Below is my list of the top 100 prospects in baseball. The scouting summaries were compiled with information provided by available data and my own observations. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but I use that as a rule of thumb.
All of the prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.
And now, a few important things to keep in mind as you’re perusing the Top 100. You’ll note that prospects are ranked by number but also lie within tiers demarcated by their Future Value grades. The FV grade is more important than the ordinal ranking. For example, the gap between Sebastian Walcott (no. 4) and Quinn Mathews (no. 32) is 28 spots, and there’s a substantial difference in talent between them. The gap between Chase Petty (no. 42) and Cam Smith (no. 70), meanwhile, is also 28 numerical places, but the difference in talent is relatively small.
You’ll also notice that there is a Future Value outcome distribution graph for each prospect on the list. This is an attempt to graphically represent how likely each FV outcome is for each prospect. Before his departure for ESPN, Kiley McDaniel used the great work of our former colleague Craig Edwards to find the base rates for each FV tier of prospect (separately for hitters and pitchers), and the likelihood of each FV outcome. For example, based on Craig’s research, the average 60 FV hitter on a list becomes a perennial 5-WAR or better player over his six controlled years 26% of the time, while he has a 27% chance of accumulating, at most, a couple of WAR during his six controlled years. I started with those base rates for every player on this year’s list and then manually tweaked them depending on my more specific opinions about the player. For instance, Alfredo Duno and Caden Dana are both 55 FV prospects, but other than the fact that their last names are D(x)n(x), they are nothing alike. Duno is a toolshed athletic outlier with very little pro experience, while Dana is a stable, big league-ready workhorse. My hope is that the distribution graphs reflect these kinds of differences.
You might have scrolled ahead and seen that Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki is my top-ranked prospect. Last year, we made the decision to stop ranking players like Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Jung Hoo Lee, who were deemed “foreign professionals” by the CBA based on their age and foreign pro league service time. Foreign professionals are unable to earn their team a compensatory draft pick under the Prospect Promotion Incentive program. In contrast, Sasaki had not yet met the foreign professional standards yet forth in the CBA when he was posted; he signed a minor league contract as part of the 2025 international class and was subject to bonus pool restrictions. Should he win NL Rookie of the Year, or finish in the top three in Cy Young or MVP voting before he reaches arbitration, he will net the Dodgers a draft pick. He’s also younger than many prospects.
This year’s group of prospects is a little bit lighter than usual at the very top. There are several players who I expect to be consistent All-Stars (the 60 FV group), but not the usual prospect or two who looks like a future MVP candidate, though there are probably a couple of players analyzed here who will emerge as prospects of that caliber during the next 12 months (Walcott is the odds-on favorite for that) as they get closer to the big leagues. There are also fewer 55 FV prospects than usual, as that group tends to peter out around no. 50 or so; this year, the last 55 FV is Duno at no. 29. I feel like I’ve written a version of this each of the last couple of years, which might be because changes to the rookie eligibility rules post-2020 made it easier for prospects to graduate, as September roster days are now counted toward their active major league roster days limit.
There are a ton of catchers (16) on this year’s list, many of whom have special power for that position. I have more catchers on here than I do players at all the corner positions combined (14), though it’s likely that some of the guys currently listed here as catchers will end up playing first base or left field. I tend to value hitters who play up-the-middle positions, and pitchers who are close to the big leagues and have demonstrated durability across 100-plus innings of work, and I think that rings true more than usual on this year’s list.
For a further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, please read this and this. If you would like to read a book-length treatment on the subject, one is available here.
