PROSPECTS Meanwhile, Down on the Farm

He, Quintero, and Morales are the three I expect to see move up the rankings the most this year. Of course De Paula with the Yordan Alvarez comparisons and Hope with the sweet lefty swing and the 30/30 potential are not to be overlooked, but the other three have the most room to climb in the rankings. Plus in the case of Quintero and Sirota, they're more well rounded and can stick in CF.

 

@JeffSpiegel
@keithlaw on River Ryan, "If he were healthy, he might be the No. 1 pitching prospect in baseball"

 

Whoa... Quintero #9? He's only 20!

 

More from Law on Ryan:

Ryan should be ready to pitch in some role this spring after hitting 100 mph during his rehab. If he were completely healthy, he might be the No. 1 pitching prospect in baseball. He has above-average to plus stuff across the board, with ride on the upper-90s four-seamer, a slider, a cutter that was new in 2024, a two-plane curveball and a changeup, with the cutter probably the worst pitch at the moment because his other stuff is so good.

 

100mph during rehab
that is almost unfair

 

True, and that can be said of most of the Dodgers roster which has had more than its share of injury woes over the recent years. One thing about Roberts - and it's not often that I compliment him - is that he and the rest of management have become really good at managing workloads of late (other than a few extreme examples). I guess that's one thing that rosters teeming with talent and division leads can allow. It's also why I scoff at predictions that they will win 110+ games and run away with the division. They won't, because the way they're managed trades wins for injury mitigation.

That said, there will always be injuries and for that I'm grateful that Stone, Ryan, and others will be ready to step in.

 

Kendall George was mentioned in the other thread as a testament to how the Dodgers are often able to fix flaws in their prospects' games. Just wanted to provide some numbers to support that.

He produced in 2023, but that was primarily in rookie ball. In '24 he opened the season in single-A and hit .279 with a .712 OPS. He swiped 36 bags, which with his speed is on the low side.

In '25, he was bumped up to high-A and only hit .230 in April. From there his average climbed to .258 in May, .244 in June, .291 in July, .378 in Aug, and .571 in a small sample of 14 ABs in Sept. OBP also went over .400 starting in July, and recorded an impressive .496 in Aug. This correlated with an increase in steals from Apr to Aug: 10, 11, 10, 27, 34, giving the league leader 100 for the year. Clearly he was well-coached during the year to create such an improvement from the beginning of the year.

He'll never be a power hitter, but if he's able to consistently get on base and create havoc on the paths as he makes his way to the big leagues, he can become a viable part of some team's offense. He's easy to overlook in a farm system loaded with outfield prospects, but if nothing else I could see him adding value to a trade package. Looking forward to watching him continue his upward progression this season.

 

Three pitchers and three hitters in the Dodgers system who could climb into the Top 100 this year (with video):

Zazueta, Serwinoski, and Root https://www.mlb.com/news/dodgers-future-top-100-prospects-2026

Vargas, Ko, and Davalan https://www.mlb.com/milb/news/these-dodgers-prospects-could-join-the-top-100?t=mlb-pipeline-coverage

(the hitter article is from December but the pitching one is this week... not that anything has changed since December)

 

These are prospects that could advance into the MLB Pipeline Top 100. Ferris is already there.