Twins prospect Carson McCusker drawing big-league attention after winding path

Carson McCusker hammered two home runs for the St. Paul Saints on Tuesday, one ball flying over the fans sitting in the berm beyond left field, and it’s natural to wonder how every team missed on him.

There is no mistaking him on the field. He’s listed at 6-8 and 250 pounds, and the righthanded-hitting corner outfielder hits the ball as hard as anybody in Class AAA. His 426-foot home run Tuesday left his bat at a blistering 114.7 mph, generating the highest exit velocity by a Saints hitter since Matt Wallner.

McCusker had a 12-game hitting streak end in Saturday’s 2-1 victory over Buffalo but is hitting .336 with nine homers, 29 RBI and a 1.051 OPS in 32 games. The Twins named him their minor league player of the month for April.

This is the same guy who went undrafted after four seasons at Oklahoma State. He spent parts of three seasons in the independent Frontier League, hoping an MLB organization would notice him playing for the Tri-City Valley Cats. He even contemplated retirement after his second season in indy ball didn’t lead to a minor league contract.

“It’s basically how minor league baseball was before COVID,” McCusker said about his indy ball experience. “You don’t get paid or treated the best, which is fine, but you have to have people supporting you financially and all that stuff. It made it tough on the family, but it was a good learning experience.”

McCusker was surprised he went undrafted out of college — he was a 26th-round pick by the Milwaukee Brewers in 2017 before he went to Oklahoma State — but he admits he needed to learn how to become a power hitter.

He didn’t hit more than eight homers in a season in college.

McCusker knew Tri-City, in Troy, N.Y., was his fallback plan. The team’s coach, former big leaguer Pete Incaviglia, was an all-time great at Oklahoma State, so there was a bit of a pipeline for guys who went undrafted.

It was a gradual process for McCusker to learn himself as a hitter. He had to work on pulling the ball more often, then lifting it in the air. In 2022, McCusker’s second indy ball season, he implemented a leg kick before his swing, and some additional power finally followed. He finished with 13 homers and 24 doubles in 77 games.

“I was going to hang it up after my second year,” said McCusker, who will turn 27 later this month. “I was kind of down on myself, but I finished that second year pretty well with the swing adjustments I made, and I wanted to carry it into one more full season.”

McCusker, knowing it was probably his last chance to earn a spot at a higher level, opened the 2023 independent league season with 17 homers, 10 doubles and 51 RBI in 37 games while posting a .433 batting average.

The Twins came calling with a roster spot in their farm system, and they signed McCusker without giving him a signing bonus.

The reward for McCusker was essentially a tryout at Class A Fort Myers. He was 25 years old, four years older than the average player in the league.

“There was definitely pressure,” McCusker said. “There were other indy ball guys there, too. They didn’t perform within a month, and they were gone.”

McCusker proved himself immediately. He hit seven homers in 25 games at Fort Myers, then seven more homers in 21 games at Class A-Advanced Cedar Rapids.

In his first full season in the Twins’ organization, McCusker showed he could be a legitimate prospect with a path toward the big leagues. After a relatively quiet first month at Class AA Wichita, he announced his presence with a five-hit, three-homer game in May. His third homer sailed out of the ballpark and traveled an estimated 504 feet.

“That was a special day,” said McCusker, smiling. “My family was there for that, too, which was pretty cool. That was the furthest I‘ve ever hit [a homer] by, like, 30 feet.”

McCusker, from Sparks, Nev., calls himself a tinkerer when it comes to his swing. He likes to study videos from other tall righty hitters, particularly Nelson Cruz. Looking to reduce his strikeout rate, he’s a frequent user of pitching machines before games.

“We’re always shooting ideas off each other with what we’re trying to feel, what we’re trying to do,” said Luke Keaschall, McCusker’s teammate at Wichita and his roommate at St. Paul. “He goes through his ups and downs like everyone, but when he’s at his best, he’s as good as anybody — literally anybody.”

McCusker kept believing in himself when no team noticed him. Now he’s arguably the hottest hitter in Class AAA. He’s not on the Twins’ 40-man roster, but he’s on the radar if they need to call up a power-hitting outfielder for an extended stretch.

“You’ve got to give the kid a ton of credit,” said Twins President Derek Falvey. “[He’s] made something of a track that isn’t as traditional. Maybe we’ll see more of that now, especially with 20 rounds of the draft, a different dynamic around independent ball.”

McCusker is drawing more attention from fans — no surprise when he’s batting .432 with three homers and 12 RBI during his hitting streak — but he prefers to stay grounded. He quickly points out there are lulls in every player’s season.