That didn’t take long. Just ten months after being drafted by the Minnesota Twins with the very nice 69th overall pick, Dasan Hill was named the 85th best global prospect by Baseball America. That feels aggressive for someone who, at the time of writing, has thrown 12 professional innings. Let’s talk about it.
Before we dig into strengths and opportunities from Hill’s early showing, it’s worth digging into the aggressiveness of the ranking. Here’s my working hypothesis. In general, the industry is trending towards a more frequent and more aggressive ranking of prospects. Why? Two reasons; with increasing prospect-based content, there’s pressure to be ‘first’ (or close to it) on a guy. That’s not a criticism of BA. I’m a paid, very happy subscriber. It’s simply calling out an observation. Secondly, and more relevantly; prospect numbers 70-125 are fairly interchangeable.
So what about Hill, eh? How has he looked? How is he performing? What do the first glimpses of his arsenal tell us about him?
There are some clues in his signing of how bullish the Twins were on Hill. They signed him for $2 million to forgo his commitment to DBU. That’s towards the upper end of prep bonuses outside the first round of the 2024 draft. Next, the frame. He’s listed at 6’5, 160 pounds. He’s definitely put on some good weight since being drafted, but it’s easy to see the vision here. A prospect whose velo popped into the mid-90s pre-draft with a premium projectable frame.
The early returns have been encouraging. Hill has made four appearances, the most recent of which he was removed from after 1.1 innings with back tightness. He’s been pretty dominant so far in his age-19 season. 12 innings pitched, a 2.84 FIP, a 43.8 K%, and a 10.4 BB%. Insert your own small sample size caveat here, but that’s an encouraging start. I’ve caught most of Hill’s starts this season and there are two tangible takeaways; no one at Low-A can touch his breaking/off-speed stuff, and the strikes can come and go. I’d expect the latter to be true for a prep draftee in their first professional season. Hill has thrown 60% strikes in 2025 (dragged down by his most recent appearance). He’ll need to be closer to 70% when it’s all said and done.
Hill throws from a higher three quarter slot. There’s some deception in the delivery with a little crossfire there. He keeps the ball hidden well behind his head through his delivery. Hill doesn’t have much extension, a trait the Twins seem to like in their pitchers (Ober, Pablo, Paddack etc.)
Hill has two fastball shapes, a four seamer and a two seamer, the latter being what he is relying on more heavily early in his pro career. Hill’s fastballs are probably his least interesting pitch currently. It’s the one that’s potentially going to get damaged by right-handed hitters as, against righties specifically, he’s leaving it over the heart of the plate significantly more (~15%) than against lefties. Still, we should note the wins too. Hill has added velo since joining the Twins. In his spring training outings, his fastball was up to 99 mph. So far in game action, it’s touched 98 mph. That’s going to create some margin for error.
Hill’s secondary pitches are where he separates himself for a pitcher so young. He has three offerings, a slider, curveball, and changeup, all of which look strong in the early going.
Hill’s slider averages 81.7 mph. I’d expect that to firm up through his pro career. It has two plane movement, both sweep and drop and through those first 12 innings, is generating a whiff rate north of 60%. It looks like a nightmare for Low-A hitters. The curveball looks similar, just with around 9 inches more drop than the slider. This pitch sits at 79.2 mph on average (this will need to creep up, too). While it’s not as good a pitch as the slider, what’s been impressive is Hill’s ability to command it. He can consistently place it on the bottom right corner of the strike zone against right-handed hitters, rendering anyone unable to do much with it.
Finally, Hill’s changeup. This will be a crucial pitch in helping to neutralize right-handed hitters. This might be his best pitch. It gets a ton of late fade and is averaging over 15 inches of horizontal break, thrown around 84 mph on average, close to an ideal velocity separation from his fastballs.
There’s plenty to work on here and we’re taking a peak at very small sample sizes with Hill in his pro debut. What I would say stand out early on, are the quality of depth of the pitches in his arsenal, in addition to his ability to command some of his off-speed and breaking pitches effectively. That’s not a combination you often see in a prep draftee in their first pro season. Let’s hope we get to see plenty more in 2025.
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