Minnesota Twins prospect Kohl Stewart: what do you make of him?

Next week I will begin work on the Top 20 prospects per organization for 2019. The first three teams will be the Minnesota Twins, Atlanta Braves, and the Kansas City Royals. Research never ends around here, of course, and I’m already reviewing reports and video and gathering information from various sources.

One guy I want some outsider opinions and views on is Twins right-hander Kohl Stewart.

Stewart was promoted to the majors on August 12th. He made four starts and four relief appearances, pitching 36.2 innings with a 3.68 ERA, 3.92 FIP, with a 24/18 K/BB, 34 hits, and a 1.67 GO/AO while giving up just one home run. He retains rookie eligibility for 2019 so he’ll certainly be on the list somewhere.

When he was promoted to the majors I wrote this article, concluding that Stewart had “issues with start-to-start consistency” and “looks like a number four starter at this point, with his grade still hovering on the B-/C+ boundary.”

My initial impression is to bump that up to a straight B-. The start-to-start consistency thing proved valid, as you can see by his game logs, and I’m not a fan of the K/BB ratio. On the other hand, he finished strong with just one unearned run allowed in his last 12 innings with a 10/3 K/BB, and reports that his secondary pitches improved during the spring appeared valid. I also like the action on his fastball.

What do you guys think? Could he be a number three starter or does the number four projection seem more valid to you? Or could he be better than a three? Does B- seem like the correct grade or should he be higher?