Puckett’s Pond Minnesota Twins Top 20 Prospects: 1-5

1. Nick Gordon, SS, 21 years old

Gordon has a family background that has led to plenty of people knowing his name for a long time as his father Tom Gordon was a major league pitcher for many years, and his brother Dee Gordon is an All-Star player who has won a batting title in his career and is known for his incredible speed.

So when the Twins drafted Gordon 5th overall in 2014, there were some mistaken expectations of the player he would be based on his father and his brother. Gordon was an exceptional athlete, true, but he was a lot more polished as a baseball player than his brother ever was.

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Gordon really has a skillset of being a “jack of all trades, master of none”. He’s got excellent contact skills, tremendous gap power, plus top end speed (though it takes him a few steps to get there), quality defense, and a very accurate arm.

Some questioned his ability to stay at shortstop, but a big part of that has always been that Gordon isn’t flashy at the position. He has continued to work hard at his instincts tat the position and really has shown that he could handle the position long-term if that was where the Twins choose to use him going forward. He’ll likely not be a Gold Glove SS, but he’d not hurt the team at the position.

Offensively, Gordon is not going to hit 30 home runs or steal 30 bases, but it’d not surprise me at all if he had a few seasons at his peak where he had the baseball “quadruple double” (10+ doubles, triples, home runs, and stolen bases), something that’s not incredibly common (Eddie Rosario did it in 2015, the last infielder to do such was Jean Segura in 2013).

He should have a debut with the Twins either in September of this season or soon in the 2018 season, and it would not surprise if he finished the year in AAA.

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That’s the list. Do you agree? Disagree? Comment below!