Dodgers top prospect Diego Cartaya headlines Double-A Tulsa roster

Diego Cartaya, the Dodgers top prospect, will begin the 2023 season in Double-A Tulsa, one of five players on the Dodgers’ 40-man roster to open the year with the Drillers.

Cartaya hit a combined .254/.389/.503 with 22 home runs and a 139 wRC+ between both Class-A levels in 2022. Cartaya joins Double-A Tulsa after playing only 62 games with High-A Great Lakes.

“He is a catch-and-throw guy with offensive ability. He has a great makeup, a great worker, a good game-caller,” Drillers manager Scott Hennessey told Barry Lewis of Tulsa World in February. He likes to study and works with the pitchers. The fans are really going to enjoy how he plays because he brings it every night.”

Cartaya was rated the Dodgers top prospect entering 2023 by Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, ESPN, FanGraphs, The Athletic, and MLB Pipeline, with an average ranking of the 18th-best prospect in baseball. His high ranking came from Keith Law at The Athletic, who rated the catcher No. 6 overall.

Signed by the Dodgers out of Venezuela in July 2018, Cartaya only turned 21 last September, and played in the Futures Game at Dodger Stadium in July. He got one step closer to a return trip to Chavez Ravine when he was added to the 40-man roster in November.

Other Dodgers on the 40-man roster who open this season in Tulsa are infielders Jorbit Vivas and Eddys Leonard — who both played at Great Lakes all last season and are entering their second season on the 40-man roster — plus outfielders Andy Pages and Jonny DeLuca, who ended last season in Double-A.

Pitchers Nick Frasso and River Ryan, both acquired by the Dodgers last season in trades, plus 2021 sixth-round draft pick Emmet Sheehan all were named on at least one national Dodgers top-10 team prospect list, and open the year in Tulsa. Frasso and Sheehan pitched for the Drillres last year, while Ryan pitched with Great Lakes.

Ben Harris, another 2021 draft pick who struck out 45 percent of batters faced last year across both Class-A levels but also walked 15.5 percent, joins Tulsa after ending last year in Great Lakes. Same trajectory for outielder Jose Ramos, who played for Panama this spring during the World Baseball Classic.

Included in the Drillers’ 28-player roster are 13 former Dodgers draft picks, four players acquired by trade, two players — pitcher Carlo Reyes and outfielder Josh Stowers — selected in the minor league portion of last December’s Rule 5 Draft, plus Yusniel Díaz, the former Dodgers minor leaguer who made his major league debut with the Orioles in 2022 and signed a minor league contract with the Dodgers in February.