MINNEAPOLIS -- For the third year in a row, the Minnesota Twins have a top-five pick in Major League Baseball's first-year player draft. While it's an enviable position to have yet another high draft selection, it means Minnesota's big league club -- which lost 96 or more games three years in a row -- has struggled in order to yield this pick.
With the hope that the Twins' record in 2014 will mean selecting later in the 2015 draft, Minnesota's front office aims to take advantage of having the No. 5 overall pick on Thursday.
"In any organization, it's all about how the big league team is doing," said Twins scouting director Deron Johnson. "I'm happy that they're doing a lot better than we've done the last three years. It'd be great to be picking in the middle or late in the first round."
Minnesota had the No. 2 overall pick in 2012 and took can't-miss prospect Byron Buxton, a speedy high school outfielder from Georgia who has since emerged as arguably the top prospect in all of baseball. Last year, the Twins drafted Texas prep pitcher Kohl Stewart, a hard-throwing right-hander. In his first full season as a professional, Stewart is thriving: he's 1-2 but has a 2.76 ERA in 10 starts with Low-A Cedar Rapids.
Twins fans will find out Thursday night who Minnesota takes with that No. 5 pick. Unlike the year the Twins selected Buxton with the second pick, Minnesota's first-round selection this year hinges upon what the four teams ahead of them -- the Astros, Marlins, White Sox and Cubs -- do with their picks.
"The year we took Buxton, we were looking at maybe three guys. This year, heck, picking five, we've got a list of eight or nine," Johnson said. "It just depends on what happens at the top of the draft, obviously. Safe to say we're all looking at the same guys. It makes it a little bit more difficult, but we think we'll get a pretty good player, a guy that we like at five. Hopefully we get the guy that we really want."
Johnson said this year's draft is loaded with pitching, especially at the front end of the draft class. Baseball America lists a trio of pitchers -- high schoolers Brady Aiken and Tyler Kolek and college pitcher Carlos Rodon -- as the top three players in the draft. The Twins, meanwhile, have been linked in several mock drafts to high school shortstop Nick Gordon as a possibility with the No. 5 pick. He's the brother of Dodgers second baseman Dee Gordon and the son of former major-league pitcher Tom Gordon.
With so many rounds in Major League Baseball's draft -- 40, to be exact -- the Twins aren't necessarily worried about addressing a certain need with the fifth overall pick.
"Picking high in the draft, certainly in the first couple rounds, we're going for the best available player," Johnson said. "Certainly in our sport, unlike basketball where there's only two rounds, football where they have seven rounds, they can go for specific needs because they go straight to their parent club. In our industry, they're going to spend at least four years in the minor leagues before they get to the big leagues. We're going for the best talent available. That's always been our mantra, and that's kind of the way we're going to go."
This is the first time the Twins have had three top-five picks in three consecutive years since 1999-2001. Back in 1999 they took high school outfielder B.J. Garbe with the No. 5 overall pick. Garbe spent eight seasons in the minors but never reached the big leagues. The following year, Minnesota grabbed pitcher Adam Johnson No. 2 overall. He pitched in just nine career games in the majors.
Then in 2001, the Twins drafted a catcher named Joe Mauer with the first overall pick. All he's done since then is win three batting titles, been named Most Valuable Player and played in six All-Star Games.
It's still early to tell, but it appears as if Minnesota hit on its early first-round picks in 2012 and 2013. On Thursday night, the Twins have yet another chance to add a high-end player early in the draft to help boost Minnesota's rebuilding process.
"We're hoping to capitalize and take advantage of picking this high," Johnson said. "Hopefully we continue to make smart baseball decisions and continue to bring impact into the organization."
Follow Tyler Mason on Twitter
