Minnesota May Have Finally Found Joe Mauer’s Twin

Many people know Minnesota as the Land of 10,000 Lakes. What they don’t know, who the heck counted all those lakes? What if they were at like 9,877 lakes and someone tickled them and they lost count and just started again at 9,880, then it would actually be the Land of 9,997 Lakes, but no one is ready to have that conversation. Another conversation they’re not ready to have is how many prospects the Twins have. They have ten top ten prospects every year. Call them the Team of 10,000 Prospects. I’m going to attempt to name their prospects of the last three years alone: Luke Keaschall, Kaelen Culpepper, Brooks Lee, Connor Prielipp, and I’m prolly forgetting someone–Oh, I know, Walker Jenkins. He was called up yesterday. First off, Itch had him at 16 on his latest top 50 prospects, and said this offseason, “The sixth overall pick in the stacked 2023 class, Jenkins is a left-handed hitter with power and plate skills listed at 6’3” 210 pounds, but as I say all the time around here, those measurements look a little out of date. He’s dealt with some injuries that have cost him reps but steadily climbed the organization ladder nonetheless, closing out 2025 with 23 games in Triple-A. In 84 games across four levels, he slashed .286/.399/.451 with ten home runs and 17 stolen bases. It’s tough to predict how the team will handle his timeline; only thing for sure, I know I can handle Grey.” C’mon, man! This year, Jenkins continued his trajectory, and looks like a future star — Triple-A stats at 12/17/.308 with a 15.6 K% in 263 ABs as a 21-year-old. That’s a future top 20 player (don’t look at what I said about Keaschall, Brooks Lee, Royce Lewis, Kirilloff, Larnach or anyone else before him). Grab him everywhere! Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Aaron Judge – Says he hopes to return without a rehab assignment. Shaking my head, Spencer Jones’s minor league jerseys going to waste.

Gerrit Cole – 6 IP, 3 ER, 7 baserunners, 5 Ks, ERA at 3.19. [pushing all my chips in on Cole being my number one starter next year, getting to May 1st and hearing he has a shoulder issue, getting mad now for a made-up scenario]

Hayden Wesneski – 5 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 3.86. Watched most of this game and he looked good! I sorta like him. Basically a number four at best, but that’s something. Streamonator has him at home next time vs. the White Sox, and I don’t trust that outing as much as the robot.

Christian Walker – 3-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 24th homer. From Walker Jenkins to Christian Walker to tennis balls on the bottom of a walker. It’s the evolution of man.

Jeremy Pena – 1-for-4, 2 runs and his 16th homer, 2nd homer in three games. Pena would hit 20 homers a year if he played 162 games or one game. He’s a 20-homer machine.

Noah Cameron – 6 IP, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 3.98. Remembering the last time Cameron wasn’t good. You had more hair on your head and less on your arms, and we were all much younger. He’s been great for a while! Don’t make me spell it out!

Carter Jensen – 1-for-2, 2 runs an d his 18th homer, hitting .224. Not saying he will be, but he could be a top five catcher next year and won’t be drafted anywhere near that. So? So yourself, Singer! I’m giving you nuggets!

Vinnie Pasquantino – 2-for-5, 3 RBIs and his 9th homer, 2nd homer in a week. Pasketti will be in this afternoon’s Buy column. Hey, I was surprised he was rostered in that few leagues too.

Jac Caglianone – 5-for-6, 3 runs, 6 RBIs, hitting .282. Happy to say it’s not “being Italian” that is the malocchio on fantasy value.

George Springer – 2-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 13th homer. Did last year happen for Springer? It did, right? I didn’t dream it up, did I? He was good, right? (Could say that for all Jays.)

Spencer Arrighetti – 4 IP, 3 ER, ERA at 4.81. Sp. Arrighetti? Terrible. Vinnie Pasketti? Terrible? Jonathan Lasagna? Decent. Thank you for saving the pasta players.

Jackson Chourio – 4-for-5, 4 runs, 4 RBIs and a double slam (18, 19) and legs (14). Ja-Chou, God bless you! Crazy how he suddenly gets hot out of nowhere.

Jacob Misiorowski – 6 IP, 2 ER, 4 baserunners, 6 Ks, ERA at 1.73. “Hopefully he doesn’t face the Mets in the playoffs,” he says with a straight face, but there’s a glimmer behind his eyes to let you in on what he’s really thinking.

