The Tulsa Drillers are starting 2022 with almost the exact same roster they ended 2021 with, minus Ryan Noda and Miguel Vargas, plus a few additions of some of the most highly ranked prospects in the organization. I have included Ryan Noda and Miguel Vargas in this article although they have already been promoted to OKC. The Drillers roster is, quite possibly, the most talented roster of any minor league team in professional baseball, and Dodger Poke has featured most of the players on the roster, so for the full feature on each player, including interviews and feature cuts, click their name and it will take you to their feature.
Catchers
Hunter Feduccia
Hunter Feduccia is a returning Driller who, like most of the club, heated up as the weather warmed up in 2021. Feduccia was drafted in the 12th round of the 2018 draft out of LSU so he has a lot of experience playing high levels of baseball. Feduccia is a longer lanky body type at catcher and is, in my opinion, the most underrated prospect in the organization. That’s because he’s not flashy, but the left-handed hitting catcher is just very solid and has a quick release throwing the ball to 2nd base.
Feduccia hit .254 with 10 homeruns, but considering that he was hitting just .198 on July 7th, he showed resilience and improvement over the last 3 months. The Bayou Bengal hit .291 in July, .271 in August then .289 in September.
Feduccia has a very flat left handed swing so he should be able to hit the ball to the left center gap very well which should provide him some consistency.
Taylor is a Top 30 catching prospect out of Virginia Tech that has carried an elite “hit tool” with him every step of the way. Taylor is a switch hitter, and is really good at working with the staff and is an outstanding pitch caller. He has a defensive game that is growing to add to his already excellent offense that features hitting from both sides of the plate as a switch hitter. He was drafted in the 4th Round of the 2020 draft so he is moving up quickly and is very excited for his new challenge at the AA level.
Chris Betts
Chris Betts was acquired by the Dodgers via free agency over the winter from Tampa Bay who he had been with since 2015. Betts was originally a 2nd round draft pick so he is very talented, and despite the fact that he has been in professional baseball since 2015, he is still only 25 years old. So, he brings even more talent to the catchers pool, experience in the pro game, another left handed stick and the potential for a guy that fits the Dodgers formula with a lot of power, but then great discipline at the plate. He also can play some first base, so he brings some versatility to the Drillers as well.
Starting Pitchers
Bobby Miller
Bobby Miller was drafted in the first round and is maybe the hottest prospect in the organization entering the 2022 season, especially after his performance at Dodgers stadium in Spring Training. He was brought up in September of last year to AA and it did not take him long to create a buzz as his 2nd pitch in AA registered 99 mph.
In 9 ⅓ innings with AA Tulsa he had 14 strikeouts to only 2 walks and will remind Dodger fans a lot of Walker Buehler in the way looks and pitches. Miller has 4 pitches but relies mainly on his 100 mph fastball and slider. He has a changeup and is in the process of mastering a cutter but those 2 pitches are not as developed as his fastball and slider.
Landon Knack is a power pitching prospect that came to the Dodgers from Middle Tennessee State after being drafted in the 2nd round of the 2020 draft.
Knacks fastball ranges from 93-96 and he has 2 shaped breaking balls. His 12-6 shaped breaking ball sits at 83-85 and his “3-9” shaped slider sits at 86-88. Knack also features a change up that sits in the low 80’s and it is a very effective pitch because it looks identical to his fastball coming out of his hand.
Clayton Beeter is a RHP pitching prospect in the Dodgers organization that has some of the best stuff in the entire organization. He is another pitcher that has a lightning bolt for a right arm and Beeter was drafted out of Texas Tech as the #66 overall pick in the 2020 draft.
Beeter has added a harder curveball this year, and is implementing a “cutter” to add to his high 90’s fastball and big curveball. His delivery is “over the top”, his fastball sits mid 90’s but can reach as high as 98, and his curveball is a very sharp breaking 12-6 pitch and is low 80’s so it provide a lot of downward bite as well as a big difference in speed from his fastball.
Beeter didn’t pitch until his Junior year of High School, then had Tommy John Surgery his freshman year so he was on a limited pitch count in 2021 but is very excited to return to full pitch counts in 2022.
Rooney is a left-handed starter out of Hofstra that is coming off a 2021 season in which he was mostly injured. Rooney is a very talented pitcher and features a fastball, slider, changeup mix with his backfoot slider being his “go to” pitch. He also has, quite possibly, the best pickoff move in all of baseball and is primed to really make a splash in 2022. He threw 5 scoreless innings in his debut so he has good stuff, has shown to be efficient and has great stamina.
Michael Grove came to the Dodgers from West Virginia in the 2nd Round of the 2018 draft and I can tell you first hand that his stuff is legit. He is a a starter and likes to use his fastball up in the zone and he will finally be on full pitch counts in 2022, so watch out for this guy. He was put on the 40 man roster so that tells you all you need to know in terms of what the organization thinks about him.
