Neal: Jumping to conclusions about Twins prospects is a road not worth traveling

Trevor Larnach has dramatically improved his plate discipline. Jose Miranda is driving baseballs all over the field.

A year ago, both were in danger of falling so far down the Twins depth chart that they wouldn’t be able to recover. Now, both are examples of why jumping to conclusions about prospects is a road not worth traveling down.

But we do it. We think any top prospect who has dominated in the minors will enter the majors with authority and become a cornerstone player for the next 15 seasons. We read about 450-foot home runs and 100 miles per hour fastballs and predict multiple All-Star Game appearances. More information is needed before delivering a final verdict on a young player.

Former Twins manager Tom Kelly often said that it takes at least 1,000 major league plate appearances’ worth of information to determine how good hitters will be.

There’s too much failure in the game to conclude that a player stinks after one season, even two. What has to be evaluated is how players emerge from that failure. Will pitchers develop better off-speed stuff to keep hitters off the fastball? How does a hitter adjust when he starts seeing nasty breaking pitches? The seminal moment in which a young player turns the corner occurs at different times for different prospects. Social media experts didn’t believe Byron Buxton would hit major league pitching, yet he’s played — and homered — in an All-Star Game.

There are plenty of story lines flowing through the Twins as they attempt to repeat as AL Central champions, or at least reach the postseason as a wild card. One includes Larnach and Miranda making cases for being the most improved Twin.

Larnach, a first-round pick in 2018 out of Oregon State, debuted in 2021 and held his own early on, showing 450-foot power. But he hit .148 over his final 27 games before being returned to the minors. Once pitchers saw the damage he did on fastballs, he was served mostly breaking balls off the plate, and it wasn’t pretty. While he figured things out in the minors, the Matt Wallner Express passed him by during the 2023 season.

When Wallner struggled early this season, he was sent to St. Paul and Larnach was summoned. Larnach batted .350 over his first 18 games before cooling off some but is still holding his own, entering the weekend batting .253 with a .786 OPS vs. righthanders. He’s laying off the breaking stuff, getting into better counts and getting better pitches to hit.

After striking out more than 30% of the time in each of his first three seasons, including 34% last season, Larnach has seen his whiff rate plummet to 20.6% heading into the weekend. That’s below the league average of 22.4%. He struggles against lefthanded pitching but is thriving against righthanders, as he showed with his two home runs Saturday off Sonny Gray. His improved pitch selection will aid further development. Wallner has returned to the majors and now looks like Joey Gallo with better contact skills. There are your Twins corner outfielders going forward.

Miranda excited Twins fans in 2021 when he hit .344 with 30 homers and 94 RBI between Class AA Wichita and Class AAA St. Paul. He batted .268 during his 2022 debut season. The 2023 season? His over-aggressiveness worked against him at the plate, and poor defense and mental mistakes led to a demotion in May. He returned in July for five games before a shoulder impingement ended his season and delayed his start to the 2024 campaign.

Miranda has backed off his aggressiveness a tad, is hitting to all fields and has thrived. His strikeout rate has dipped to 13.7%, and his June rampage, during which he tied a major league record with a hit in 12 consecutive at-bats, announced to everyone that he has evolved.

He entered the weekend batting at least .300 against fastballs and breaking balls and .353 against offspeed pitches. His 2.4 WAR, according to Baseball Reference, is third among Twins position players. While the Twins have battled injuries, Miranda’s bat has fueled the offense.

With Miranda, Royce Lewis, a healthy Buxton and a healthy Carlos Correa, the Twins have one of the better righthanded hitting groups in the league. Miranda is their first baseman/designated hitter moving forward.

Larnach and Miranda have helped the offense function while the Twins desperately wait for a run of good health. Both are closing in on 1,000 plate appearances for their careers — and both are closer to reaching their potential.