Top Ten Prospects of 2000 - 10 years later

The year is 1999 and the Twins have just finished their worst season since 1982 with a record of 63-97. Rather than wait til next year - the attitude of a lot of fans is wait for the new millennium. As it turned out, that turned out to be true when the first season of the next century found the Twins in the heat of a pennant race. But the end of the 1999 season was not a time of real hope or optimism. Still people looked forward to the prospects in the Twins system that they hoped would bring another day. So who were those prospects. Here is a list of players who played with the Twins minor league teams that year and later appeared in the big leagues ( this is from Baseball Reference and there seem to be a some problems with their database):

GCL
Justin Morneau
Rob Bowen
Tommy Watkins
Luis Maza
Travis Bowyer
Kevin Frederick
Brian Wolfe

Elizabethton
Willie Eyre

Quad Cities
Bobby Kielty (22)
Mike Restovich (20)
Luis Rodriguez (19)
Grant Balfour (21)
Juan Rincon (20)
Saul Rivera (21)

Fort Myers
Micheal Cuddyer (20)
Mike Ryan (21)
Brad Thomas (21)
Juan Padilla (22)
MIchael Nakamura (22)
Danny Mota (23)
Ryan Mills (21)

New Britain
Luis Rivas (19)
John Barnes (23)
Cleatus Davidson (22)
Chad Moeller (24)
Kyle Lohse (20)
Jack Cressend (24)
Gus Gandarillas (27)
Matt Kinney (22)
Jason Ryan (23)

Salt Lake City
Matt LeCroy (23)
Brian Buchanan (25)
Chris Latham (26)
AJ Pierzynski (22)
Mike Moriarity (25)
Tony Fiore (27)
Jeff Harris (24)
Dan Perkins (24)
Mike Redman (25)
Kevin Ohme (28)
JC Romero

Based on actual performance here is how I would rank the Twins Top Ten prospects in retrospect

Justin Morneau
Michael Cuddyer
AJ Pierzynski
Juan Rincon
Kyle Lohse
Mike Redman
Matt LeCroy
Luis Rivas
Chad Moeller
Grant Balfour

Others to consider: Bobby Kielty,  Rob Bowen, JC Romero

This is a hard group to judge. None of the players after LeCroy would be considered unqualified successes.  Morneau, Cuddyer and Pierzynski are the only real stars.

Here is Baseball America's Top Ten for 2000:
1.Michael Cuddyer, 3B
2.Michael Restovich, OF
3.Matthew LeCroy, C
4.B.J. Garbe, OF
5.Luis Rivas, SS
6.J.C. Romero, LHP
7.Kyle Lohse, RHP
8.Johan Santana, LHP
9.Juan Rincon, RHP
10.Ryan Mills, LHP

Missing: Morneau, Pierzynski, Redman, Moeller, Balfour
Misses: Restovich, Garbe, Mills
Santana was taken in the 1999 Rule 5 draft so I did not rank him.