The Dodgers were so high on him that they took him even though he missed all of 2018 due to Tommy John Surgery. Grove sat anywhere from 93-95 last year on his fastball, but was hitting 98 mph consistently by the end of the year and he mixes that with a power slider and a very sharp breaking curve ball. The thing that gives him a chance to be a very good major leaguer is that his delivery, arm slot and everything is identical between locations of pitches then types of pitches so there are no tip offs as to what he’s throwing or where.
Gus Varland was drafted by the Oakland A’s in the 14th round of the 2018 Draft out of Concordia University.
Varland came to the Dodgers along with Infielder Sheldon Neuse in the deal that sent Adam Kolarek and outfielder Cody Thomas to Oakland. The thick framed right hander had Tommy John in 2019 and features a 3 pitch mix that has a lots of movement to them. Varland has an extremely high spin rate on his fastball and has learned to use it up in the zone to get a lot of swing and miss strikeouts. He has posted some really good K/BB ratios in the past and had an incredible first year as a professional in 2018, but then had Tommy John surgery in 2019, then Covid cancelled 2020 so his momentum was slowed down. As he stays healthy, rebuilds his pitch count and get the feel back in his off speed stuff he will pitch in the Major Leagues at some point.
Bullpen
Plunkett was taken out of Arkansas after having only pitched 1 inning total in College. The Right-handed relief pitcher was a backup to 3 Team USA catchers at both TCU and Arkansas, but despite that, was drafted twice because of his work ethic and physical skills. During his senior year at Arkansas, Plunkett started throwing bullpens, and on the 3rd pitch of his first bullpen hit 97, so his stuff is absolutely legit. He is one of the few that features a split-finger to mix with his slider and mid to upper 90’s fastball.
Zuniga is a big-bodied Right-handed reliever from Colombia that fits the Dodgers formula perfectly with his pitch mix of a fastball, slider, and changeup. Zuniga is 6’5 and 230 pounds so he has a very intimidating presence and is coming off of a very good 2021 where his ERA was 3.06 with a k/bb ratio of almost 4 to 1 and a batting average against of just .194.
Nick Robertson is another big bodied power arm for the Dodgers that has a lot of versatility in the role the Dodgers may choose for him. Robertson played his college days as a James Madison Duke and was drafted in the 7th round of the 2019 draft. Robertson is a 3 pitch strike thrower that sits 94-96, so he offers a lot of versatility in terms of the roles he can be used in as well as arm talent..
Mark Washington stands at 6’7 so when he comes out of the pen he is daunting and when he delivers the ball it’s coming in at a pretty good decline. Washington was drafted out of Lehigh in the 25th round and has gotten better and better. In 2017, in rookie ball, Washington had an ERA of 3.20. The next year between rookie and A ball the 6’7 Washington had an ERA of 2.95. In 2019 in High A his ERA was 2.97, but last year his ERA was just 2.00 in AA.
Washington is 94-95 on the fastball and features a good changeup and throws an occasional slider and has had a crazy hot start to 2022.
Cameron Gibbens is 6’8 bullpen arm and came to the Dodgers from Australia and the Australian Baseball league. Gibbens is 92-94 and has off-speed stuff in the mid 80’s so he offers a big speed difference between the two. Being 6’8 Gibbens also offers a lot of downward tilt even on pitches he is not forcibly trying to create movement on. Gibbens allowed only 1 earned run in his first 13 appearances and combined for the only no-hitters in Loons history last year so he is very good when he is fresh.
Selected with the 191st pick of the 2019 draft, Aaron Oschenbein is another power arm bullpen arm that has been made a closer. He has already had his Tommy John surgery, and has what I call “knees and elbows” in his delivery as it has enough uniqueness to throw a hitter off.
He is another guy that can really run the ball up to home plate and has a curve ball and change up. He was moved to the bullpen in College so he could max out the velocity on his fastball and not have to conserve mph for longevity in a game. His fastball and “slurve” are his go to pitches and are very effective as long as he is maxing out on his velocity in the 94-95 range. As a starter in College he was 89-91 with only 2 go to pitches so the transition the bullpen has been a natural fit for him.
Tanner Dodson is a young prospect that was drafted in the competitive balance Round B of the 2018 draft. Dodson was recently acquired in the Luke Raley trade and was hitting 98-100 with his fastball at the end of last year. He has always been a 2 way player and had 25 at bats last year, but will, most likely, concentrate on pitching as a Dodger. He features a ++ slider and changeup and has bigtime “lights out” stuff out of the pen. This was a great pickup for the Dodgers.
