The Minnesota Twins promoted top prospect Byron Buxton straight from Double-A Chattanooga in mid-June and they'll do the same with their No. 2 overall prospect on Thursday.
Third baseman Miguel Sano will make his MLB debut tonight against the Kansas City Royals after the Twins sent down first baseman/designated hitter Kenny Vargas to Chattanooga, a source familiar with the move told Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com.
Sano is the No. 9 overall prospect in the MLB (via MLB.com) and No. 13 overall (via Baseball America), but those rankings are expected to change due to the promotion of a number of other top prospects this season.
The slugger was batting .274/.374/.544 with 55 runs scored, 15 home runs, 48 RBIs and 5 stolen bases in 66 games before getting the call.
"Signed out of the Dominican Republic for $3.15 million, the fifth-highest bonus in Twins history, Sano weathered a lengthy pre-signing ordeal that included an age dispute," according to his scouting report from Baseball America. "He rocketed to the top spot on the Twins' prospect list after 2012 before stepping aside for Byron Buxton in 2013. He had Tommy John surgery in mid-March 2014, wiping out his first big league spring training as well as his entire season. Blessed with scale-busting power and an advanced understanding at the plate, Sano now is a year removed from a 35-homer season that ranked him fourth in the minors."
Sano will likely get reps at DH because Trevor Plouffe is the team's third baseman. The Twins went 11-17 in the month of June and are looking for a spark as they head into a crucial road series against the AL Central leading Kansas City Royals.
Minnesota has been a pleasant surprise this year, but they'll need to keep up the consistent winning if they wish to stay atop the division and remain in the race with the Royals and Detroit Tigers. They sit 4.5 games back of Kansas City and are tied with the Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays for the second wild-card spot.
"If there's anything that can turn this around it's getting up for a series like this," Plouffe told La Velle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "I think we are ready for it."