Sean Manaea – 5 2/3 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 4.55. Streamonator doesn’t like his next one, and it’s at the Rays, and I think it could go a myriad of ways.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto – 6 1/3 IP, 1 ER, 5 baserunners, 8 Ks, ERA at 2.56. National broadcasts and reporters love matchups like Sale vs. Yoshinobu, but I can find as much, if not more joy, in a Noah Cameron/Arrighetti game because I have some skin in the game, as they say. I don’t know who they are, don’t ask.

Ronald Acuna Jr. – Out of the lineup on Thursday. Walt Weiss said it was to “slow the game down for him.” Only MLB player ever that needs quaaludes. Since returning from the IL, he has a .188 average with a .614 OPS. Things seem mighty slow already.

Chris Sale – 9 IP, 0 ER, 5 hits, zero walks, 11 Ks, ERA at 2.06. It is tremendously cool how good Sale is, even at his age. He’s a very predictable paper, rock, scissors player, but an excellent pitcher. As excellent as he is, and he is excellent, guess how many career shutouts he has. He’s got four! In his career! CC Sabathia had five in 2008!

Drake Baldwin – 1-for-4 and his 22nd homer. Game’s slow for him, I guess.

Drew Gilbert – 1-for-3, 2 RBIs and his 8th homer. He’s been hot, so I had him in my RCL, but guess who I dropped to pick up Jenkins, hence missing out on this homer? Sonavadrop!

Landen Roupp – 5 IP, 1 ER, 6 baserunners, 3 Ks, ERA at 4.25. Was about to say Roupp home good, away bad, but I just looked at his splits for s’s and g’s and it was more s’s than g’s.

Gabriel Moreno – 1-for-3 and his 11th homer. He hit .301 in the 1st half, and is hitting .307 in the 2nd half (prior to last night). Gabriel Moreno: Luis Arraez with a big C for catcher.

Daylen Lile – 3-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 18th homer, hitting .251, and third homer in the last four games. He won’t be in this afternoon’s Buy column because he should be at 100% rostered. Went looking at the Player Rater to see if Lile made the top 20 outfielders yet (nah, but close). Instead, I saw Carson Benge is a top 20 outfielder, and Juan Soto is barely top 40.

Jacob Young – 2-for-4, 1 run and his 16th and 17th steal, hitting .249. Teams should hire me as the Should Coordinator. I go around to players and tell them what they Should be doing. For Young, I’d say he should have 30 steals.

Keibert Ruiz – 2-for-5, 2 RBIs and his 9th homer, hitting .281. He was hitting .179 through April. He’s been hitting .313 since May 1st in 224 ABs. As Keibert would say, “!*@*&%&!”

Trevor Rogers – 5 IP, 6 ER, ERA at 4.38. Random prediction alert! Rogers’s previous year will be an outlier for his entire career on par with Gleyber randomly hitting 38 homers one year.

Coby Mayo – 1-for-4, 3 RBIs and his 18th homer, hitting .213. Wonder if someone can break through to Mayo and get him to make better contact. He went from 28.6% to 32.5 K% from last year to this year, so it sure doesn’t seem it. Orioles prospects handshake emoji with backsliding.

Gordon Graceffo – 3 IP, 0 ER, ERA at 2.98. There should be a trigger that if a team allows an Opener to go three innings on them, the opposing team’s hitting coach should be automatically fired.

Ramon Urias – 1-for-3, 2 runs, 2 RBIs and his 3rd homer. Him and Nolan Gorman are in a platoon and Gorman homered on Wednesday, so Cards’ platoon of Urias and Gorman is a 162-homer platoon. That’s pretty good.

Blaze Jordan – 1-for-3, 3 RBIs and his 3rd homer, and left the game, rolling his ankle. Just Blaze sounds related to my rap alter ego, Be Fire. I have a couple theories-slash-bones to pick about Blaze Jordan. First theory-slash-bone to pick, a name as cool as Blaze carries you to about 13. Check out his life up until age 13, he went viral as an 11-year-old hitting a 395-foot homer. Then, he hit a 500-foot homer as a 13-year-old. He committed to playing college in the 8th grade (!!!!). Then the rest of his life happened, which has been varying levels of meh, because once you turn 14, you can’t coast on being named Blaze. Ask Blaze Alexander! Second theory-slash-bone to pick, you can’t name your kid something as cool as Blaze. A doctor or a nurse needs to step forward in the hospital and be like, “You can name him Dave or Larry, then hope someone nicknames him, Blaze, but that name is too cool to name a baby. It’s undue pressure.” Third theory-slash-bone to pick, there is no third theory-slash-bone to pick.