If there has been one major takeaway from Minor League Baseball in 2026, it’s that the Dodgers have some guys on the farm who can mash. James Tibbs III was the crown prince of April, Mike Sirota ran up a 72-game on-base streak and Josue De Paula, Zyhir Hope, Eduardo Quintero and Emil Morales have played a nearly four-month-long game of one-upmanship in the batter’s box.
But it’s Easton Shelton, a hulking 6-foot-4, 225-pounder, who pulled into a tie for the Minor League home run lead with his 30th roundtripper of the season on Thursday night, helping Single-A Ontario to a 7-5 win over San Jose at Excite Ballpark. (D-backs prospect Manuel Pena also has 30 homers across two levels in 2026.)
Shelton decimated baseballs throughout June en route to winning California League Player of the Month honors. He slashed .329/.460/.722 -- leading the circuit in slugging percentage and OPS -- with nine homers, collecting 27 RBIs for the second consecutive month. But those numbers have paled in comparison to his 17-game July thus far:
.394/.487/.864, 8 HRs, 20 RBIs
"I'm really forcing myself to get certain pitches that I like and just keeping everything [with my swing] connected," Shelton said. "I'm not going out of my zone. I'm looking for what I can do damage on."
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After a comparatively tepid April, the 20-year-old first baseman has been on a heater that has lasted for three months. He’s had three separate three-game streaks with a roundtripper and has gone deep at least once in 11 consecutive series. Dating back to May 1, his 183 total bases and 1.171 OPS leads all of Minor League Baseball.
The key was getting back into the cage.
Shelton cited a particular session in late April in which he tweaked his toe tap to a new one that enabled him to keep his head from moving too much. He has what scouts would call a "handsy swing," but he's played into it, focusing his targets on the gaps in left and right-center field, rather than selling out for pull-side pop every time he steps in the box.
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At this point, you’d think a slugger with this track record would be all over the prospect radar. But that hasn’t been the case. Shelton, who won Nevada Gatorade Player of the Year honors his senior season at famed Bishop Gorman High School, went undrafted in 2023 and opted to sign with the Dodgers as a free agent rather than attend UNLV.
"I'm happy where I'm at," said Shelton. "Being able to get that development [with the Dodgers] at 17 years old, it was pretty hard to pass up on that opportunity."
Shelton put together a quiet ‘24 campaign in the Arizona Complex League and then hit just .234 in his repeat of the level last year, sandwiched around a brief four-game spell at High-A as an injury fill-in.
Strikeouts were an enormous bugaboo (37.5 percent) entering the year, but he’s tempered that down ever so slightly (33.3 percent in 2026). It also helps that he’s begun to park baseballs far beyond Cal League fences at a prodigious rate. Shelton’s 30-homer campaign is the first on the circuit in more than 20 years -- and he has at least another month to go, barring a promotion.
Shelton represents the prototypical “three true outcomes” slugger with 54.7 percent of his plate appearances this season ending in either a home run, a walk or a strikeout. For context, the Phillies’ Kyle Schwarber (56.7 percent) and Athletics’ Nick Kurtz (54.9 percent) are around the same mark, albeit against Major League competition.
"I've not necessarily accepted it, but strikeouts happen, it's part of it," said Shelton. "Pitchers just have good stuff, that's what it comes down to. People are gonna swing and miss but my job is to hit the mistakes."
After splitting his time defensively last season between first base and the outfield corners, Shelton has stuck on the dirt in 2026. He’s primarily played the cold corner, but for the first time in two years, he's added some time at third base (14 starts) to his profile. But at the end of the day, his ability to climb through baseball’s most stacked Minor League system ultimately comes back to that power and the approach that allows him to tap into it:
"Mentally, I just want to drive every pitch."