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1. 1B Bryce Eldridge | 21 | MLB | 2025

Here’s something Grey said the other day in his 2026 Fantasy Outlook for Bryce Eldridge: 

I’m going to go out on a sturdy limb — like this dude’s arms — and say he’s out-homering Pete Alonso by 2028. His average exit velocity in Triple-A as a 20-year-old was 95.7 MPH. At 20! Sorry to keep repeating his age, but if a 25-year-old is doing this, it’s whatever. A 20-year-old? It’s ludicrous. He was basically the top average exit velocity guy as a 20-year-old. “As a 20-year-old” repeat seventy-five times. Eldridge is unreal. 90th% EV? 108.6 MPH! Max EV? 114.6! Barrel%? 16.3! Hard Hit%? 64.5! If these numbers mean nothing to you, take my word for it. They’re nuts. Kyle Schwarber led the majors in Hard Hit%, it was 59.6! Ohtani was 58.4%. Look again at Bryce Eldridge’s — 64.5%!”

These numbers look ludicrous no matter how you slice them, but when you throw in the fact that Eldridge was a two-way prospect out of high school and that he’s 6’7” 240 pounds and still getting accustomed to his meta-human frame, the mind boggles at the possibilities. I wish he were in just about any other ballpark, but the Giants have a good lineup that should provide protection and opportunities for the young slugger who just turned 21 on October 20th. 

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1. LHP Kash Mayfield | 21 | A | 2029

The 25th overall pick in 2024, Mayfield is listed at 6’4” 200 pounds and features a mid-90’s fastball and excellent changeup alongside a serviceable slider. That’s a lot of stuff for a lefty starter, and Mayfield dominated with it throughout high school, winning his state’s (Oklahoma) Gatorade Player of the Year in back-to-back seasons leading up to the draft. The Low-A level brought more of the same: Mayfield recorded a 2.97 ERA with 88 strikeouts in 60.2 innings across 19 starts. You can see the kids-gloves approach in the roughly three innings pitched per game started, so the numbers here get a little padded by avoiding the difficulties of facing a lineup multiple times in a night, but Mayfield did have three straight five-inning starts near the end of the season and dominated those nights, too, allowing just two runs and piling up 23 strikeouts. 

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1. SS Ethan Holliday | 19 | A | 2029

Holliday signed for the biggest contract of any high school draftee in history ($9 million) and then struck out 39.3 percent of the time through 18 games in Low-A. It’s not a big deal. He’s a huge lefty bat at 6’4” 210 pounds, and most of his contemporaries were in the bridge leagues or on the complex. Besides, he still posted an above average 108 wRC+.

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1. OF Josue De Paula | 20 | AA | 2027

Listed at 6’3” 185 pounds, De Paula appears to be bigger than that to the naked eye–not that I’m walking around with inappropriate eyewear looking at teenage athletes. A left-handed hitter with great plate skills and impressive contact skills for a guy with his raw power, De Paula has yet to really lift the ball in regular season play, topping out at 12 home runs in 98 High-A games in 2025, slashing .263/.406/.421 with 86 strikeouts, 81 walks, and 32 steals in 40 attempts. He was 2.2 years younger than the average age in the Midwest League, so we have a lot of reasons to believe the power will come sooner than later. He closed out the season with a week in Double-A, where he will likely open 2026 as one the youngest players at that level.

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1. 3B Jordan Lawlar | 23 | MLB | 2023

The sixth overall pick in the 2021 draft, Lawlar has graduated prospect status on days served, but he’s still sitting at just 108 plate appearances, so he sort of snuck onto this list. He’s spent parts of three seasons in Triple-A, most recently slashing .313/.403/.564 with 11 home runs and 20 stolen bases in 63 games this season. He has nothing left to prove in Reno, but shortstop belongs to Geraldo Perdomo in Arizona, so Lawlar is set to open 2026 as the everyday third baseman. The defense might be shaky as he adapts to the big league hot corner, but this is a bright, flashing buy-low opportunity for a premium prospect even if his ETA cracks me up a bit here. 