Alec Gamboa is a left-handed relief pitcher out of Madera where he was a 3 sport star in the Fresno area. Gamboa went 150-15 as a wrestler, so you know he is tough and athletic, and is considered to be one of the best Central Valley multi-sport athletes in the history of that area. Gamboa features a 4 pitch mix that includes a 2 seam-4 seam split with his fastball, so, in effect, he could be considered to have 5 pitches. His fastball sits 93-96 and has gotten stronger the further away he has gotten from his Tommy John surgery. Gamboa is a great athlete, extremely competitive, grew up a Dodgers fans, and is extremely talented.
Justin Hagenman
Hagenman is a right handed reliever out of Penn State that was drafted in the 23rd round of the 2018 Draft. Hagenman uses the bottom of the zone well with his 90’s fastball, can get under the ball to get good ride at the top of the zone, has a really tight slider and tumbling and fading changeup. Hagenman had better than a 4 to 1 k/bb ratio last year in 62 innings last season with Double-A Tulsa so he is carrying a lot of momentum into 2022.
Jose Martinez
Martinez had a really good first outing in 2022 and uses both sides of the plate very well to set hitters up. The right handed relief pitcher has a good slider and locates the ball well and continues to impress inside the organization. Martinez features a mix of a 90’s fastball, slider and changeup.
Austin Drury
Drury is a left-handed reliever out of the University of North Florida that finished 2021 not giving up a run in his last 3 outings. Drury works fast and has a ++ changeup and creates a lot of weak contact with his secondary pitches. Drury is fun to play defense behind because of his pace.
Melvin Jimenez
Melvin Jimenez is a right handed relief pitcher in the Dodgers organization that posted some pretty eye popping numbers in the lower ranks of the Minor Leagues. Jimenez lands on the first base side, so when he locates to his arm side, the ball runs quite a bit. Jimenez was signed in 2015 so he has been in Professional baseball for quite a while and he features a fastball, curveball, changeup mix.
Infielders
Michael Busch
Michael Busch came to the Dodgers from the University of North Carolina and was a 1st round pick in the 2019 draft. While Busch had a slow start to last season, his finish to 2021 was nothing short of remarkable. After a decent start in May, things went pretty sideways for the Tar Heel infielder in June as he hit .173, had no homeruns, had just 1 RBI, and struck out 29 times in 75 at bats.
After going 0 for 3 in his first game in July, Busch’s average was all the way down to .217. But as the weather heated up, so did his bat. In the rest of the month the Tar Heel 2nd baseman hit .300 and had 8 multi hit games which was almost twice as many as he had in May and June combined.
Although August was a fairly modest month, the #3 Dodger prospect had a September to Remember. In September, Busch hit .413 and had 6 multi hit games in the 13 games the Drillers played in September. If you add in the last 2 games of August, Busch had 8 multi hit games in his last 15 games played.
Busch is a right side infielder that played mostly 2nd base but also played 1st, so the Dodgers are trying to create the versatility in him that they like in their players.
Miguel Vargas AAA OKC
Miguel Vargas is one of the hottest prospects in the Dodgers organization and was acquired by the Dodgers in the 2017 International free agent signing period out of Cuba. He was brought up to AA Tulsa on June 17 and became a model of consistency and excellence. He hit .300 or better in 3 of the 5 months of action, and hit .293 and .292 respectively in June and July, the only months he didn’t hit at least .300
While the right handed hitting slugger was ultra consistent, he also had an August that was just simply off the charts. In August Vargas hit .410 with an OPS of 1.090 and had 15 multi hit games of the 26 games played. He also had 3 hits in a game on 4 different occasions in August as well.
Vargas won the AA hitting crown with a .319 average and did so by being a complete hitter. His pull percentage and oppo % were close to identical as he pulled the ball 39.2% of the time and went oppo 35% of the time. He uses the opposite field as well as anyone I have seen.
Kody Hoese
Kody Hoese had a 2021 that many players, unfortunately, have to endure sometime during their professional careers. He got hurt, then just never could get going after he came back off of injury. Hoese is still a bigtime prospect, and nothing can be taken from his injury riddled 2021 season. He was drafted out of Tulane as the 25th pick of the 2019 draft, so just another reminder that he is still a big time prospect that hit .391 as a Junior at Tulane and hit 23 homeruns as well at the Division 1 level. To make any kind of permanent evaluations on Hoese based off of last year would be unfair as oblique injuries are incredibly difficult to deal with. The core muscles are the most important muscles for athletes, so there in no doubt that Hoese did the best with the situation his body was in.
