Prospect Heat Check: The kid with more hype than Clayton Kershaw
Jeff Passan,Yahoo Sports Fri, May 13 10:26 AM PDT
At some point this season, Julio Urias will arrive in Los Angeles, the finest pitching prospect to wear a Dodgers uniform since some kid named Kershaw came up in 2008 to the sort of breathless hype he somehow managed to exceed. Those were the nascent days of prospect fetishizing. Now it's a full-on industry and Urias is its pure embodiment.
From the moment he played full-season minor league ball as a 16-year-old, he was different: preternaturally confident, unnaturally talented beyond his years like a particularly supple new vintage that tastes a couple decades old. The Dodgers let him ripen even more, and here he is now, throwing six-inning no-hitters at Triple-A that ended only because the Dodgers needed to return the 19-year-old to his glass case.
It would feel wrong if anyone else led off the year's first Prospect Heat Check, a look around the minor leagues at who's hot, who's not and who's next. Urias' arrival isn't necessarily imminent, but it will happen at some point this season – maybe, The Los Angeles Times suggested, as a reliever – and soon enough that Kershaw comparison might not be as far-fetched as it seems.
1. Julio Urias, LHP, Triple-A, Los Angeles Dodgers
Here is one scout's assessment of Urias: "He's ready now." Which, duh. Except that quote actually was from early in the 2014 season, when Urias was just 17 years old. Hyperbole among prospects today is greater than ever, so take this for what it's worth. Multiple longtime evaluators call him the most advanced pitching prospect in decades. By the time he heads to Chavez Ravine, he'll have more than three full seasons of minor league ball and will still be a teenager. Among Jose Berrios, Sean Manaea, Michael Fulmer and Aaron Blair, we've already seen the ascent of some of the minor leagues' best pitchers. Urias is the class' crown jewel, and his 1.50 ERA and 33-to-6 strikeout-to-walk ratio in the Pacific Coast League's launching pads are a testament to that. https://www.yahoo.com/sports/news/p...more-hype-than-clayton-kershaw-172605947.html
Jeff Passan,Yahoo Sports Fri, May 13 10:26 AM PDT
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From the moment he played full-season minor league ball as a 16-year-old, he was different: preternaturally confident, unnaturally talented beyond his years like a particularly supple new vintage that tastes a couple decades old. The Dodgers let him ripen even more, and here he is now, throwing six-inning no-hitters at Triple-A that ended only because the Dodgers needed to return the 19-year-old to his glass case.
It would feel wrong if anyone else led off the year's first Prospect Heat Check, a look around the minor leagues at who's hot, who's not and who's next. Urias' arrival isn't necessarily imminent, but it will happen at some point this season – maybe, The Los Angeles Times suggested, as a reliever – and soon enough that Kershaw comparison might not be as far-fetched as it seems.
1. Julio Urias, LHP, Triple-A, Los Angeles Dodgers
Here is one scout's assessment of Urias: "He's ready now." Which, duh. Except that quote actually was from early in the 2014 season, when Urias was just 17 years old. Hyperbole among prospects today is greater than ever, so take this for what it's worth. Multiple longtime evaluators call him the most advanced pitching prospect in decades. By the time he heads to Chavez Ravine, he'll have more than three full seasons of minor league ball and will still be a teenager. Among Jose Berrios, Sean Manaea, Michael Fulmer and Aaron Blair, we've already seen the ascent of some of the minor leagues' best pitchers. Urias is the class' crown jewel, and his 1.50 ERA and 33-to-6 strikeout-to-walk ratio in the Pacific Coast League's launching pads are a testament to that. https://www.yahoo.com/sports/news/p...more-hype-than-clayton-kershaw-172605947.html
