When the Minnesota Twins selected Walker Jenkins with the fifth overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft, there were plenty of expectations placed upon the high school outfielder. But while he will only be 20 years old on Opening Day, a group of writers is starting to place even bigger praise heading into 2025 including MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo and Jim Callis.
Jenkins was all over a piece where Callis and Mayo made their biggest prospect-related predictions for next season and Jenkins was both writers’ picks for MLB Pipeline’s hitter of the year next season.
“The tools are there,” Mayo wrote. “He showed when he was healthy, so that’s the only thing. There is nothing to say based on the injury or anything we’ve heard, that he doesn’t take care of his body or there would be a recurrence. All the reasons we thought he was going to win it this past season still stand true.”
Walker Jenkins could become baseball’s top prospect in 2025
Jenkins was limited by an early hamstring injury but recovered to have a strong first season of professional baseball. Jenkins hit .282/.394/.439 with six home runs, 58 RBI and 17 home runs and showed tremendous patience with 56 walks to 47 strikeouts in 82 games.
After finishing the year at Double-A Wichita, Jenkins is one of the most highly-regarded prospects in baseball. With other top prospects such as Baltimore’s Colby Mayo and Washington’s Dylan Crews expected to become full-time major leaguers next season, Jenkins could jump Crews for the top spot in MLB.com’s top 100 prospect rankings and possibly make his major league debut at the end of the year.
“I couldn’t look past Walker Jenkins, Mayo said. “Even if he touches the big leagues, maybe he ends up being in a similar situation to Dylan Crews, where he gets a fair number of at-bats but remains on prospect lists.”
Jenkins will have to make a big jump to reach the majors in 2025 as Trevor Larnach and Matt Wallner are projected as the Opening Day outfielders for the Twins and fellow top prospect Emmanuel Rodriguez, who ranks 29th on MLB.com’s top 100 prospects list, is currently at Triple-A St. Paul.
But as fellow MLB.com writer Do-Hyoung Park predicted earlier this week, Jenkins has the talent to have a big 2025 and Callis believes it’s within reach if he can stay healthy.
“He’s just very talented,” Callis wrote. “He needs to stay healthy. Jonathan and I were both adamant he would’ve won if he’d stay healthy.”