Dominant Minor League Baseball Performances from Tuesday!

Yesterday began a new week of Minor League action and it certainly brought plenty of fireworks. From double-digit strikeout performances to multi-home runs games, I broke down all the players from the DSL to Triple-A that stood out!

Let’s break down the notable performances from players across professional baseball.

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Each day, I will pick a hitter and pitcher who stand out and deserve the top spot on the sheet. Those players’ reports will be free for all to read. The rest will be paywalled for Dynasty Dugout Subscribers. The article is around 3000 words, giving you detailed player reports to encapsulate everything you need to know.Tyler Locklear, 1B, Seattle Mariners, 24, AAA

Locklear was quite good in the Minors in 2024, spending the majority of the time in Tacoma(AAA). Across 506 plate appearances, Locklear blasted 16 home runs and had nine stolen bases while slashing .272/.382/.468. Locklear made his MLB debut in 2024 and struggled mightily, albeit just 49 trips to the plate. This caused Locklear’s stock to fall in prospect circles, but he has looked the part in Triple-A this year.

Blasting two home runs on Tuesday, Lockear had exit velocities of 111 and 105 to bring his total to 14 on the year. Locklear surprisingly has stolen 16 bases, though I would not read too much into it. The contact gains have been notable, and Locklear is slashing an impressive .305/.390/.501 slash.

Under the hood, Locklear has a 90 mph average exit velocity and a 107 mph 90th percentile exit velocity. The hard-hit rate of 43 percent is solid, the launch angles and ground balls have led to just an eight percent barrel rate.

The contact gains are notable and look close to average now as Locklear has a 71.5 percent overall contact rate, which jumps to nearly 82 percent on swings in the zone. The chase rate is also close to average at 28 percent.

Locklear will need to lift the ball more to get to power, given the corner infield profile. But he does look like a more viable option than he did last season.

Ben Kudrna, RHP, Kansas City Royals, 22, AA

After Tuesday night, you would need to go back to June to find the last time Kudrna allowed an earned run. Last night, Kudrna turned in arguably the best start of his career, striking out 11 batters while allowing just one hit across six innings. Kudrna generated an impressive 20 whiffs.

His fastball sits 93-95 but can touch 97 occasionally with plenty of projection and room for Kudrna to see a few ticks added to the arsenal. Kudrna began to use a sinker more in 2024, which may be the way to go, as his four-seam lacks strong traits. His high release point allows the sinker to create a nice downhill plane and good running action. It will be interesting to see if the sinker becomes his primary fastball, given the high ground ball rates and solid whiff numbers.

He often throws his slider, sitting 82-84 mph with depth but also late horizontal movement, deceiving hitters. Kudrna throws his changeup to both lefties and righties, showing depth and fading action.

The slider and changeup both flash being above average or better at times. The slider sits in the mid-80s with a gyro-shape, missing a ton of bats against right-handed hitters. The changeup has heavy fading action with good depth, creating great separation from the fastball. At times, the mid-80s changeup can get near 20 inches of fading action but sits north of 15 on average.

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