This story was excerpted from Mark Bowman’s Braves Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Asked who his favorite player was growing up, Dylan Dodd said, “I mainly watched college baseball, but people have said I remind them of Cliff Lee.”

So, does he remember Lee?

“Not really, but I’ve watched some videos of him on YouTube,” Dodd said.

This innocence has enhanced the great underdog story Dodd has constructed over the past few weeks. The left-hander came to his first big league Spring Training in February not expecting to even factor into the early-season plans for the Braves’ rotation.

About seven weeks later, he’s preparing to make his MLB debut.

Dodd, ranked as the Braves' No. 10 prospect per MLB Pipeline, will experience this thrill when the Braves send him to the mound to face the Cardinals on Tuesday night in St. Louis. Will this be a dream come true? Given he was throwing just 88 mph coming out of the junior college ranks a few years ago, this is more like a far-fetched dream come true.

“You come to Spring Training and you never know where [a Tyler] Matzek is going to come from or those kinds of stories,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “It gets exciting when your young players start taking strides forward. It’s good to see that. It just adds to the strength of your organization.”

To get a better feel for Dodd’s journey, look back at this Spring Training story, which included Snitker asking, “Who is this Dodd guy?”

Snitker wasn’t familiar with Dodd before seeing him throw his first live batting practice in Spring Training. Him asking who the impressive young lefty was is similar to him asking, “What about that lefty” when he and president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos were trying to decide who to invite to Summer Camp before the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season.

That lefty was Matzek, who proved valuable in 2020 and then became a postseason hero while helping the Braves win the ‘21 World Series.

Baseball creates great stories like these. Nobody expected Dodd to be in this position. When the Braves took him in the third round of the 2021 MLB Draft, it looked like he was drafted just to create the bonus pool flexibility needed to give an over-slot bonus to seventh-round pick AJ Smith-Shawver.

The Braves needed Smith-Shawver to be convinced not to pursue a chance to play quarterback at Texas Tech. As a senior at Southeast Missouri State, who had been given an extra year of eligibility because of COVID-19, Dodd didn’t have any leverage. He could either accept the Braves’ signing bonus or continue his pitching career in an independent or foreign league.

Dodd vaulted from High-A to Triple-A last year and now he’s ready to enjoy the honor of being a big leaguer. He’ll experience this thrill more than three hours from his hometown of Bismarck, Ill., which according to Wikipedia has a population of 579.

Asked who the most famous person from his hometown is, Dodd shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t know, maybe me.”

He certainly will be on Tuesday night.