kansas State raked for High-A Cedar Rapids in the first half and has already earned a promotion to Double-A Wichita, where he has continued to produce.
• Breakout 2024 pick: Dasan Hill, LHP, No. 69 … A Competitive Balance Round pick who signed for over slot at $2 million, Hill has shown flashes of dominance in his first full season. He’s still learning to harness his stuff, as evidenced by his high walk totals, but the raw materials are exciting and he’s shown well in full-season ball as a high school draftee.

As for what specifically the club will do, history gives us a few guides. The Twins don’t necessarily have a specific type of player in the first round, but they have patterns. They like college hitters -- think last year’s top pick Culpepper, Luke Keaschall (second round in 2023), last year’s second-rounder Billy Amick and even names like Matt Wallner (CB-A round in 2019) and Trevor Larnach (first round in 2018) in past years.

The Twins like high-upside arms, even if they come with injury risk or short track records. Think Hill, 2022 second-rounder Connor Prielipp, and 2021 first-rounder Chase Petty. And finally, they like finding college pitchers in the middle rounds who they feel their player development team can get the most out of. Recent examples include 2021 sixth-round pick Travis Adams and 2022 fourth-round pick Andrew Morris.

Of those archetypes, the one that appears to dovetail most with the 2025 Draft is the first one. Mock drafts have connected them with players like Wake Forest shortstop Marek Houston, Arizona outfielder Brendan Summerhill, Arkansas shortstop Wehiwa Aloy and Texas A&M outfielder Jace LaViolette.

“I think the depth is the strength [of this Draft],” Johnson said. “I really like where we pick. You’re not always going to take first dibs on pick 16 and 36, but I think we’re right in the sweet spot of the Draft. Once we get past the top 10, we feel like there’s really good depth at our first pick and our second pick and maybe not a huge delta between the talent level or upside of those players. So we feel like we’re in a really good spot.”

The other key is that Twins amateur scouting and player development seem to be on the same page. They like and develop similar skills, such as strike-zone judgment -- another through-line in recent hitting picks. If you can control the strike zone, that’s a plus with this front office.

“It’s been a thing we’ve tried to do for many years now is make sure our amateur scouting department and our player development are on the same page,” Johnson said. “That means talking to each other. It sounds very simple, but making sure there’s overlap. Making sure we’re checking with them once or twice a year, ‘What’s going well? What have you been able to do better than other things? What’s failed more than you thought it would?’”

Still, there’s no telling how the Draft is going to go. Maybe a top college pitcher falls to Minnesota, and maybe there’s a high school hitter it has at the top of the board when pick 16 or 36 comes up. All of the guidelines are, after all, just guidelines.

“We’ve learned that you just can’t predict how these things are going to go, even when they seem straightforward, which this Draft does not, more so than most,” said Johnson. “So we’ll be ready for how the chips fall and try to stay nimble.”