By Tim Kelly, Sports Talk Philly editor 
After hitting the most home runs in all of professional baseball in 2016, Philadelphia Phillies prospect Dylan Cozens got off to a slow start in his first experience at the Triple-A level in 2017. But in the words of J. Cole, Cozens is now "heatin' up like that left-over lasagna."
The 22-year-old, who MLB Pipeline says is the team's ninth best prospect, hit a walk-off home run in the IronPigs' 5-4 win Friday evening. It was one of his two shots on the night, and one of his two walkoff home runs in the past week:
If we're going to get our 7th straight win, @dylancozens 7th homer of the year is going to help us get it! pic.twitter.com/iJlENYGqD0
— IronPigs (@IronPigs) May 13, 2017
Meet @dylancozens, He likes long walks on the beach, sunsets, and launching game winning home runs. pic.twitter.com/ec3psg3Kqm
— IronPigs (@IronPigs) May 13, 2017
Sweeps are nice. Sweeps with a walk-off are even better. @dylancozens absolutely crushes this ball! pic.twitter.com/GER9EIWq5M
— IronPigs (@IronPigs) May 11, 2017
After hitting just .136 in April, Cozens is slashing .390/.447/.756 in May, with four home runs, 10 RBIs and a 1.203 OPS. He's raised his average to .221, which by itself isn't impressive, but when you consider that he entered May with an average of .136, it's fairly remarkable.
In 122 at-bats in 2017, Cozens has eight home runs and 25 RBIs. If you project that out to a 521 at-bat season (that's how many at-bats he had in 2016), he would hit 34 home runs and drive in nearly 107 RBIs. With that said, if you project his current numbers out to a full season, he obviously wouldn't have a good average and would strike out over 200 times. So there's still plenty of room for improvement.
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Cozens will presumably spend all of the 2017 season at Triple-A, with his performance dictating where he spends the bulk of the 2018 season. If he continues to demonstrate the power that he has over the last 13 months, the Phillies will find a place for him to play at the big league level. Exactly where that place is isn't immediately clear.
The Phillies have Odubel Herrera and Aaron Altherr currently at the major league level, both of whom seem likely to be starters as long as they remain in the organization. Cozens could presumably be the team's third outfielder long-term, but the same could be said for Nick Williams, Roman Quinn or Andrew Pullin. Mickey Moniak and Cornelius Randolph will also factor into the discussion later this decade. The possibility of bringing an elite outfield talent in through free-agency or a trade also exists.
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Cozens would face a similar dilemma at first base, as Tommy Joseph is having a fine month of May and Rhys Hoskins has been scalding hot this entire season at Triple-A.
While we will likely spend years debating how the Phillies should align their outfield long-term, Cozens can only control his individual performance. If his recent performance is any indication, he's going to force himself into the discussion for playing time at the big league level over the course of the next year.
