Are the St. Paul Saints Ready To Save the Day Again?

The easiest way to sum up the difference between the 2023 and 2024 Minnesota Twins is that in 2023, the St. Paul Saints were able to step up and power the team to the playoffs. In 2024, they weren't.

That's it.

Sure, untimely injuries to Minnesota's stars sank them down the stretch in 2024, but let's not act like they weren't banged up in 2023. This is the Twins we're talking about — injured star players are baked into the pie until proven otherwise. But Minnesota had all the answers whenever Byron Buxton or Jorge Polanco went on the IL in 2023 or an outfielder played his way out of the lineup.

Royce Lewis, Matt Wallner, and Edouard Julien were all up by late May, and they proceeded to crush it... the ball, that is. In 901 combined plate appearances, they collectively slugged 45 home runs and slashed .272/.375/.497. Basically, one-and-a-half players hit like Bryce Harper. Their combined WAR (7.2, per Baseball Reference) represented most of the cushion between them and the second-place Detroit Tigers.

QED: St. Paul was their MVP.

When Buxton, Lewis, and Carlos Correa got hurt in 2024, Wallner struggled early, and Julien struggled all season... those answers ran out. Jose Miranda did a respectable job coming back from AAA, slashing .284/.382/.441 in 121 games. The rest of the group, however? They just weren't quite ready for The Show.

Their pitching went a similar route, with Simeon Woods Richardson boasting a strong 4.17 ERA. However, young AAA reinforcements Louis Varland, David Festa, and Zebby Matthews combined for a 6.23 ERA over 151.2 innings.

No shame in that. Austin Martin projects as a utility player, and he more-or-less played like a decent one. Brooks Lee OPS'd just .585, but in 170 at-bats as a 23-year-old rookie. Festa and Matthews were both 24. A rough start in a small sample size doesn't say much about their futures.

However, it had a lot to say about Minnesota's playoff chances. Festa, Lee, Martin, Matthews, Varland, and Woods Richardson combined for 0.8 WAR. Maybe the overall picture didn't break the Twins, who missed the playoffs by four games, but St. Paul sure didn't help.

We know what's up this year: Until (we hope) the Twins get sold, an infusion of cash isn't heading through the door. We can probably pencil in time for Buxton, Lewis, and Correa to get injured. Minnesota's roster is stagnant, and any improvements from a fringe playoff team to an AL Central title must come from within.

Luckily, St. Paul seems poised to give Minnesota help that much more closely resembles 2023 than 2024. And that's assuming someone like Lee starts the season in the majors.

Those may be unfair expectations for any class of rookie/not-fully-established players. As The Athletic's Aaron Gleeman noted in 2023, rookies don't usually come along so fast and so furious. But the Twins are in the sweet spot of reaping the benefits from their prospect pool, with most of their best prospects being in the high minors.

For example, how long will we expect to see Emmanuel Rodriguez in St. Paul? Granted, he got just seven games of AAA experience at the end of the season after injuries kept him out of the lineup for two months. Still, it's hard not to drool over his accomplishments with the Wichita Wind Surge. He was the fourth-youngest player in the Texas League to log 150 plate appearances but mashed the second-highest OPS (1.100) of anyone meeting that cutoff. Rodriguez will force his way into the Twins lineup with any kind of hot start in St. Paul.

Meanwhile, Luke Keaschall's .832 OPS put him at 15th-best in the Texas League. While you can't expect Walker Jenkins to make it to the Twins before turning 21, you can never say never when it comes to someone with that much upside.

But outside of Rodriguez, the most dependable value will come from Festa and Matthews, who are a hell of a 1-2 punch to have stashed in AAA. Their ERA ranged from fine (4.90 for Festa) to ugly (6.69 for Matthews), but their underlying numbers in the majors were intriguing.

Festa's strikeout rate as a starter (10.5 K/9) just sneaks into the 90th percentile of starters with 50-plus innings last season. His K/9 rate and 3.33 K/BB ratio are fairly comparable to Hot Stove Pipe Dream Dylan Cease. Matthews struggled with control, surrendering more walks in nine starts (11) than he had in 17 starts between Wichita and St. Paul (7). Still, he managed to notch a 10.3 K/9 and a 3.91 K/BB ratio. There are kinks they needed to work out this offseason, but that's a solid foundation to build on.

As a Twins fan, it sucks to see ownership's failure to improve a team that should have been able to get to the playoffs last year. It also sucks to have the season very likely hinge on whether a handful of prospects work out or not. But that's the reality fans are living in, and if that's the case, at least we can say the prospect class of 2025 looks like they can more closely resemble 2023 than 2024.