Byron Buxton and Francisco Lindor add to impressive rookie crop

When my Twins announced that they were calling up Byron Buxton, I was ecstatic. When the Indians announced they were finally calling up Francisco Lindor, I felt vindicated for a moment before I was disappointed that a division rival had gotten better. Both Buxton and Lindor had been consensus Top 5 prospects coming into 2015, and joined a bevy of other elite talents who have made their debuts this year.

Prior to the season, the major prospect hounds each put out their Top 100 lists, of course. Between Jonathan Mayo, Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, Keith Law, Fangraphs, and SBNation's own John Sickels, 18 total players were ranked somewhere in the someone's top 10. Of those, 12 have already made their debut, and we still have approximately 100 games left to go for each club.

By the end of the year, there's a good chance that we could also see Seager, Bundy, and maybe even Urias and Glasnow as well.

It's not like these guys have been slouches, either. Bryant, Pederson, and Gallo have made big news with their strong overall play and long home runs. Syndergaard has shown flashes of brilliance. Rodon has a 2.44 ERA and 40 strikeouts in 40.2 innings. And Soler and Russell have not embarrassed themselves. Only Swihart, pressed into service early when Christian Vazquez went down needing Tommy John surgery, has truly struggled. It's staggering to see all the young talent being infused into the game at the major league level, and how well they have performed.

I do worry that the immediate success of players like Bryant raise expectations to unrealistic heights for the rest of baseball's youth. As a Twins fan, for instance, I see Byron Buxton's 0-for-4 debut and I hope that fans' expectations have been tempered appropriately. We're still talking about a 21 year old kid under an unbelievable amount of pressure. We do these youngsters no favors when we look at them as saviors and catalysts. After all, jumping from the double-A or triple-A to the majors is still a very steep learning curve.

It's unclear if this is a new trend in Major League Baseball, to promote elite talent aggressively, or if this simply is a coincidence where so much elite talent is ready at the exact same moment. Perhaps it's a little of both. Ultimately, the practical implications in the short term are that the game has new faces to market and to follow, which can only be a good thing, it means the Futures Game will be stacked with more unknowns and that there will be a lot of turnover at the top of those prospect lists next year. In the longer term, it means that these teams will be set for the next seven seasons or so at some key spots. And, as a Twins fan who saw Byron Buxton fly from first to home to score the winning run last night, I'm pretty damn excited about that.