Twins Blog: The Future Is Now, Chapter 2
By Dan Cook
It's official. Miguel Sano is a Minnesota Twin.
The rumors started Wednesday after Kennys Vargas was demoted to Double-A Chattanooga. They were fueled when MLB.com reported that the corresponding move would be promotion of the prospect ranked second in the Twins system at the beginning of the year. And now the Twins have announced the promotion of Miguel Sano, who will likely make his Major League debut Thursday night in Kansas City.
Sano was born on May 11, 1993, in the Dominican Republic – though the investigation of that date, and his official age, was a long an arduous task.
(If you want to learn more about the fascinating – and historically shady – process of international signings, check out the documentary "Ballplayer: Pelotero," in which Sano is a central figure.)
After the aforementioned verification process, Sano was signed to an international free agent contract by the Minnesota Twins for a club record $3.15 million signing bonus on Sept. 29, 2009. Not only was that the most the Twins had spent on an international free agent at the time, but the $3.15 million was more than they'd spent on all their international free agents from 2006-08 combined.
Sano began his professional career as a Top-100 prospect as ranked by Baseball America. Baseball Prospectus thought even more highly of him, ranking him 35th among all prospects in baseball.
But once his prodigious power began to display itself, he rocketed to the elite levels of those same lists.
In 2013 Baseball America had him ranked 9th, Baseball Prospectus had him ranked 21st and MLB.com had him 4th in all of baseball.
He was quickly surpassed by Byron Buxton in prospect rankings, but was still very highly thought of by scouts.
In 2014, Sano received his first official invite to big league training camp and there was some discussion as to whether he might break camp with the big club, or at least earn his first call-up that same year.
But thanks to a balky elbow, which eventually required Tommy John surgery, that wasn't to be.
Instead of making his Major League debut, Sano spent 2014 recovering from surgery and rehabbing said elbow.
Sano began the 2015 season with the Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts, and it wasn't exactly a quick start. Over the first month of the season, Sano hit just .159/.303/.381 with four homers and nine RBI.
But as the weather heated up in May, so did Sano.
During the Twins best month in ages, Sano was having quite the month of his own, putting together a slash-line of .303/.374/.556 with five home runs, eight doubles, a triple and 22 RBI.
And in the month of June, Sano truly broke out. He hit .329/.432/.658 (That's an OPS of 1.090!) with six homers, eight doubles and 17 RBI. All that in a full 20 fewer plate appearances than he had in May.
He's been so good recently that he was named Player of the Week in the Southern League. In the last seven days, he's hit .550/.625/1.100 with five doubles, two homers, seven RBI, seven runs scored and 22 total bases in just five games.
Small sample size? Of course. Numbers that still make your eyes pop? Absolutely.
But after watching Buxton struggle to a .189/.231/.270 slash-line over his first 11 games before being sidelined by injury, it's fair to ask whether Twins fans should temper their excitement.
The answer, as always, isn't simple.
Where Byron is touted as a five-tool player (hitting for average, hitting for power, speed, throwing and fielding), Sano is highly regarded because he can hit a baseball really, really far.
(If you missed the blast he hit against St. Louis in Jupiter, FL during Spring Training, do a quick Google search, and enjoy watching a baseball launched into low-Earth orbit.)
And what makes Sano's call-up intriguing is that one of the Twins greatest deficiencies at the moment is the lack of a true power threat in the middle of the line-up. If Sano can provide some pop in the middle of the order, and if that becomes contagious among the rest of the Twins hitters, he might be just the spark the Twins struggling offense needs to get back on track.
Perhaps the best approach for Twins fans is "cautious optimism." Sano wasn't as highly ranked as Cubs phenom Kris Bryant was to star the season, but he'd sure take Bryant's .279/.381/.466 and 10 home runs over 67 games.
Perhaps the better comp is with the Rangers Joey Gallo. Gallo went 3-for-4 with a home run in his Major League debut, with a second big fly the following night. After that, he hit .189 with 39 strikeouts in just 89 plate appearances and earned a ticket back to Triple-A.
It's baseball. You just don't know what's going to happen
But Sano is as hot as you could ask a prospect to be at the moment, and if that translates – even partially – to the big leagues, Twins fans could be in for something special.
Buxton's call-up began the wave of the future for Twins baseball.
Chapter Two begins tonight with Sano.
