Atlanta Braves Top 100 Prospect: #27 Luke Dykstra
Scouting Report
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Per Baseball Reference, Dykstra is 6’1 and 195 pounds. He is a right-handed thrower and hitter. From viewing, he almost looks a bit shorter than his listed height, but the proportions look correct for height/weight.
Hitting
Dykstra has a slight open stance and comes with a short, quick stride to the pitcher to square his front shoulder to the pitcher. From there, he has exceptional ability to keep the bat head in the zone. I have been impressed the more and more I see of Dykstra in the way he can seemingly handle anything and everything around the zone. I was impressed with Dykstra’s ability to handle velocity, hard break, soft break, and all sorts of location. He’s not going to be a guy to hit a ton of home runs most likely, but the guy whose swing he really reminds me of is Dustin Pedroia with his ability to put solid contact onto pitches all over the zone. That’s probably more likely to produce a 10-homer, 30-double sort of power than a true over-the-fence power, but it’s definitely valuable in the lineup. He’s not a guy who walks a lot, but he does work counts well, fouling off pitches until he gets one he can handle. His high contact ability allows him not to strike out very much either.
Base Running/Fielding
While Dykstra isn’t a burner by any means, he’s got good quickness, and he shows solid instincts on the base paths. This is especially true when in scoring position. I noted Dykstra really having solid instincts with fly balls as to when to tag and when not to without needing the coaching. Part of that could be baseball bloodlines, but whatever it is, it’s an asset going forward. I would be surprised if he stole 20 bases in a season, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he was a guy who consistently did have a very high stolen base percentage when he did run due to his ability to read pitchers.
Dykstra doesn’t flash incredible range or an arm that you’ll be comparing to former elites of the game or any sort of thing like that defensively. However, what you will notice is that he gets to all the stuff that he should get to, and he just seems to be technically very sound on his moves. His work around the base is solid, and he does well getting the ball away with accuracy. By no means is he perfect, but he’s definitely a guy who would be above average at the position just due to not missing any of the plays needed along the way, and that’s hugely valuable at an up-the-middle position.
Next: 2016 outlook
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