Kody Hoese rated among top third base prospects

It’s prospect week at MLB Pipeline, all leading up to the top 100 prospects in baseball revealed on Friday. But on Tuesday, third base got the spotlight, and Kody Hoese was named the eighth-best prospect in the sport.

It’s a position headed by last year’s No. 1 overall draft pick (Spencer Torkelson of the Tigers) and a Rookie of the Year favorite in the Pirates’ Ke’Bryan Hayes.

Hoese, one of two first-round picks by the Dodgers in 2019 — along with Michael Busch, who was named by MLB Pipeline as the fifth-best second base prospect on Monday — made noise with his bat at the Dodgers’ alternate training site at USC during 2020.

“Kody Hoese can really, really, really hit. I felt like every day he was hitting the ball off the wall or shooting a double the other way,” Gavin Lux said last September. “I mean, like he can really, really hit.”

Hoese, now 23, was rated highest thus far by Baseball America, which rated him the fourth-best Dodgers prospect, behind Keibert Ruiz, Josiah Gray, and Busch, all of whom were in BA’s top 100 overall prospects for MLB. Hoese was ranked eighth in the Dodgers’ system by Baseball Prospectus and ninth by FanGraphs.

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