Sky’s the limit for Dexter Southfield draft prospect Joshua Baez

Dexter Southfield senior Joshua Baez will look to make his prep school debut in the spring. (Dave Arnold/New England Baseball Journal)

Joshua Baez is a walking billboard for lifting weights.

The Dexter Southfield senior didn’t tap into the culture until last winter, when he started an offseason program under former Snowden International School coach Christian Ortiz. Baez doubled down on the weightlifting routine during the pandemic, and he came out of quarantine a chiseled version of one of the nation’s top high school prospects in the MLB Draft Class of 2021.

How did the weightlifting help the now 6-foot-3, 220-pound two-way prospect?

“Great things started happening on the diamond,” Baez said. “I had never really hit bombs like that. I was like, ‘OK, that’s cool.’ I started throwing harder. All of the sudden, I threw 92 (mph) off the mound. Then it was 97. I’m thinking, ‘OK, yeah, that’s really fast.’”