Twins Prospect Dasan Hill Shines as Minnesota Tops Phillies 9-3

Dasan Hill gave a sheepish smile and a little shrug before copping to it: yes, he might have been trying to light up the radar gun in the first inning.

He backed it up. The hard-throwing left-hander touched 100.1 mph on the Major League mound in Fort Myers on Thursday, adding a 99.7 and a couple of pitches at 99.4 as the Minnesota Twins prospects rolled past a group of Philadelphia Phillies prospects 9-3 in the Spring Breakout showcase. The 100.1 reading wasn't a fluke — Hill had already hit 100 mph earlier this spring, a velocity spike that has become one of the more notable developments in the Twins' system.

Hill started for the Twins prospects and, when he got into trouble during the outing, leaned on the stuff that makes evaluators take notice. Beyond the fastball, he features a nasty slider/sweeper to go with a changeup and a curveball. On pure stuff, the scouting verdict is blunt: he doesn't have a lot of equals.

The pressure moments didn't rattle him. "I've had a bunch of games where I'm in that situation, and I thrive under pressure," Hill said. "Being able to get out of those big situations, it felt good to be able to rely on my stuff and get out of it."

The numbers behind him are worth keeping in perspective. Hill just turned 20 in December and has only one year of professional baseball. He is a good ways from the Majors as he works on his control and focuses on staying healthy. But the raw ceiling is unmistakable, and Thursday's outing in Fort Myers read as a statement. It likely won't be the last time he takes the ball on that big field.