OF Heston Kjerstad, Arkansas
Full index of profiles here
DoB: 2/12/1999. B/T: L/R
2020 Stats: 6 HR, .448/.513/.791, 1 SB, 9/7 K/BB in 16 games
Kjerstad has raked since the day he stepped on campus at Arkansas. The Amarillo native immediately came up and hit .332/.419/.553 with 14 home runs as a freshman in 2014, then followed that up with a similarly impressive .327/.400/.575 line and 17 home runs as a sophomore in 2019. Heading out to North Carolina to play for the US Collegiate National Team over the summer, he impressed again, slashing .395/.426/.651 with a pair of home runs in 14 games against international competition. Returning to Fayetteville for his junior season in 2020, he blasted four home runs in an opening weekend series with Eastern Illinois and never looked back, slashing .448/.513/.791 with six home runs over 16 games before the season shut down. I write all of this out in part because I just enjoy reading eye popping stat lines like that, but also to drive home the point that should be obvious at this point – the guy just hits.
Kjerstad is a big kid and an imposing presence in the left handed batter's box with a mature 6'3" frame, and that's before you look at the stat line. He naturally generates plus raw power with his size and strength, and the excellent leverage and loft he gets in his uppercut swing helps him tap every bit of it in games. It's a bit long, but with his natural hand eye coordination and feel for the barrel, he's had no issues whatsoever against advanced SEC pitching and it's easy to see him launching baseballs to the moon in pro ball. Defensively, he's fairly ordinary, possessing a strong arm but lacking the foot speed to really be an asset out there. He should be fine in right field, but his real position is batter's box.
On the flip side, his plate discipline and overall hit tool are a bit behind what you typically see in mid-first round college hitters, even power hitters, as he's struck out at roughly a 20% clip in college. That's typically a red flag for how a player might perform in pro ball against better pitching, but Kjerstad's track record is so good that you worry a little less about that. Indeed, he hit .395/.426/.651 with the US CNT and .319/.402/.509 during conference play last year, and that's not against light competition. It makes him a bit of a polarizing prospect, because you have to square those high levels of swing and miss with his exceptional track record of hitting advanced pitching. For a lot of hitters, that swing and miss will be exploited at the next level, but in Kjerstad's case, it simply hasn't been yet.
Outside of that top tier of Spencer Torkelson, Austin Martin, and Nick Gonzales, few college hitters can match Kjerstad's upside or his track record. He has legitimate 30-40 home run power and has gotten to it extremely consistently in the SEC, and he could anchor a big league lineup for years. He comes with some risk due to questions about his swing and miss, but hitting clearly flows through his blood and I get the feeling that won't be an issue. Before the season shut down, he looked like a guy who could go in the middle of the first round, but he's been pushing his way towards the top ten as scouting departments have been forced to value track record more than they have in years past.
2020 game footage
Batting practice with the US CNT
No comments:
Post a Comment