A year after being drafted in the 35th round, the Dodgers made Kody Hoese a 1st-round pick. What did they see?
- Born: July 13, 1997
- B/T: R/R
- 6’4″, 200-lbs
- Drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1st round of the 2019 MLB June Amateur Draft from Tulane University
The Numbers
His raw numbers are listed above courtesy of baseball-reference.com. Let’s aggregate by year then focus on the important numbers for minor leaguers:
Sometimes it’s good to aggregate a year, and sometimes it’s good to break it out by level.
See that combined line at the bottom? Good stuff, right? Now look at the top line, his Rookie line, and see how the middle line was more ordinary. So while his overall year was fantastic, we are seeing a college bat fade as the year went on, and understandably so.
Nevertheless, even his “down” line was pretty good. This kid has bat control figured out. He simply does not strike out that much, and he knows how to take a walk. Of course that walk rate doubled when the power doubled, but at least he showed that power. That’s the same power he showed as a Junior at Tulane when he get the attention of baseball and became a 1st-round pick.
He hits lefties well, he hits righties well. Nothing wrong with that.
We see his home runs to left and center, but his doubles are to all fields and so are those triples and singles.
This just shows his A-ball numbers, and we see how well he was hitting when he reached that level. Then August dragged on and he faded, but then caught himself and maintained an .800 OPS range until the final week or so of the season. As I say in my book, an .800 OPS is hard to come by dishonestly.
The Scouts
- Rotowire: #82 on their Top 400.
- BaseballHQ: Not on their Top 100.
- Fangraphs: Not on their Top 120.
- Fantasy Six Pack: #339 on their dynasty list.
- Prospects365: #138 on Ray Butler’s Top 200.
- Imaginary Brick Wall: #142 on the Top 487.
- Fantrax: #90 on the Top 250.
Warnings
Not much. He did about as well as you hope a college bat will do at the lower levels.
We do want to see his power at AA or above, of course, but that’s expected.
He might wind up at 1B, and he won’t have much speed, but otherwise he looks good.
Conclusion
The Dodgers got a good one. Even if he moves to 1B, his power would work there too.
Power plus bat control? That’s the magic formula, dude!