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1. SS Konnor Griffin | 19 | AA | 2026

Straight from the Department of This Is What They Look Like, Griffin checks in 6’4” 225 pounds with double-plus speed and power. In his senior year of high school, he was the Gatorade National High School Player of the Year after winning his third straight title for Jackson Prep in Mississippi. It’s no exaggeration to say he might steal 100 bases in a minor league season considering he stole 87 in 88 attempts in his final high school season. Somewhat shockingly for a player his size and age, he’s a promising defensive shortstop already and has the arm and speed to become an elite defender if his hands keep coming along. On talent alone, I think he’s the best prospect in baseball. In the context of his organization and ballpark, I have concerns: concerns that can look pretty silly in the light of his real-world outcomes: a slash line of .333/.415/.527 with 21 home runs and 65 stolen bases in 122 games across three levels in his pro debut season.

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1. SS JJ Wetherholt | 23 | AAA | 2026

A left-handed hitter at 5’10” 190 pounds, Wetherholt features double-plus contact skills along with plus power and speed. He topped the stash list several times down the stretch last year as I thought he’d earned a big league debut by slashing .306/.421/.510 with 17 home runs and 23 stolen bases in 109 games across Double and Triple-A. He also drew 72 walks against 73 strikeouts. Should break spring training with an every day role in St. Louis and make a run at rookie of the year.  

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1. SS Jesús Made | 18 | AA | 2027

A 6’1” 187 pound switch-hitter with power and plate skills beyond his years, Made is the top prospect for our game in my opinion and a consensus top-five prospect for any purpose no matter who’s sorting the list. In 115 across three levels, Made slashed .285/.379/.413 with six home runs and 47 stolen bases. He was 2.4 years young for the level in Low-A, 4.2 years young for the level in High-A, and 5.7 years younger than the average age at the level during his five-game debut with Double-A Biloxi to close out the season. He was slow to get settled into full-season pro ball after skipping the complex league but was dominant in High-A, slashing .343/.415/.500 in 27 games, and I suspect we’ll see a lot of that moving forward.

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1. 3B Sal Stewart | 22 | MLB | 2025

The 32nd overall pick in 2022, Stewart enjoyed a breakout season in 2025, slugging more than .500 for his first time as a professional. At 6’1” 224 lbs with plus plate skills, he’s always had latent power that could make him a force in fantasy baseball. He likes to run and stole 17 bases in 20 attempts across two minor league levels, but he’s not fast: 14th percentile sprint speed according to statcast. Don’t have to be fast to steal some bags these days, and Stewart will probably find a half-dozen or so free bases even early in his career as he did in this year’s postseason. In 138 total games across three levels, he hit 25 home runs and stole 18 bases while hitting .300 with a great strikeout-to-walk rate. Should open next season as a rookie-of-the-year frontrunner.

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1. C Moises Ballesteros | 22 | MLB | 2025

A left-handed hitter listed at 5’8” 215 lbs, Ballesteros puts barrel to ball with the best of them, making contact just about any time he feels like it and minimizing strikeouts every step of his climb to the precipice. In 114 Triple-A games this year, he slashed .316/.385/.473 with 13 home runs and just 67 strikeouts against 49 walks. His bat has outpaced his defensive development, so even though he’s always generated positive outcomes against much older competitors, Ballesteros might have to make a leap behind the plate or wait while the Cubs sort through other options at his position. 

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1. SS Eli Willits | 18 | A | 2030

I think I’ve been too low on Willits before digging in for this list. Sure, he looks like a high-floor type more than a high-upside guy, athletically speaking, but baseball is much more than athleticism, and Willits checks every box for getting the most out of his tools. He’s a sparkplug on the diamond and a hard-worker off of it, and as the son of major leaguer Reggie Willits, he’s always had a pretty big edge in terms of learning and working on his game. He’s also a switch hitter at 6’1” 180 pounds, which is not small for a 17-year-old. In 15 Low-A games, he slashed .300/.397/.360 and earned a 128 wRC+. Pretty impressive for him to hold his own jumping into a full-season pro league late in the summer like that. 

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Format = Position Player | Age on 4/1/2026 | Highest Level Played | Estimated Time of Arrival 

1. OF Justin Crawford | 22 | AAA | 2026

I’ve been comparatively high on Crawford for a long time because I struggle to imagine a scenario where this guy fails to be valuable in our game. A left-handed hitter at 6’2” 188 lbs, he hasn’t elevated the ball much yet in his career, but that’s coming, and in the meantime he’s hitting well over .300 at every rung of the organizational ladder. In his final 52 games of the season, Crawford slashed .340/.418/.492 with six home runs, 20 stolen bases and a 16.7 percent strikeout rate. The math I’m trying to silence in my brain is of course not how baseball works, but if you multiply that by three, you get a glimpse at Crawford’s potential across 156 games. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?