What Are We Waiting For? It's Time For Twins to Call Up Kaelen Culpepper

There's no longer any reason to wait. Kaelen Culpepper, the Twins' No. 2 prospect, should be called up for his MLB debut and starting at shortstop for Minnesota on Tuesday night in Detroit.

Culpepper, 23, was the Twins' first-round pick in 2024 out of Kansas State. He's risen through the system quickly, as you'd hope to see from a college position player. He was named the organization's minor league player of the year after splitting the 2025 season between High-A Cedar Rapids and Double-A Wichita and hitting .289 with 20 homers, 25 steals, and an .844 OPS.

After an invite to big-league spring camp, Culpepper began this year with Triple-A St. Paul. All he's done there is hit .265 with 14 homers, 13 steals, 50 runs scored, and an .862 OPS in 56 games. He struggled a decent bit in April (.205 average, .683 OPS), but then hit .280 with a .947 OPS in May and has hit .368 with a 1.162 OPS through his first five games in June. He just blasted his 14th homer out to right-center field on Friday night in St. Paul.

No one leads off an inning with a long ball better than @thechosen1kc. He smacks his team leading 14th home run of the season, the 10th to lead of an inning. Culpepper has hit safely in a career-high 12 straight games (17-49, .347) pic.twitter.com/2dyOWHOuTG
— St. Paul Saints (@StPaulSaints) June 6, 2026

Meanwhile, the Twins have clearly been preparing for Culpepper's arrival by opening up the shortstop position for him. Brooks Lee has moved from short to third base. Royce Lewis, who was just called up again after raking alongside Culpepper in St. Paul for a couple weeks, has shifted to the right side of the infield, where he'll rotate in with Luke Keaschall and Kody Clemens.

The Twins are currently using the trio of Tristan Gray, Ryan Kreidler, and Orlando Arcia at shortstop. None of the three veterans are major parts of the team's long-term future. Between Lee (178 PAs before moving to third) and the current three (80 combined PAs), Twins shortstops have combined to post a 94 wRC+ (16th in baseball) and 0.3 fWAR (26th). They've been merely passable offensively and quite bad defensively, mostly because of Lee's struggles to field that position.

Culpepper, even with a learning curve at the big-league level, has a very good chance to be an upgrade both at the plate and in the field for the Twins' shortstop position. He doesn't whiff very often and hits the ball hard. He'll also bring speed at the plate and on the bases.

The only reason the Twins might wait a bit longer is to try to avoid Culpepper securing Super Two status and potentially reaching arbitration a year early. But if they're at all serious about trying to win this year, service time manipulation shouldn't be a real consideration. The Twins are currently 30-37 and three games back of an AL Wild Card spot after losing nine of their last 12 games. They're at a juncture in their season where they could either surge and get back in the mix or keep falling and fade out of competitive relevance.

It's time to bring Culpepper up and see if he can provide the spark the Twins need.

Add us as a preferred source on Google