Phillies Take Grant Dyer In the 8th Round of the 2016 Draft

In the 8th round you are looking for players with some path to a major league role. Grant Dyer out of UCLA pitched well as a starter for UCLA this year, but the scouting reports are less than inspiring. He got away with solid control and a fastball up to 90. As a sophomore he was much more dynamic in the bullpen where he was up to 94-95 and he had a good second pitch in his curveball. The Phillies could take this in two ways. One is that they could run him out as a starter and try and see if they can try and bring out the reliever stuff as a starter with the bullpen as a fall back. The other is that they can put him in the bullpen now for a team like Lakewood and let him just move quickly to the majors. There is enough here for him to be maybe a little better than a good middle reliever, which is fine at this point in the draft.

Baseball Prospectus scouting report