Dodgers 2018 top prospects: No. 14, Starling Heredia

After just one season in the Dominican Summer League, Starling Heredia loudly announced his presence stateside in the short-season leagues. Full-season pitching proved to be a tougher challenge for the teenager, exposing the flaws in his nascent offensive approach. Needing his baseball acumen to catch up to his man sized physique, Heredia is one of the more curious prospects in the Dodgers’ system with equal parts star and bust potential.

While Heredia has been on most media top-30 Dodger prospect lists from some time, I tend to shy from ranking any teenager too highly that has not yet reached stateside, let alone full-season ball. Heredia proved higher ranking services right with his performance in both Ogden and Arizona, and given his physical tools and some performance to evaluate, I’ve now followed suit in bumping Heredia up to 14th on my list.

How high he ultimately climbs this list will rest on almost completely on his hit tool, as his other four tools already tease above average to plus. A listed 6’2 and “200 lbs.”, Heredia has an advanced build for a player entering his age nineteen season. He will almost assuredly continue to fill out and move to an outfield corner, and his future speed grade could likely suffer as well. While already developed in the upper body, Heredia has natural strength that he can flash with power at the plate and with the arm in the field.

It’s the power that will be Heredia’s calling card. Herrera’s raw power doesn’t presently grade alongside sluggers like Edwin Rios and Ibandel Isabel, but he could reach 70 raw power shortly. He has excellent hand and wrist strength and presently muscles balls more than he does generate power with swing plane or bat speed. Because of an undeveloped approach, he hasn’t refined his pull power, but can muscle the ball out to any part of the ball park, with three of his seven home runs going from dead center to the right field gap.

As you can see in the video, the rest of the offensive game is largely a work in progress. Heredia struggles to time pitches effectively, often being caught without a firm from foot, or collapsing his front side getting ahead of a pitch. His swing plane is inconsistent and varies with his ability to get his weight set before starting his hands. Additionally, Heredia’s swing can get long and leave him vulnerable to velocity.

Without sounding too harsh about his offensive potential, it’s important to remember that Heredia was just eighteen and spending his first season in the states. He’s so strong and his batted ball profile is already promising enough that he doesn’t need to make extreme improvements to his contact rate to be productive. Developmentally, he will need to straddle the fine line of exhibiting more control with his hands at the plate while not losing the aggressive intent to murder every pitch.

Having tested the waters at Great Lakes, Heredia is already ahead of the curve of similar sluggers that have come before him like Johan Mieses, suggesting that his ceiling is still incredibly high. The next step in his development will be to break through to full season ball full time without having to bounce back and forth to Ogden for a confidence refresher, and namely that tangible development will be dropping that K rate from 34% at Low A.

Given the present stage of Heredia’s development, there really is no timetable for his big league arrival even if it happens at all. His distance from the majors likely dampens his present trade value some despite his potential, but his age suggests he’s capable of making significant advancements from year to year.

As mentioned, Heredia will likely return to Great Lakes in 2018, and I expect he will still see some time at each outfield position. A breakthrough in contact could make him a star, but it’s hard to forecast this given the raw approach he’s shown a the plate to date. Heredia’s been a famous name for a few years now but he won’t turn 20 until the 2019 season and has plenty of time to struggle and adjust before facing a make or break season for his prospect status.