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When Heston Kjerstad first popped up on Ken Guthrie’s radar, he was nowhere close to being thought of as a professional prospect.
Long before he became a prolific slugger at Arkansas, Kjerstad was just the younger brother of Dex, a player on the summer ball team in Texas coached by the future Baltimore Orioles scout.
“Initially when he was 11 and 12, my focus was on the field at the time,” Guthrie said. “I would see Heston running around in the stands and his folks trying to keep track of him.”
Little did he know at the time, Guthrie would play a huge role in Kjerstad being selected as the No. 2 overall pick in the 2020 MLB Draft about a decade later.
In fact, it wasn’t until seeing him play at the Connie Mack World Series in Farmington, N.M., the summer between his junior and senior year that he even saw professional potential in him.
However, Kjerstad was still a switch hitter, as he was throughout high school. He eventually realized his left-handed swing was more advanced despite being a natural righty and stuck with it at Arkansas, plus he transformed his body going into his freshman year.
“When I was in the clubhouse prior to his freshman spring season, I was sitting down with one of the coaches who’s now the pitching coach at Minnesota (Wes Johnson) and Heston walked in and he looked like a completely different person,” Guthrie said. “I knew right then and there that I probably underestimated what his power tool was going to be.”
No amount of projecting by Guthrie could have predicted the career Kjerstad enjoyed with the Razorbacks. In just 150 games, he hit .343/.421/.590 with 37 home runs and 129 RBIs.
The coronavirus pandemic likely cost him a shot at National Player of the Year honors because he was hitting .448 and already had six home runs and 20 RBIs in 16 games. Head coach Dave Van Horn felt like he would have hit about 25 long balls.
“What attracted me to Heston initially was just his ability and his knack for squaring up the baseball routinely,” Guthrie said. “He can do damage with pitcher’s pitches, he shows power to all fields, he has a natural hitter’s instincts. He profiles well in right field…and the best part is he’ll maximize his potential and his tools with his hard work and what I think is his genuine love for the game.”
That kind of production in the SEC caught the attention of other teams, as well, vaulting him into most lists of the top 10 prospects in this summer’s draft.
Although the NCAA granted him an extra year of eligibility, which would have given him another year of leverage if he wanted to return to school, Kjerstad said he never had a doubt that he’d sign after Baltimore took him with the second overall pick.
