Story by
Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.
Twins have a dark horse prospect knocking on the door
- Story byPioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.
- Twins have a dark horse prospect knocking on the door
When discussing Twins prospects close to cracking the big-league lineup this season, two players have dominated the conversation: outfielder Walker Jenkins and shortstop Kaelen Culpepper.
That's OK with Aaron Sabato, Culpepper's former first baseman and Walker's current teammate, who has been putting on a show of his own in his first full Triple-A season with St. Paul.
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He gets it.
"What they have done is second to none, and the work that they've put in — they deserve everything that is being said about them," Sabato said before the Saints played against Louisville last week at CHS Field.
Culpepper, 23, made his major league debut last weekend in Milwaukee , and Jenkins is expected to join the Twins when major league rosters expand from 26 to 28 players on Sept. 1. They are ranked No. 3 and No. 1, respectively, in the Twins' minor league pipeline, bracketing 2026 first-round pick Vahn Lackey .
There's no such hype around Sabato, 27, who in his first few professional seasons struggled to find the stroke that made him a first-round pick out of North Carolina and is no longer among the team's top prospects, according to MLB Pipeline.
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That means little to fans who have watched Sabato hit .276 with 21 home runs, 64 RBIs and a .915 OPS in 88 games this season, fourth among all International League hitters . It means even less to Sabato, who said he isn't obsessing over being promoted to "The Show" yet this summer but has changed his upward trajectory with a major change to his pregame routine.
Sabato believes he's ready.
"There's not a doubt in my mind that I can perform (there)," he said. "A couple years ago if you had asked me, I don't think I would have said that. But the belief and confidence is 100 percent back, and I believe in myself now more than I ever have."
That started a good three years into his pro career. After stalling out at Class AA Wichita in 2023, and on the heels of having both of his hands broken by pitches in consecutive seasons, Sabato "really did some deep soul searching."
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"My back was against the wall," he said. "I wasn't putting up the numbers I wanted to. The power was there, but I wasn't getting consistent at-bats. It was a grind mentally."
He started working on his body at Maven in Atlanta , the same place Lackey worked during off-seasons at Georgia Tech, and after another underwhelming season at Wichita — .206, 10 homers, 33 RBIs and 104 strikeouts in 85 games — he was approached by the Twins organization about changing his pregame routine.
"We call it competitive game prep," said Twins field coordinator Toby Gardenhire, Sabato's manager in St. Paul in 2025. "Everybody does some form of competitive game prep; it's just a matter of what you do."
It's an attempt to ramp up pregame work to best replicate what a hitter will see when he steps into the batter's box. In Sabato's case, the key was an "overspeed" drill of facing foam baseballs from a pitching machine at 100 mph.
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"Sabato started doing it because it was always one of those things with him to make sure he was getting through the fastball," Gardenhire said. "So he has loaded up the fastball."
It worked.
Back at Wichita, Sabato hit .305 with nine homers in 39 games before being promoted to St. Paul, where he hit 14 more home runs and drove in 41 runs in 64 games. This year, he's having his best professional season, by far.
"I think the numbers speak for themselves," he said.
I just kept telling (the Twins) that I have so much more to give. I was drafted high for a reason," he added. "I was never gonna lose sight of that belief, and the more I kept working, the more I had to make changes.
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"Challenging myself pregame was definitely a huge change for me, but as long as I didn't give up on that, I know what I can do. I know what I'm capable of and what I can become, and I feel like the last two years I've really been proving that, getting back to hitting for average and power."
Finding a spot on the Twins as currently composed will be difficult for Sabato. He's a central casting first baseman — 6-foot, 230 pounds with power — but is unlikely to play anyplace else in the majors. The Twins, still in the hunt for an American League playoff spot, are built on athletic players who can play in different spots.
Plus, the Twins have three hot hitters — Josh Bell , Royce Lewis and Kody Clemens — rotating at first.
"I don't go on Twitter and look at the other stuff," Sabato said. "It's just outside noise, and if you let it bother you, it will keep you from performing on the field."
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Right now, that's all Sabato can do — continue doing.
"Bato's been awesome. He works his butt off," Gardenhire said. "That's another part of it; you've got to get buy-in from the players, and Sabato is one of those guys that's done everything that everybody has talked to him about. He wants to work hard, he wants to get better, and you're seeing the results of it right now."
