At some point today this blog will surpass five million total visitors, which is even more impressive than it appears when you consider that at least 100,000 of those visits came from people who are not in my immediate family. Probably. I've spent this week trying to think of ways to retroactively charge everyone, say, a nickel per visit, but realistically that plan is flawed because my mom likely doesn't have that kind of cash lying around and collecting $5,000 from my 85-year-old grandfather seems excessive.

Getting rich off this blog will sadly have to wait for another day, but I'm happy to say that the traffic here has risen every year since AG.com launched on August 1, 2002. It took over 30 months for this blog to reach one million visitors and at the time that total boggled my 21-year-old mind, but the second million arrived 17 months later and the third million showed up 12 months after that. Going from three million to four million was accomplished in 11 months and the most recent million took about 10 months.

Quite a few people have suggested to me lately that reaching the five-million mark warrants some sort of celebration, but unfortunately laziness and lack of creativity have conspired to keep me from coming up with any good ideas. Instead, you merely get two incredibly boring paragraphs about blog traffic and a live chat at noon. Sorry. As always the live chat will open 15-20 minutes beforehand for pre-submitted questions and I'll keep going until you're too distracted by the NCAA tournament to keep asking stuff.

Whether due to the completion of my annual top-40 prospects series or last week's mention of David McCarty, several readers have inquired recently about the Twins' biggest prospect busts. There are two ways to look at that question, because there are basically two ways for a prospect to be considered a bust. One way is failing to pan out after being a first-round pick and the other way is failing to live up to the hype after being a highly ranked prospect. And some busts fit into both categories, of course.

Researching the biggest busts in the Twins' five-decade history is a more difficult and time-consuming project than I'm ready for, but examining the past 15-20 years is pretty simple with the help of Baseball America's archived prospect rankings and Baseball-Reference.com's draft database. Because the jury is still out on most recent draft picks and prospects, let's focus on 1990-2003. Here are my choices for the Twins' biggest first-round busts during that time:

                    YEAR     PICK
Adam Johnson        2000      2nd
David McCarty       1991      3rd
B.J. Garbe          1999      5th
Ryan Mills          1998      6th
Matt Moses          2003     21st
Dan Serafini        1992     26th
Scott Stahoviak     1991     27th
Midre Cummings      1990     29th

McCarty might be considered the biggest draft bust in team history after going third overall in 1991 and using three straight top-six picks on Ryan Mills, B.J. Garbe, and Adam Johnson was a brutal stretch for the Twins that was thankfully snapped when they selected Joe Mauer first overall in 2001. Now here's a look at the players who failed to have much big-league success after being ranked among baseball's top 100 prospects by BA from 1990-2003:

                    YEAR     RANK                            YEAR     RANK
Willie Banks        1990     13th        Luis Rivas          1998     55th
Willie Banks        1991     15th        Luis Rivas          1999     63rd
David McCarty       1993     16th        Michael Restovich   2002     63rd
David McCarty       1992     22nd        Willie Banks        1992     68th
Pat Mahomes         1992     25th        Luis Rivas          1997     70th
Michael Restovich   2000     26th        Marc Barcelo        1995     70th
Midre Cummings      1992     33rd        Dan Serafini        1996     76th
Michael Restovich   2003     37th        B.J. Garbe          2000     79th
Adam Johnson        2001     41st        Adam Johnson        2002     85th
Johnny Ard          1990     46th        Luis Rivas          2000     86th
Michael Restovich   1999     50th        Luis Rivas          2001     93rd
                                         Alan Newman         1992     96th

Willie Banks missed the 1990-2003 cutoff for draft busts listed above because he was picked in 1987, but just like McCarty he went No. 3 overall and then ranked as a top-20 prospect in back-to-back years. Luis Rivas was never a top-20 prospect, but he placed among BA's top 100 in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001 before becoming the Official Whipping Boy of AG.com in mid-2002. Michael Restovich was a top-50 prospect in three straight seasons and ranked 68th in a fourth year.

