The Los Angeles Dodgers’ farm system, rated No. 1 overall entering the 2016 season by Baseball America, has restocked nicely since being depleted under previous owner Frank McCourt.
Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten placed an emphasis on rebuilding the crop of prospects, and it’s a vision team president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and general manager Farhan Zaidi have continued to carry forth.
With Joc Pederson and Corey Seager now entrenched in the Majors, Julio Urias reigns supreme as the prospect with the most anticipation behind him.
The Dodgers have cautiously brought Urias along in his young professional career since signing him out of Mexico. Prime example is he’s yet to toss more than six innings in any of his seven games (six starts) with Triple-A Oklahoma City.
After another strong outing, OKC Dodgers pitching coach Matt Herges detailed the improvement he’s seen in Urias this season, via Michael Avallone of MiLB.com:
“Coming into the season, I had a checklist of things I had for him to work on and he’s been able to cross those things off. How he handles himself in-game has gotten so much better. The frustration he used to show hindered his performance and it hurt the next pitch. That’s gone. How he holds runners was another box that needed to be checked off, and that’s done. Tipping his pitches, that’s checked. There’s always something to work on, but the things I was most concerned about in terms of his big league readiness, those boxes have been checked.”
Herges added he believes the 19-year-old lefty has reached the point where Urias is ready to make the highly-anticipated Major League debut:
“In my report tonight, I commented that I wasn’t sure if there’s much more for him to prove,” Herges said. “He’s showing he’s big league-ready now, in my opinion. But I don’t make those calls. We have some very smart people that make those decisions and they know what they’re doing. But right now, he’s just dominating Triple-A lineups.
Though not nearly as glowing of a review, Herges made similar remarks about Zach Lee. As for Urias, he’s in the midst of an impressive scoreless streak, which currently sits at 22 innings.
Urias 3-1 to go along with a 1.25 ERA and 0.81 WHIP, both of which lead the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League; opponents are batting a lowly .176 off him. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts revealed discussions were held centered around calling the left-hander up as a means to get better production out of the bullpen.
However, additional details or a timeline for that have not been provided in the 10 days since Roberts’ comments.