Devin Mann is the ultimate utility player as he has played every position other than pitcher and catcher at AA Tulsa. He joins Will Smith and Bobby Miller as another Louisville Cardinal prospect and is long and lanky. Mann got off to a slow start in 2021, and on July 4th, was hitting just .199, but from that point on he started to heat up then absolutely caught fire in September. Mann hit .264 in July, .263 in August, but then .323 in September. But, that doesn’t tell his story.
Mann had multi homerun games in 3 consecutive games from September 9-11 and at one point had hit 6 homeruns in 10 at bats. The Louisville slugger was drafted in the 5th round of the 2018 draft and is another versatile defensive player as he can play every position on the field, and has.
I really, really like this guy. I was fortunate enough to get to interview and feature Amaya and came away super impressed with him. His confidence, work ethic and leadership skills are elite and so is his fielding. Amaya is a huge prospect and has been considered by multiple outlets as the best defensive shortstop in the organization. He has also shown every offensive skill needed to be a really good offensive player as he has had years where his average was high, and also had years where his power numbers were good. But, he hasn’t been able to do both at the same time so he is still trying to put his offensive puzzle together.
Amaya grew up just about a ½ hour from Dodger Stadium, and his grandpa Frank also played in the Dodgers organization, so when he got drafted in the 11th round by the Dodgers a dream had come true.
Yurchak hit .365 last year combined between High A Great lakes and AA Tulsa, so this guy can really hit. He is mainly a first baseman that some say needs to add power to his game, but I hope he never changes a thing because his OPS was .928 last year to go with the huge .365 average. Yurchak swings left-handed and was drafted in the 12th Round of the 2017 draft out of Binghampton and is “under the radar” most likely because of the talent that surrounds him.
Lewis got the call up from High A Great Lakes where, last year, he showed his massive power. Lewis hit 30 home runs in 2021 which equated to 1 homerun every 14 at-bats. Lewis is an LA Area guy who played collegiately at LA Pierce, then UC Irvine, and was drafted in the 4th Round of the 2019 draft and has “lights out” power as well as being a good defender at both 1st base and 3rd base. Lewis is one of those prospects that can both hit, and then also hit with power, but being a good hitter first is something that is important to him so he is going to continue to be a great hitter at every stop. It’s also rumored that’s he’s pretty good with his putter on the golf course as well.
Outfield
James Outman is another quickly rising prospect that was brought up to Tulsa with Justin Yurchak towards the end of 2021. Outman was drafted in the 7th round out of Sacramento State and hit .289 with 9 homeruns in his 39 games with Tulsa. Outman is bigger than you realize when you first see him and he is an elite defender and is fearless at going and getting the ball. He has made a lot of adjustments to his swing since joining the Dodgers and has rounded into a very good offensive player.
Kendall is an outfielder who plays elite defense and has always had the “clutch gene”. Kendall hit the first every walkoff homerun in TD Ameritrade at the College World Series, and also had 2 walk-offs last year for the Drillers. Kendall is a former first round draft pick out of Vanderbilt that fought injury through 2021, so 2022 is a big year for the talented outfielder as he will get the chance to show what he can do with full health. Kendall is an elite defensive outfielder with the potential to be an offensive player that can hit for power, have a high on base percentage and put a bunch of pressure on defenses. Speed never goes in a slump and Kendall has it to burn.
Okay, MILB, whoever made your list for the Dodgers Top 30 prospects just completely whiffed on Ryan Noda. Noda finished 2nd in homeruns in all of AA, 2nd in RBI’s, and 2nd in walks. And, he also is versatile defensively and can not only play multiple positions, but he can play both the infield and the outfield.
Noda was drafted by the Bluejays in the 15th round of the 2017 draft out of Cincinnati and is a big athletic left handed hitting slugger.
Andy Pages is an outfielder with every tool in the book. He has a cannon for an arm and has played in all 3 outfield positions, but projects as a corner outfielder as he grows through the system. Pages has played 3 years under Austin Chubb and is being passed to Henny for 2022 so he is in very good hands. Pages is from Cuba and brings an International flash with him, but is very popular with his teammates, and, despite having a lot of spotlight on him, is very humble. Pages hit 31 homeruns last year and had on OPS of .933, so he has lived up to the hype, which is not always easy to do.
Ward is, in my opinion, one of the best pure hitters I’ve seen. He played collegiately at Bryant and is the only Bulldog to hit .400 over an entire season, he hit .409 in 2018 to be exact, then backed that up with a .382 average his Junior year in 2019. He graduated from Millbury Memorial with less than 100 kids in his graduating class and so he has all of those great “small town” values” to mix with his enormous talent. Ward hits left but throws right and has elite work ethic and is a managers dream when it comes to his daily approach to his work and the game. The outfield for the Drillers is pretty stacked with returners, so finding consistent at bats early on might be somewhat tricky, but when he gets in a groove watch out because this guy can flat rake.
