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Twins' Top Prospects Make Loud Statement With Home Run Barrage

The future of Minnesota's lineup was on full display on Tuesday afternoon in St. Paul.
Will Ragatz|
St. Paul Saints shortstop Kaelen Culpepper
St. Paul Saints shortstop Kaelen Culpepper | MiLB.TV

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Minnesota Twins

The offensive display put on by a quartet of top Twins prospects on Tuesday afternoon in St. Paul should have fans awfully excited about the future of Minnesota's lineup.

The Saints hit six home runs in a 9-5 win over the Iowa Cubs at CHS Field, and five of them were hit by three of the Twins' top five offensive prospects. Kaelen Culpepper, the No. 2 prospect in the organization according to MLB Pipeline, snapped out of a slump with a pair of homers. Emmanuel Rodriguez (No. 4) recorded a multi-homer game of his own, including one blast that broke his own franchise record for exit velocity. Even Gabriel Gonzalez (No. 7) got in on the fun with a solo shot. Walker Jenkins (No. 1) didn't homer, but he did crush a left-on-left double into the gap.

The starting pitcher for Iowa was lefty Jordan Wicks, a 2021 first-round pick who has thrown 95 career MLB innings and is currently on a major-league rehab assignment. He had a tough afternoon. In a battle of former 21st overall picks out of Kansas State, Culpepper greeted Wicks with a leadoff home run in the bottom of the first inning. The homer was Culpepper's first since April 5 and snapped an 0-for-14 stretch from the Saints' shortstop.

Jenkins followed that with a 107.2 MPH double, then scored on a Gonzalez RBI single. Later in that inning, the Saints went up 5-0 on a three-run homer from Kyler Fedko, his sixth of the season. Fedko is 26 and not considered a prospect, but he should reach the big leagues at some point after piling up 28 homers and 38 stolen bases between Double-A and Triple-A in 2025.

In the second inning, Gonzalez put a sixth run on the board against Wicks with a 400-foot blast out to left-center field. He's up to seven homers this season, which leads the Saints and ties Carson McCusker's 2025 team record for home runs before the end of April. Gonzalez, who was acquired in the Jorge Polanco trade with Seattle, has two more games to try to break that mark.

The Saints weren't even close to done raking. In the fourth inning, Culpepper recorded his first career Triple-A multi-homer game when he took a fastball out to right-center against a righty. The Twins' reigning minor league player of the year had been struggling a bit in recent weeks but boosted his season OPS up to .783 with this performance, which included a single in the eighth.

And then E-Rod joined the party. In the fifth inning, facing another rehabbing Chicago Cubs pitcher in Ethan Roberts, Rodriguez absolutely smoked a ball over the fence in right. It left his bat at 118.3 miles per hour, which breaks his own Saints record of 117.1, set all of ten days ago. No one in MLB or any level of the minors has hit a harder home run so far in 2026. The ball had a launch angle of just 19 degrees and left the yard about as quickly as you'll ever see.

For good measure, in his next plate appearance, Rodriguez took veteran reliever Trent Thornton (401 MLB innings) deep to right-center. That one, his sixth of the year, left his bat at a meager 110 miles per hour. It raised Rodriguez's OPS for the season to .945.

A day like this naturally leads to one question: How long until these guys are hitting tanks at Target Field instead? And while there isn't a perfect answer to that question, it sure feels like there's a good chance we'll see all four prospects debut for the Twins at some point this year.

Rodriguez is almost certainly the closest. He's having the best year of any of the four and doesn't seem to have anything left to prove in the minor leagues. It might be only a matter of time until he takes Matt Wallner's place as the Twins' everyday right fielder.

Culpepper may not be far behind, even though Tuesday was just his 24th game at Triple-A. If either Brooks Lee or Luke Keaschall were to get injured, Culpepper would presumably be in line to get the call. Even with the seven homers, Gonzalez is off to a slow overall start to 2026 (.726 OPS) after an incredible 2025 that saw him rise from High-A to Triple-A. Jenkins is off to an even slower start (.665 OPS) and is still just 21, so the Twins aren't going to rush him up to the big leagues just yet.

It's entirely possible all four will be fixtures in the Twins' lineup by this time next year, if not earlier. If you want to see them in action in St. Paul, now's the time to do it.

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Will Ragatz
WILL RAGATZ

Will Ragatz is a senior writer for Vikings On SI, who also covers the Twins, Timberwolves, Gophers, and other Minnesota teams. He is a credentialed Minnesota Vikings beat reporter, covering the team extensively at practices, games and throughout the NFL draft and free agency period. Ragatz attended Northwestern University, where he studied at the prestigious Medill School of Journalism. During his time as a student, he covered Northwestern Wildcats football and basketball for SB Nation’s Inside NU, eventually serving as co-editor-in-chief in his junior year. In the fall of 2018, Will interned in Sports Illustrated’s newsroom in New York City, where he wrote articles on Major League Baseball, college football, and college basketball for SI.com.

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