Twins To Promote Walker Jenkins

The Twins are going to call up prospect Walker Jenkins for Friday’s game, reports Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com. Minnesota will need to open a spot on both the active and 40-man rosters in order to make the move official. The club is off today, so the transactions probably won’t be made official until tomorrow. Jenkins is a consensus top 20 prospect in all of baseball. Baseball America currently lists him tenth overall, MLB Pipeline 15th, ESPN 12th and The Athletic 19th. FanGraphs is even more bullish, putting him fourth overall, behind only Jesús Made of the Brewers, Franklin Arias of the Red Sox and Kade Anderson of the Mariners. It’s not hard to see where the hype comes from, as Jenkins is a potential five-tool star. The Twins selected him fifth overall in 2023 out of South Brunswick High School in Southport, North Carolina. Since then, he has put up a combined .303/.404/.490 batting line across multiple minor league levels. His 13.4% walk rate and 15.9% strikeout rate are both very strong figures. His 144 wRC+ indicates he has been 44% above league average on the whole. He has good speed and a good arm and is considered a strong defender at all three outfield spots. The major concern with Jenkins is a checkered injury history. Even before being drafted, he had undergone hip impingement surgery and suffered a hamate injury. Since going pro, various issues have limited the quantity of his production. He still hasn’t topped 84 games played in any season since being drafted. In 2024, a quad strain and a hamstring injury limited him to 82 contests. Last year, an ankle sprain capped him at 84. This year, he has gotten into 73 games so far. He injured himself crashing into a wall in early May, suffering a Grade 2 AC joint sprain in his left shoulder. That injury sidelined him for a little more than a month. As a left-handed hitter, Jenkins gets rave reviews for his plate discipline and swing decisions. The power is a little behind his hit tool but the expectation has been that he would tap into more strength as he ages. The injuries have slowed that progress a bit. The scouting report from BA notes that most of his power is to the pull side and he still hasn’t hit a home run off a lefty pitcher. For Twins fans, this probably sounds familiar, as they have been enduring the Byron Buxton experience for years. Buxton is an MVP-level talent but frequent health issues have often limited the volume of his production. In his 12 big league seasons, he has never played more than 140 games and has only twice gone beyond 102. Of course, the fact that Jenkins currently evokes Buxton doesn’t mean their career paths are going to line up. Time will tell if the injury profile persists or if it’s something Jenkins can put behind him. Regardless of how that plays out, it’s an exciting time for the club and the fanbase, as no one in the game doubts the talent. Buxton has been battling hip issues this year. He exited Tuesday’s game and then sat out yesterday’s contest. Perhaps he is bound for the injured list or he could spend some time as the designated hitter or maybe just sit on the bench for a few days. The rest of Minnesota’s current outfield mix consists of Trevor Larnach, Luke Keaschall, Kody Clemens and Alan Roden. Minnesota has a number of lefty bats in the mix, as Jenkins, Larnach, Clemens and Roden all swing from that side. As does Matt Wallner, who got sent to the minors earlier this year. Prospects Emmanuel Rodriguez and Hendry Mendez are also lefties. That surplus has led to plenty of trade chatter involving the group. In fact, the Twins reportedly lined up a deal ahead of this year’s deadline which would have sent Larnach to the Astros for reliever Bryan Abreu. It seems the two front offices agreed to the swap but Astros owner Jim Crane nixed the deal because he didn’t want anyone traded off Houston’s big league roster. The Astros parted ways with general manager Dana Brown a few weeks later. It’s possible trade chatter picks up again in the offseason, with Larnach still the most likely candidate since he is slated for free agency after 2027. For now, the Twins will put Jenkins into the mix and get him accustomed to big league pitching. The club is still alive in the wide-open American League playoff race but they have slid to four games back and would have to leapfrog several teams to get in. There’s not enough time left in the season for Jenkins to exhaust rookie eligibility. A position player exhausts rookie status with 130 at-bats or 45 days on an active roster. With a month left in the season, both criteria are off the table. That’s significant because it means the prospect promotion incentive will remain on the table for Jenkins and the Twins next year, assuming the PPI system isn’t altered in the next collective bargaining agreement. Under the current CBA, a player is PPI eligible if he is on two of the three top 100 prospect lists from MLB Pipeline, Baseball American and ESPN. If such a player is promoted early enough in a season to get a full year of service time, he can earn his club an extra draft pick after the first round by either winning Rookie of the Year or finishing in the top three of MVP or Cy Young voting in his pre-arbitration seasons. Photo courtesy of Jim Rassol, Jonah Hinebaugh, Imagn Images