He’s easily the size of legendary Houston Astros pitcher JR Richard (who was inducted into the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum’s “Hall of Game” on June 9), and is already decorated with a gold medal, and has an induction into a Hall of Fame. He’s 6’8″, 250-pound right-handed starting pitcher Brock Dykxhoorn.

Dykxhoorn, promoted to the Triple-A Fresno Grizzlies May 24, was just 21 when he won a gold medal with the Canadian Men’s Senior National Team in the 2015 Pan American Games. This honor was followed up by the team being inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

Now 23, Dykxhoorn has an early, but no less impressive, 2.65 ERA over his first three Triple-A starts (17.0 IP, five ER), through June 6. He’s striking out a batter an inning and has yielded just two walks.

(Note: Brock’s Dutch surname may have “the probable origin deriving from the need to provide an early-warning system in Holland for their dikes during storms. Citizens were issued hunter horns to sound the alarm over the storm if a breach was imminent. Unfortunately, the care and usefulness of these horns was placed at risk during the off-season and sometimes lost. Therefore a man was made responsible for these horns, and he became known as ‘Dijkshoorn.'”–SurnameWeb.com)

“Baseball was just something I did to stay in shape for hockey season.”

Born in Goderich, Ontario, on the southeast shore of Lake Huron, Dykxhoorn attended St. Anne’s Catholic Secondary School in Clinton, 14 miles southeast of Goderich. With an enrollment of about 600 students, players on the Eagles’ baseball team had to buy their own equipment and uniforms. A “baseball program” didn’t really exist until Brock’s senior season at St. Anne’s.

From Frozen Tundra to Desert

After a freshman year at the Big 12 University of West Virginia, Dykxhoorn meandered his way to the arid tundra of Central Arizona College (CAC) in Coolidge, AZ (a south Phoenix suburb), an arduous 2100-mile sleigh ride from Ontario.

Last summer, Dykxhoorn revealed to broadcaster Sam Levitt, of Houston’s AA Corpus Christi Hooks, how his journey to higher education unfolded: “I had a coach from Arizona who came up to Canada to coach our summer ball team [the Mankato Moondogs of the Northwoods League, Minnesota], and he had some connections down there. I went to a showcase down in Arizona in the fall, and there’s a small JC [CAC] who liked what they saw, and I committed right then.”

Dykxhoorn was also quick to disclose that 14 is his record for downing hot dogs in one sitting. He assures us that’s not his traditional pre-game meal, and he’s not into a time limit, so there’ll be no gullet-stuffing on Dollar Dog Night.

Astros Come Knockin’

Dykxhoorn was the Astros’ sixth-round draft pick out of CAC in 2014. In 54.2 innings for Class-A Quad Cities in 2015 (after his brief initial pro season with Houston’s rookie league team in 2014) he posted a 4.12 ERA, 9.22 K/9, and a 2.96 BB/9.

Spending the whole of 2017 with Double-A Corpus Christi, Dykxhoorn threw 99.1 innings (16 of 25 appearances were starts), to a 4.62 ERA, with 40 walks and 84 Ks, and a .279 batting average against.

Dykxhoorn started 2018 at Corpus, and these numbers earned him his promotion to Fresno: Through his first five appearances (four starts), Dykxhoorn compiled a 1.16 ERA (second in the Texas League for qualified pitchers through early May), a 1.071 WHIP and nine walks to 22 strikeouts in 23.1 innings of work.

The Scouts Weigh In

From Minor League Ball‘s scouting report two years ago: Brock “throws from a lower 3/4 arm-slot, and repeats delivery well; high leg kick, long arm action. Arm gets fully extended, good arm speed with decent deception, high effort delivery.”

And, this from fall, 2016, toward the end of Brock’s then-Class A-Advanced California League Lancaster JetHawks (Baseball Prospectus): “Dykxhoorn is a Canadian moose-man who lacks overpowering stuff, though his frame, arm slot, and deception all help his pitches play up.

“There is notable self-confidence in how he attacks hitters, and the control profile is solid-average thanks to reasonably consistent repetition of his stiff; funky mechanics. He struggles to spin the ball and generate quality bite with his breaking pitches. The arsenal is more limited against left-handed hitters, but I like the idea of him coming out of someone’s bullpen as a right-on-right guy, especially if he can squeeze another tick or two out of his fastball in shorter stints.”