Arizona Fall League Preview: Minnesota Twins
By Liam Carter ·
All eight Twins representatives join the Salt River Rafters. Yasser Mercedes is the clear headliner, but the organization also has a handful of pitchers who finished 2026 with more questions than answers and need competitive innings before spring.
Mercedes Brings Power, Speed, and an Unresolved Contact Question
Mercedes' 2026 season gave evaluators a split verdict. His 21-game stretch at Single-A Fort Myers was hard to ignore: 26-for-81 (.321) with a .642 slugging percentage, six home runs and 11 stolen bases. The Twins promoted him to High-A Cedar Rapids in May, and the numbers there told a different story. He hit .232 with a 29.4 percent strikeout rate across 88 games, consistent with what scouts have seen throughout his professional career: the tools show up in bursts, but the contact issues persist as he climbs. He did hit 12 homers for the Kernels.
Combine both stops and the full-season line is .249/.343/.453 with 18 home runs, 52 stolen bases and 137 strikeouts in 492 plate appearances. The speed plays. He makes contact on about 70 percent of his swings, but with a swing rate near 43 percent, that is not enough contact volume to keep the strikeouts manageable. 80Grade's report puts his raw power in the 55-60 range based on exit velocity data, yet his game power at High-A ran behind that ceiling.
Mercedes turns 22 in November, so there is still developmental runway, but the contact mechanics are the whole story now. His extended swing creates timing problems against better velocity, and High-A pitchers exploited that consistently. If the fall shows the mechanical work sticking against upper-minors arms, the outlook for 2027 changes. If the strikeout rate stays north of 28 percent in the desert, the quad-A projection in his 80Grade profile becomes harder to dismiss. His speed and above-average arm keep him in center field, but the bat needs to show something here. 80Grade ranks him 16th in the Twins system.
DeBarge's Speed Profile Faces an Honest Test
Kyle DeBarge spent his entire 2026 season at Double-A Wichita, and the results fairly represent where the profile sits: 41 stolen bases, a 12.4 percent walk rate and a .221 batting average across 120 games, while playing four different positions. He draws walks, puts pressure on defenses, and the steal total confirms the speed plays at the level. 80Grade grades his power at 35, and the production matches: 12 home runs in 457 at-bats with a .352 slugging percentage.
DeBarge, a 23-year-old 2024 draftee, projects as a utility infielder unless the bat reaches league average. His 44.7 percent swing rate is roughly average, and a 70.2 percent contact rate means he is not a major swing-and-miss concern, but Double-A pitchers sequenced him well enough that his average sagged all season. Speed-over-slugging profiles need a functional hit tool, so watch whether he can sustain the walk rate while making harder contact on the pitches he does attack.
Jacob McCombs Works the Gaps at High-A
Jacob McCombs, a 2025 seventh-round pick, had a productive first full pro season: 64-for-239 (.268) with a .452 slugging percentage, seven home runs, five triples and 16 stolen bases over 67 games at Cedar Rapids. An 18 percent strikeout rate is low for the level, and his 55.2 percent swing rate shows he is hunting contact rather than waiting. The tradeoff is a 5.6 percent walk rate, which limits the on-base side.
80Grade projects him as a fourth outfielder who can play all three spots, with a strong arm and consistent contact. The power grades at 45, projecting to 12 to 15 home runs at the major league level. If the 22-year-old keeps his strikeout rate below 20 percent against AFL arms, that is an encouraging sign.
The Pitching Group: Arms with ERA Baggage and Whiff Upside
Five Twins arms make the trip, and the question is whether any of them showed enough swing-and-miss to suggest a usable major league profile once the command stabilizes.
Cesar Lares had the toughest numbers of the group. The 23-year-old left-hander posted a 10.27 ERA over 12 High-A starts with a 14.8 percent walk rate. He did strike out 21.9 percent of batters and mixes four pitches, but the command was too inconsistent to keep innings clean. His four-seamer sits around 92 and touches 94, alongside an 82-mph slider and an 83-mph changeup, all graded a tick below average by 80Grade, which projects him as a long reliever or up-and-down depth piece. 80Grade ranks him 28th in the system.
Brian Zeldin split 2026 between Fort Myers and Cedar Rapids, and the split tells the story. At Fort Myers he posted a 4.76 ERA with a 36.2 percent strikeout rate and a 10.0 percent walk rate over 17 innings. After a May promotion to High-A, the walk rate ballooned to 19.3 percent and the ERA climbed to 8.07 over 32.1 innings. His 35.3 percent whiff rate across both levels and 29.0 percent strikeout rate show the stuff misses bats. If the 26-year-old can get his command back to the Single-A baseline, there is a functional late-innings profile in there, and the jump in walks may reflect a level adjustment rather than a permanent ceiling.
Jake Murray, 26, spent 2026 entirely at Fort Myers and posted a 6.23 ERA, but with a 30.4 percent strikeout rate and a 15.5 percent walk rate across 25 appearances. The walks are the obstacle, and at 20.5 pitches per inning he was working inefficiently. The left-hander needs to show cleaner strike-throwing before the organization can project him into a higher-leverage role.
Ross Dunn, 24, returned from the 60-day injured list in late July and pitched at three levels, posting a 4.18 ERA in 23.2 combined innings with a 25.0 percent strikeout rate and an 11.0 percent walk rate. His best stretch came in the FCL: three starts, six innings, one hit, no runs. The left-hander's four-seamer sits around 94 and reaches 96, with a slider and changeup that both grade a tick below average. Command has been his persistent issue, and the AFL is a chance to log innings after an injury-interrupted year.
Cleiber Maldonado, a 22-year-old left-hander, opened the season on the 60-day injured list. He struck out 32.4 percent of batters in 12.2 High-A innings but walked 19.1 percent and allowed 16 earned runs, so his fall is about strike-throwing and volume.
Bottom Line
Mercedes is the Twin whose fall carries the most weight. The Twins know the tools: the speed, the raw power and the arm all grade well. They need to see whether the swing-and-miss at High-A was a level adjustment the fall can help resolve, or whether the contact issues will cap the ceiling. If he shows a cleaner approach against AFL pitching, his path to Double-A in 2027 looks much more defined. Everything else in this group is useful depth work.