I updated the Top 100 Prospects list today. This post goes through the pitchers and why they stack the way they do. Here’s a link directly to the list, and here’s a link to the post with a little more detail regarding farm system and prospect stuff and the trade deadline. It might be best for you to open a second tab and follow along, so here are the Top 100 pitchers isolated away from the bats. Let’s get to it.
Painter Remains Top Dog
Before he was injured, Phillies righty Andrew Painter’s size, stuff quality, repertoire depth, and command for a pitcher his size and age were on a way different level than the rest of the pitchers you’ll read about in this post. He has been throwing bullpens for a a couple of weeks and remains on the 60-day IL rather than the Full Season IL, which leaves open the possibility for Painer to pitch in a scoutable setting, like the Arizona Fall League, this year. I tend to move guys rehabbing from Tommy John surgery to the back of their FV tier but not change their grade, which was the case on the offseason Top 100 and remains so here. Painter looked like an installment in the Justin Verlander Cinematic Universe at the end of 2022, so talented the Phillies were compelled to take the riskier line with his UCL (PRP and rehab with the hope of a mid-2023 return) to give themselves a shot at him joining their late- and postseason efforts. It ended up not panning out, so Painter will have essentially missed two full seasons when he returns.
Some of that paragraph reads ominously like Forrest Whitley’s scouting reports from a few years ago, and I’m anxious to see Painter pitch in any kind of full-speed setting this calendar year, if only to confirm he hasn’t gone Brady Aiken on us during his rehab. (Live BP, something, anything, please baby!) The pitchers ranked beneath Painter who have a reasonable chance to join him in the top tier between now and when he fully returns are Brewers right-hander Jacob Misiorowski (if his command suddenly clicks), White Sox lefty Noah Schultz (if one of his non-slider offerings improves), A’s righty Luis Morales (who is incredibly gifted but super raw for a 21-year-old), and Japanese right-hander Roki Sasaki (who’d rank in front of Painter) if he ventures to MLB this offseason.
The 55 FV Tier
Think of this group as being near-ready mid-rotation starters on a good team (Jobe, Dollander, Ryan, Sproat), or as having a ceiling above that but a floor quite a bit below (Misiorowski, Schultz), with the two multi-sport high schoolers (Smith-Shawver, Chandler) being where we transition from one group to the other.
Jackson Jobe, Detroit Tigers
With the graduation of the two Pirates rookies, Jackson Jobe assumes his place as the top healthy pitching prospect in baseball. Jobe scrapped his curveball in 2023 and it forced him to become a more complete pitcher. He began to lean on his changeup (which has become his best secondary pitch), and though neither of his new breaking balls is dominant, Jobe’s feel for locating them (especially his cutter) has progressed very quickly. He has one of the better combinations of stuff and pitchability among young hurlers in baseball. Yet another Jobe injury (an early-season hamstring strain, less serious than most of his others) will again keep us from truly knowing whether he can sustain this across a major league starter’s workload. This, and because Detroit isn’t really contending, means Jobe’s big league call-up timeline is probably mid-to-late 2025 and not this year.
Chase Dollander, Colorado Rockies
Dollander does (or projects to do) everything well. He has plus fastball velocity and command, as well as the angle/movement traits you want in a power pitcher’s bat-missing heater. He also has a plus breaking ball, and his changeup is improving despite limited usage. Colorado’s fairly deliberate promotion pace has him tracking like a 2026 debut, which is slower than it needs to be.
River Ryan, Los Angeles Dodgers & Brandon Sproat, New York Mets
I had Ryan stuffed up here in the offseason. He began the season on the shelf but is back, looks healthy, and just made his big league debut. His breaking pitches are more plentiful and nastier than Jobe’s and Dollander’s right now, but his changeup and command are not as good. I’ve considered how both of those things have late-arriving projections during Ryan’s prospect lifetime because he was a two-way college guy who focused on pitching pretty late and missed developmental reps during the pandemic period. But he’s also 26 now and it’s maybe a little too much to say he’ll improve both his cambio and command at this point. He’s still going to be good, but that’s just why I have him behind Jobe and Dollander. Sproat was a cross-bodied, lower-slot guy in college, but he’s a little less cross-bodied now and is throwing from more of a three-quarters slot, giving his fastball rise/run shape rather than the sink/tail of his college days. He’s getting comfortable locating his fastball to the parts of the zone where its new movement plays best, and this should theoretically help it miss more bats than his college version did. He’s kept throwing hard amid the changes and has been living in the upper-90s without incident for several years now. The delivery tweaks have added depth to Sproat’s breaking pitches, too, but cost him some changeup tail. Especially if he can keep throwing strikes the way he has since his promotion to Double-A, Sproat is going to have multiple plus pitches and starter-quality command.