Also worth noting is that while he was never actually ranked by BA as Twins property, Frank Rodriguez ranked ninth in 1992, 25th in 1993, and 39th in 1994 before coming to Minnesota in the mid-1995 trade for Rick Aguilera. If you count Rodriguez as a Twins prospect, then he joins Mauer (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005), Francisco Liriano (2006), and Todd Walker (1997) as the team's top-10 prospects since 1990. Based on draft position and BA rankings, here are the 10 biggest Twins prospect busts in that time:

 1. David McCarty           .676 OPS in 1,647 PA
 2. Willie Banks            4.75 ERA in 610 IP
 3. Frank Rodriguez         5.53 ERA in 654 IP
 4. Adam Johnson            10.25 ERA in 26 IP
 5. Ryan Mills              Never played in majors
 6. B.J. Garbe              Never played in majors
 7. Michael Restovich       .690 OPS in 297 PA
 8. Luis Rivas              .680 OPS in 2,290 PA
 9. Dan Serafini            6.04 ERA in 264 IP
10. Pat Mahomes             5.47 ERA in 709 IP

If you're curious, Delmon Young was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2003 draft and BA's prospect rankings pegged him No. 3 in 2004, No. 3 in 2005, No. 1 in 2006, and No. 3 in 2007.

Previous Top 40 Twins Prospects of 2009: 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, 21-25, 26-30, 31-35, 36-40

My annual series ranking and profiling the Twins' top 40 prospects concluded last month, so here's the complete list, along with links to each individual write-up and an overview of the whole system:

 1. Aaron Hicks, CF                21. Joe Benson, CF
 2. Ben Revere, CF                 22. Alex Burnett, SP
 3. Wilson Ramos, C                23. Trevor Plouffe, SS
 4. Angel Morales, CF              24. Deibinson Romero, 3B
 5. Shooter Hunt, SP               25. Brian Duensing, SP
 6. Danny Valencia, 3B             26. Rene Tosoni, RF
 7. Anthony Swarzak, SP            27. Dustin Martin, CF
 8. Tyler Robertson, SP            28. David Winfree, RF
 9. Jeff Manship, SP               29. Jason Pridie, CF
10. Jose Mijares, RP               30. Philip Humber, SP
11. Chris Parmelee, RF             31. Jonathan Waltenbury, 1B
12. Kevin Mulvey, SP               32. Tyler Ladendorf, SS
13. Carlos Gutierrez, SP           33. Steve Singleton, 2B
14. David Bromberg, SP             34. Oswaldo Sosa, SP
15. Deolis Guerra, SP              35. Bobby Lanigan, SP
16. Michael McCardell, SP          36. Reggie Williams, 2B
17. Luke Hughes, 3B                37. Daniel Ortiz, RF
18. Robert Delaney, RP             38. Danny Rams, C
19. Anthony Slama, SP              39. Dan Osterbrock, SP
20. Steven Tolleson, SS            40. Charles Nolte, RP

Carlos Gomez, Glen Perkins, Nick Blackburn, Brian Buscher, and Denard Span graduated to the big leagues after being included on this same list last year and Matt Garza, Kevin Slowey, Alexi Casilla, and Pat Neshek moved from this list to the majors in 2007, yet the Twins' farm system is stronger now than it was two years ago. Getting four prospects from the Mets for Johan Santana last winter played a part in the improvement, but Gomez is in the majors and the other three rank just 12th, 15th, and 30th.

More than the haul for Santana, the Twins have improved the farm system with back-to-back drafts that so far at least look highly successful. Ben Revere was the Twins' first-round pick in 2007 and Aaron Hicks was their first rounder last year, and those two players now rank one-two on my list of the team's top prospects. Beyond that, losing Torii Hunter to free agency gave the Twins a pair of compensatory first-round picks that were used on Shooter Hunt and Carlos Gutierrez, who rank No. 5 and No. 13.

Having essentially four first-round picks in the span of two years does an awful lot to restock a system and the Twins helped themselves even further in 2007 by landing Angel Morales in the third round and Michael McCardell in the sixth round. Add it all up and exactly half of the Twins' top 16 prospects came from the past two drafts or the Santana trade, including four of their top five. Despite the recent influx of talent the Twins' system is still far from elite and instead likely ranks right around average.

