Kendall George did something in 2025 that just three other minor league players have done in the past 20 years.<\/p>\n
The 21-year-old center fielder stole 100 bases\u2014including in 34 in August alone\u2014in 111 games for High-A Great Lakes, joining Billy Hamilton (2011 and 2012), Delino DeShields Jr. (2012) and Chandler Simpson (2024) in the century club. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it speaks just to the talent level that\u2019s there,\u201d said Dodgers GM Brandon Gomes of the 2023 first-round pick out of high school in Texas.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we took him where we did, our thought was, \u2018This is an 80-runner and an incredible athlete, and we\u2019re going to take our time and let the bat play out.\u2019 I think where we sit today, it\u2019s been pretty damn good.\u201d<\/p>\n
George is a lefthanded batter who hit .295\/.409\/.370 with a 16% walk rate, albeit with just 19 extra-base hits. Almost all of his power comes versus righthanders. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think you have obviously elite of the elite speed, a good foundation of decision-making and the ability to conduct an at-bat,\u201d Gomes said. \u201cThere\u2019s some things in the swing we want to continue to push and work on. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s going to be the goal, along with really, really pushing his center field defense and making sure he is a plus defender, as we know he can be.\u201d<\/p>\n
George has plenty of company in the grass. The Dodgers\u2019 top four prospects are outfielders: Eduardo Quintero, Josue De Paula, Mike Sirota and Zyhir Hope. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s right in there,\u201d Gomes said. \u201cI think it\u2019s an interesting group. Each guy has his own individual skill set. Kendall obviously, with his 80-speed and bat-to-ball versus righthanders and then his center field play, he\u2019s a little more your old-school type player.\u201d<\/p>\n
L.A. CONFIDENTIAL<\/p>\n
\u2014 The Dodgers traded outfielder Esteury Ruiz to the Marlins for Cuban righthander Adriano Marrero. Ruiz, 26, led the American League in stolen bases with the Athletics in 2023 but has spent most of the past two seasons at Triple-A. Marrero, 18, made 10 starts in the Dominican Summer League last year with a 3.82 ERA and 35 strikeouts in 33 innings.<\/p>\n
\u2014 The Dodgers added former Twins manager Rocco Baldelli to their front office as a special assistant to president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman. Baldelli, 44, spent most of his playing career with the Rays, some of it during Friedman\u2019s tenure there. In seven seasons as the Twins manager, Baldelli led them to three American League Central division titles and was named the AL Manager of the Year in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kendall George did something in 2025 that just three other minor league players have done in the past…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,187605,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-401016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-organization-reports","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}