3 Twins Prospects Most Hurt Without a Minor League Season

[Cody Christie]

Minor League Baseball announced the cancellation of their 2020 season on Tuesday. Outside of the top prospects included in the team’s 60-man roster, there are plenty of players who fans and scouts won’t get to see for all of 2020. Here are three Twins prospects that are most hurt by there not being a 2020 campaign.Keoni Cavaco, SS

Cavaco was the Twins first round draft pick in 2019 and he struggled in his first professional season. Over the course of 25 games, he hit .172/.217/.253 with five extra-base hits and 35 strikeouts. Entering the draft, he was seen as a player on the rise because of his toolset, but it’s hard to gauge a player after less than 92 professional plate appearances.

 

The 2020 campaign would have allowed for Cavaco to repeat with the GCL Twins or take the jump up to Elizabethton. His age-19 season is going to be a wash so the Twins are going to have to hope he makes significant progress in the years ahead to live up to his status as a top-10 prospect in the Twins loaded farm system.

 

Jordan Balazovic, RHP

This was the year for Jordan Balazovic to make his mark and it could have provided him the opportunity to move all the way to the big-league level. Instead, he isn’t even included on the Twins current 60-man roster and he will be left wondering what could have been in 2020. For those that don’t know, Balazovic is widely considered the Twins best pitching prospect and Baseball America and MLB.com included him in their top-100 prospects entering the 2020 season.

 

Last season, Balazovic dominated with most of his starts coming at Fort Myers where he was nearly three years younger than the average age of the competition. He struck out 12.4 batters per nine innings and his WHIP was an unheard of 0.98 over 93 2/3 innings. The 2020 season could have catapulted him into the upper echelon of pitching prospects and that might have put him on track to be a September call-up.

 

Wander Javier, SS/2B

Javier had 50 professional games under his belt entering last season and there was little he did to improve his stock in 2019. As a 20-year old at Cedar Rapids, he hit .177/.278/.323 with 11 home runs and nine doubles in 80 games. It was his first season at a full-season affiliate, and he was coming off a 2018 campaign that saw him miss the entire year due to shoulder surgery. If there was any prospect that needed to show his potential in 2020, it was certainly Javier.

 

Even with all his struggles, he is still considered one of the Twins top prospects because of the tools he showed as an amateur. He’s only played 110 games during his professional career and that has amounted to fewer than 500 at-bats. Minnesota left him off their 60-man roster and maybe this will be motivation for him to comeback and be an even stronger player in 2021.

 

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