The Road to The Show™: Kristian Robinson

Each week, MiLB.com profiles an elite prospect by chronicling the steps he's taken to reach the brink of realizing his Major League dream. Here's a look at Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Kristian Robinson. For more player journeys on The Road to The Show, click here.

Seven Bahamians have played in the Major Leagues. Top D-backs prospect Kristian Robinson is poised to become the eighth, and according to MLB Pipeline, possibly the best.

Heady stuff for an outfielder who turned 20 last week and has played only 25 games of full-season ball, but Robinson, whom Arizona signed for $2.5 million in 2017, has the tools to succeed.

At 6-foot-3 and 190 pounds, Robinson is big, fast and thrillingly athletic. He has the arm to play right field and the speed -- for now, anyway -- to man center field. Most intriguing, however, is his raw power. In 2019, he clubbed 14 homers in 69 games and slugged .514 as an 18-year-old between Class A Short Season Hillsboro and Class A Kane County despite being roughly three years younger than his average opponent.

Scouts were initially concerned that, having grown up in the Bahamas and not facing the sort of competition found in the Dominican Republic or elsewhere, Robinson might be exposed by professional pitching. Needless to say, he thrived.

Arriving at the D-backs' Arizona Rookie League affiliate in 2018, the then-17-year-old Robinson showed poise and an advanced approach at the plate, batting .272/.341/.414 in 40 games. A late-season promotion allowed him to put on a show in 17 games for Rookie Advanced Missoula in the Pioneer League. Thrown in with players three-and-a-half years older, Robinson torched the circuit by hitting .300/.419/.467 with three homers and five stolen bases.

He was even better the following summer at Hillsboro. Still just 18, he punished Northwest League pitching while compiling a .319/.407/.558 slash line with nine homers, 35 RBIs and 14 stolen bases in 44 games. Though a promotion left him without enough plate appearances to qualify for the league batting title, he still tied for second in home runs. He would have finished second in average, on-base percentage and slugging if he had qualified and was named to the Northwest League All-Star team.

Things went less smoothly for Robinson when he arrived at Kane County in August 2019. In 25 Midwest League games, he hit just .217, although he did rip five homers and drive in 16 runs. Part of it was bad luck -- he batted .263 on balls in play with the Cougars, compared to the .398 he'd recorded with the Hops -- but his strikeout rate soared to 29 percent and his walk rate fell to under 8 percent. Perhaps it was a down ending to an incredible season, but he still delivered an above-average performance in a league featuring much more experienced players.

The 2020 campaign would have been a big one for Robinson -- in full-season ball, he might have played as many games in 2020 as the 126 he did in his first two seasons combined. Although opportunity fell by the wayside due to the pandemic, he was added to the D-backs' 60-man player pool at their alternate training site on Aug. 20. Having added 25 pounds of muscle since Spring Training, Robinson made quite an impression on Arizona farm director Josh Barfield.

"Everyone else was already in mid-season form, and it took him, like, two days to look like he'd been playing there all year," Barfield told MLB.com. "He had a few games where he'd do something to make you think, 'We don't have anyone else who can do that. He hit three homers -- three opposite-field home runs -- in back-to-back-to-back at-bats over at Chase Field. One in the pool, one over the pool and one on the concourse. He does some things that not many people can do."

Those feats were accomplished as a 19-year-old against upper-level and even Major League-ready pitching. Though he possesses five above-average tools, the one that stands out is his power -- he's already hitting half his balls in play with a 95-mph exit velocity or better, according to FanGraphs. To take full advantage, however, he'll need to hit the ball in the air more rather than lacing ground balls to the left side of the infield. Given his ability to use all fields, he seems like a prime candidate to manage that adjustment successfully.

MLB Pipeline projects Robinson to reach the Majors by 2022. When he does, he'll have one of the highest ceilings of anyone profiled in The Road to The Show as a feasible center fielder or above-average corner outfielder who can mash 30-plus homers a year. Becoming the best Bahamian ballplayer ever may be just the start for Kristian Robinson.