AJ Smith-Shawver, Atlanta Braves & Bubba Chandler, Pittsburgh Pirates
There are many similarities here. Both are super athletic, well-built, big time college football recruits who have experienced rapid and meaningful growth as pitchers since deciding to sign (each of their changeups, especially). Smith-Shawver has been robbed of reps by injury and his command is still not great, especially for a guy who’s already on the 40-man roster. Chandler’s slider still backs up on him too often and gets crushed. These two each have stuff to work on, but they’re exactly the types of athletes who I’d want to bet on making adjustments and improvements over the long haul, in part because they’ve already shown the aptitude for it. The gap between what they are now and what I think they’ll be at peak is wider than Ryan/Sproat but not as wide as…
Jacob Misiorowski, Milwaukee Brewers & Noah Schultz, White Sox
Both of these guys have “freak factor.” They’re flawed in a profound way (Miz’s control, Schultz’s fastball playability) but their rare size and aspects of their stuff (especially Schultz’s slider) are in a different stratosphere than the rest of the minors. These are the pitching versions of Oneil Cruz, if you will. Schultz is trying to work with a cutter to keep hitters off his fastball, but it and his changeup still aren’t good. His fastball is surrendering in-zone contact at an approximately 90% clip even though it’s 95-97 mph. That’s scary and weird. The fact that Schultz has been this dominant through Double-A despite essentially being a one-pitch guy is pretty incredible. He’s also a 6-foot-9, 21-year-old who’s throwing a lot of strikes. There’s enormous ceiling there but he is far from being fully formed. Misiorowski’s fastball shape gives his lack of command some room to breathe because it misses bats in the zone, but we’re still waiting on his control to level up above reliever quality. There are reasons to hope he’ll improve: He was a junior college draftee who hasn’t been subject to pro dev for very long, and super long-limbed athletes like this tend to get feel for their bodies a little later than their peers. If it doesn’t he’s going to be an elite late-game weapon, and I’d still want that guy ranked right around here.
The 50 FV Tier
This is where you’re going to want to follow along with the list again as I’ll be referencing it for the final few paragraphs. Remember there are full scouting reports there (I’ve updated many of them) if you want more player-to-player scouting detail.
The next half dozen pitchers or so are the ones who feel capable of joining the 55 FV tier within a year. Marlins 19-year-old High-A righty Noble Meyer makes opposing righties incredibly uncomfortable. He isn’t throwing all that hard, but his fastball looks like it explodes on hitters anyway, and they don’t see his slider out of hand. Meyer’s arm action is still so, so long, and it makes me a little less inclined to project on his changeup, but his build and mechanical fluidity are pretty typical of an All-Star-type starter, and he’s been a much better strike-thrower than the other pitchers in the Top 100 who are around 20 years old with extremely high-ceilings (Dylan Lesko, Luis Morales). Freshly drafted White Sox lefty Hagen Smith will move up if he can improve his changeup, and Reds righty Chase Burns will climb if he can improve his fastball’s playability in spite of its plane. Giants big league debutant Hayden Birdsong and Burns are pretty similar in the way their stuff operates (vertically oriented style of attack, multiple good breaking balls, big velo that plays down due to pitch plane). Burns has better arm strength while Birdsong (who is still getting a feel for his body) has proven he can be effective against a big league lineup. You could flip those guys if you wanted.
The next couple of guys have some combination of command and fastball playability issues (the Cardinals’ Tink Hence, the Cubs’ Cade Horton, the Braves’ Hurston Waldrep) that they offset with great secondary stuff. Horton and Waldrep (who rehabbed with his fastball in the 93-96 mph range a couple days ago) have also been dealing with short-term injuries. Hence (due to a lack of size), Horton, and Waldrep (violent delivery, “round down” fastball plane) all have a fair amount of relief risk but also have a shot to develop three plus pitches if they can overcome their fastball’s suboptimal traits. If you wanted to count any of the 50s I’ve mentioned so far among the 55s I wouldn’t call you crazy.
The next several pitchers (the Twins’ David Festa, the Yankees’ Will Warren, the Cardinals’ Quinn Mathews, the Yankees’ Chase Hampton, the White Sox’ Drew Thorpe, the Reds’ Rhett Lowder, the White Sox’ Jairo Iriarte) are all plug-and-play no. 4 starters who are proximate to the big leagues. Warren could take a turn in the Yankees rotation tomorrow and be good. He has six quality pitches and his sinker will wash away the occasional walk by generating plenty of double play grounders. I’m buying that the lefty Mathews’ uptick in velocity (averaged 91 last year, sitting 93-96 in 2024) is for real. He’s not being ridden as hard as he was at Stanford and his lower body has gotten much stronger. Hampton has begun to pitch in actual games for the first time since he was shut down with a UCL sprain early in the year. While he doesn’t quite have the same fastball velocity he did (91-93 so far) its movement will help it play even if it hangs out in this range, and he commands four distinct pitches. He’s healthy and moves up from the very, very back of the list with the other injured guys. White Sox righties Thorpe and Iriarte and Reds righty Lowder (who has regressed) have less effective fastball movement but do enough other stuff well to fit in this bucket, too.
It’s at this point in the list when we start getting into guys who have pretty serious relief risk. Orioles debutant Chayce McDermott, Rangers first-year righty Alejandro Rosario, Phillies water-treading righty Mick Abel, A’s supernova Cuban Luis Morales, and changeup monsters Dylan Lesko of the Padres, and Carson Whisenhunt of the Giants are all of that ilk. Morales, Lesko, and Rosario are the ones with huge variance and a chance to wind up way higher on the list between now and when they debut in the majors. The cement is dryer on the other guys who look like they’ll either be flawed-but-effective fourth starters or buck nasty relievers.
Finally, the next couple of guys have stuff that is right on the fringe of what I’m looking for in this FV tier (Astros righty Jake Bloss, Orioles lefty Cade Povich, Marlins righty Max Meyer) followed by our injured friends (Ricky Tiedemann, Cade Cavalli, Tekoah Roby, and Kyle Hurt). Roby (this list iteration’s Reese Olson-type) recently returned from injury, but he has been dinged so frequently (and is long-relievery enough from a command standpoint) that I’ll probably leave him back here in perpetuity. Hurt just had Tommy John so we may not see him until 2026, and I will probably wrestle with that during the offseason and decide whether to move him out of here entirely. He’s nasty, though.