Hicks, Revere, Morales, and Wilson Ramos give the Twins four high-upside position players, but none of them have played an inning above Single-A and aside from Danny Valencia or maybe Luke Hughes there's nothing in the system in terms of MLB-ready impact bats. Pitching is sort of the opposite story, as the Twins lack truly high-upside arms while guys like Kevin Mulvey, Jose Mijares, Robert Delaney, Brian Duensing, and Philip Humber are knocking on the door to the majors.

Not so long ago outfield was a system-wide area of weakness for the Twins, but adding Gomez, Hicks, Revere, Morales, and Delmon Young during the past two years while watching Span seemingly turn his career around has changed that in a huge way. Toss in Jason Kubel's development and the presence of prospects Chris Parmelee, Joe Benson, Rene Tosoni, Dustin Martin, David Winfree, Jason Pridie, and Daniel Ortiz, and the Twins boast as much young outfield talent as any organization in baseball.

Unfortunately the Twins' long-standing lack of quality middle-infield prospects remains, although with Casilla perhaps emerging as the long-term second baseman the system's lack of standout shortstops is the bigger issue with Nick Punto currently holding down the fort. Trevor Plouffe hasn't developed as expected since being a 2004 first-round pick, Steven Tolleson looks more like a future utility man than starter, and 2008 second-round pick Tyler Ladendorf debuted by batting .204 at rookie-ball.

While the Twins' farm system is likely right in the middle of the pack, the biggest problem with making team-to-team comparisons is that young non-prospects are totally ignored. Prospects are technically only "prospects" until they play regularly in the big leagues, at which point they simply become "young major leaguers." There aren't quite as many lists ranking those guys, but the future of a team is clearly about more than which youngsters retain prospect status by not using up rookie-of-the-year eligibility.

For instance, had the Twins sent Gomez to Triple-A last year instead of making him their Opening Day center fielder or waited another two months to promote Span, their collection of "prospects" would look better without actually improving the team's long-term outlook much. With that in mind, here's a rough organization-wide view of key Twins players who are 29 years old or younger, including both prospects and non-prospects:

CATCHER:                   FIRST BASE:                SECOND BASE:
Joe Mauer, 26              Justin Morneau, 28         Alexi Casilla, 24
Wilson Ramos, 21           Brian Buscher, 28          Steve Singleton, 23
Danny Rams, 20             Jon Waltenbury, 21         Reggie Williams, 20

SHORTSTOP:                 THIRD BASE:                CORNER OUTFIELD:
Steven Tolleson, 24        Brendan Harris, 28         Jason Kubel, 27
Trevor Plouffe, 22         Danny Valencia, 24         Delmon Young, 23
Tyler Ladendorf, 21        Luke Hughes, 24            Chris Parmelee, 21
Matt Tolbert, 27           Deibinson Romero, 22       Rene Tosoni, 22
                                                      David Winfree, 23
                                                      Daniel Ortiz, 19

CENTER FIELD:              RH STARTER:                LH STARTER:
Carlos Gomez, 23           Scott Baker, 27            Fran Liriano, 25
Denard Span, 25            Kevin Slowey, 25           Glen Perkins, 26
Aaron Hicks, 19            Nick Blackburn, 27         Tyler Robertson, 21
Ben Revere, 21             Shooter Hunt, 22           Brian Duensing, 26
Angel Morales, 19          Anthony Swarzak, 23        Dan Osterbrock, 22
Joe Benson, 21             Jeff Manship, 24
Dustin Martin, 25          Kevin Mulvey, 24           RELIEVER:
Jason Pridie, 25           Carlos Gutierrez, 23       Pat Neshek, 28
                           David Bromberg, 21         Jose Mijares, 24
                           Deolis Guerra, 20          Craig Breslow, 28
                           Mike McCardell, 24         Robert Delaney, 24
                           Alex Burnett, 21           Anthony Slama, 25
                           Philip Humber, 26          Charles Nolte, 23
                           Oswaldo Sosa, 23           Boof Bonser, 27
                           Bobby Lanigan, 22

Plenty of players aren't listed above, but that should provide an outline of the Twins' depth at each spot.