Who Are the Top Prospects In MLB Entering 2025?
An IBWAA co-director compares and contrasts top prospect lists heading into the season.
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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
. . . Of the last five players to receive either the American League or National League Most Valuable Player award, three (Shohei Ohtani, Ronald Acuna Jr., Bryce Harper) were the top overall prospect at one point for either MLB Pipeline or Baseball America, one (Aaron Judge) never cracked the top 30 for either organization, and one (Paul Goldschmidt) was never ranked in his minor league career.
. . . Looking at other major awards, only one of the Cy Young Award winners of the past three years did not appear inside the top-25 of a prospect list (Sandy Alcantara, who was #70 for Baseball America before the 2018 season). The Rookie of the Year award is a bit more scattershot, with four of the winners the past three years ranking as a top-10 prospect in the game before they won the award, while one (Michael Harris II) peaked just inside the top-50 and finally, Luis Gil was never ranked as a top-100 prospect in his nine-year minor league journey before winning the American League award last season.
Leading Off
Who Are the Top Prospects In MLB Entering 2025?
By Benjamin Chase
It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
Okay, some people might think that there’s another time of year that is more wonderful, but for baseball prospect hounds, the first two months of the year mean one primary thing - top-100 list season!
For the second year in a row, I have taken the time to go through the top-100 rankings at Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, ESPN, Fangraphs, MLB Pipeline, and The Athletic (some lists require subscription to read, so please support fellow writers!) to find the players who are receiving notice among those publications, and I’m going to break it all down for you here!
First, Roki
Roki Sasaki lands in a weird space when reviewing the lists. The Athletic and Baseball Prospectus do not rank Sasaki at all due to his previous position as a professional player in Japan. However, he was still eligible for the prospect promotion incentive and had to go through the January 15 international signing rules rather than typical posting rules, so there is some legitimacy to considering him a “prospect.” He ranked first in all four lists that he did appear on.
Stable Top
After Sasaki, the list really shuffled around a handful of names. According to my Roman Anthony was the next guy to consider, as he was No. 1 on both lists without Sasaki and No. 2 behind Sasaki on the four Roki appeared on. Behind him, things were bunched together a bit, with Dylan Crews, Walker Jenkins, Jackson Jobe, Carson Williams, Kristian Campbell, and Samuel Basallo all consistently near the top of lists and tallying the most “list points” on my spreadsheet (list points acquired by subtracting list position on one list from 101 and totaling all those numbers across six lists.
Who Was Where?
This year’s lists featured 54 players who appeared on all six lists used for the spreadsheet. That is fairly consistent with 2024 lists, as 57 players appeared on all six lists last year. The total players appearing on at least one list was notably more in 2025, though, as 172 players appeared on at least one of the lists this year, up from 156 last year.
The highest points total for someone who did not appear on all six lists was Sasaki, with 400 points in four lists. Behind him was 2025 draftee Charlie Condon, who appeared on five lists and tallied 318 list points. Beyond Sasaki, the player who appeared on four lists and had the most points was Royals catching prospect Blake Mitchell, who totaled 163 points.
The top points for someone appearing on three lists was a tie between the Red Sox’s Franklin Arias and Marlins’ backstop prospect Agustin Ramirez, both with 109 points. As has been the theme thus far, a catching prospect, Alfredo Duno of the Reds, posted the most points for someone appearing on just two lists with 90 points. The top person to only appear on one list was Nationals infielder Brady House, with 54 points.
Fool’s Gold?
Many have seen the studies that a significant amount of players who appear on top prospect lists never achieve a career bWAR equal to what Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani each accomplished just in the 2024 season. That is true, though, as mentioned above, most of your major award winners were once highly-regarded prospects, so it is informative to review the lists to find future stars in the game.
You also may not have to wait long to find out how accurate the lists were. Of the top 11 players in points last season, seven are no longer list-eligible as they’ve exceeded their rookie minimums in plate appearances or innings pitched. Of the 156 players to appear on a list last season, 41 of them “graduated,” meaning they exceeded rookie eligibility in 2024. Having more than one-quarter of the prospects mentioned on a list graduate in that year does indicate how impactful these names can be for the year that they appear on a list.
This Year’s Graduates
Looking forward, who should we expect to see graduate in 2025? The easy two are Roki Sasaki and Dylan Crews, both of whom should have starting roles in the majors to open 2025. Long-heralded Yankee prospect Jasson Dominguez is also slated to spend his 2025 in the pinstripes and Jacob Wilson will be handed the keys to shortstop for the A’s.
Red Sox prospects Anthony and Campbell need a spot in the big league lineup to open, but once they’re up, you’d expect they don’t head back down.
Beyond that, pitchers like Jobe, Andrew Painter, and Bubba Chandler should get long looks in major league rotations this season, as should Rhett Lowder and Kumar Rocker.
Finally, a group of players are vying for major league jobs this spring and could impact the big league club at some point this year if not right at Opening Day, such as Coby Mayo, Jordan Lawlar, Cole Young, Matt Shaw, Colson Montgomery, Caden Dana, AJ Smith-Shawver, and Nick Yorke. Certainly, others will emerge as the season goes on as well or could make an unexpected leap from prospect to productive MLB player after Opening Day!
Benjamin Chase is one of the co-directors of the IBWAA. He spends much of his waking hours as a managing editor for a daily newspaper in rural South Dakota while also being a father and husband. You can read his baseball musings during the season on Chasing Baseball Greatness and he is the co-host of the prospects show for the Pallazzo Podcast network. Benjamin is on most social media platforms under the handle biggentleben.
Extra Innings
Multiple podcasts can be found with the above rankers explaining their rankings. Here is one YouTube video with a few of the staff from Baseball America doing exactly that: