Fun Fun. There was a question in the hot sheet chat on Friday about whether these two could be the 1/2 prospects in baseball next winter. The chatter (Callis?) did not treat it like a stupid suggestion.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=20311

Miguel Sano, 3B, Twins (High A Fort Myers)
Independent of Sano’s impressive .377/.443/.705 line, with five bombs in 16 games, the word that keeps coming up when talking about the 19-year-old third baseman is “improvement.” There was a different look to Sano in the box during spring training than when I last saw the prospect at Instructs, and scouts have also commented about that difference. The slugger has been making strides picking up the spin out of opposing pitchers’ hands, which has shown in his body language at the plate and in a smoother weight transfer. Sano has been less apt to commit early onto his front foot in the early going, allowing the powerful right-handed batter to sit back and explode through pitches to create more consistent hard contact.

This can be a leading indicator pointing toward growth with Sano’s hit tool. My main question after seeing him in the fall was how exactly it was going to translate against more advanced competition. The big test will come when Sano eventually makes the jump to the Eastern League, but the early look and subsequent chatter from evaluators lend positive signs that progress is being made. —Chris Mellen

Byron Buxton, OF, Twins (Low-A Cedar Rapids):
It is tough to imagine a better start to the 2013 season for the Twins’ top prospect than we’ve seen. Further, as tough as it is to believe, Buxton’s gaudy stats (a .415/.523/.642 slash line) don’t fully capture his performance. He was often guilty of expanding the zone during his stint in short-season ball last summer, split between the complex league and Appy League. It has been a whole new Buxton in the Midwest League. The talented center fielder has upped his aggressiveness early in the count, punishing early count fastballs. He will still struggle to properly identify quality secondaries, but until the league adjusts and starts feeding him off-speed early on it isn’t going to be an issue. Buxton is also giving away fewer at bats; even when down in the count he has been able to shorten up and get the ball in play, rather than checking out mentally, flailing at a two-strike pitch out of the zone, and looking ahead to the next at-bat. Defensively, he remains a similar player to the physically gifted but underdeveloped talent we saw last summer – great speed but indirect routes and periodic misplaced first steps off the bat. Likewise, there remains big upside but a lot of work to be done on the bases, with Buxton’s struggles with jumps a clear indicator of his limited exposure to more advanced pitchers and their ability to disrupt baserunners’ timing. While the holes in his game remain evident, the fact that Buxton is so clearly undeveloped in so many aspects of his game actually makes his torrid start that much more impressive. While the future holds potential pitfalls aplenty, it’s hard to look at the returns from these first two-plus weeks and not think this could be a very, very loud summer for the second overall pick in last year’s draft. —Nick Faleris