Dodgers: 2017’s (a Little Past) Mid-Season Prospect Rankings

6. Brock Stewart

Dodger fans got a taste of the future Wednesday night with Brock Stewart making his first start of the season for the big league club. Although the outing was less than ideal with Stewart not escaping the fourth inning, people around the Dodgers love this young man and expect big things from him.

The Illinois State alum has a heavy fastball that he pairs with a plus change up for the majority of his pitches. His lack of a major league-level breaking pitch is what is holding him back at this point, but all signs show he has been working on it tirelessly since joining the organization.

In his start against the Twins, it was clear that their hitters were waiting on his two pitches, knowing the breaking stuff was easy to see out of hand. To paraphrase Orel Hershiser, pitchers can compete with one solid pitch, they can win with two, but they can dominate with three. That’s the goal for Brock Stewart.

5. Jeren Kendall

Kendall was the Dodgers’ first round pick just a few weeks ago and has started out his career with ten hits in his first five games including a dinger, a triple, and a two-bagger. Kendall was as high as second on some prospect lists for the Dodgers already, but I felt a little uneasy having him any higher than this without playing more baseball.

He’s started the year with the Ogden Raptors in the Rookie League, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in Rancho Cucamonga with the Quakes pretty soon. A lot of scouts have touted Kendall as the most talented player from the 2017 draft, but a lot of teams were scared away by his high strikeout rate. The Dodgers have shown with their last decade of drafting that they are not afraid to take players like that, with Cody Bellinger being the prime example.