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

1. OF Chase DeLauter | 23 | MLB | 2025

Here’s what Grey had to say the other day in his 2026 Fantasy Outlook for DeLauter: 

“He’s a monster lefty bat who takes a ton of walks. That’s who he is. It’s who he’s been for a few years. He went 7/1/.264 with a 15.8 walk and strikeout rate. Yes, 15.8% for both. He’s a .380 OBP guy with power. In my rookie outlook post for him last year, I said, “So, he’s old. Not like dinosaur old, but Chase DeLauter is 23 and played less than 40 games last year in the minors. Does he have proclivity for injuries? By the way, you can’t say proclivity aloud without sounding like Dr. Evil.”

Great take. You don’t even have to say it aloud. Once you put “proclivity” in your head with Dr. Evil’s voice, that’s the way it stays. And it’s fun. I kinda can’t stop doing it. Anyway, I think DeLauter is the front-runner for rookie of the year. Unless Cleveland sends him back to Triple-A again, where he would almost certainly get injured riding a bus or sleeping on a couch or picking a fight with a mascot who hits the gym a lot. 

PS: I’ve been watching TENET off and on today, and I feel like there’s a connection to DeLauter’s development path. I mean he just POOF appeared out of nowhere in the playoff lineup. Perhaps his timeline has been inverted. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Off the top, I want to point out how this draft and the one before it are great examples of why you should NOT tank in dynasty leagues. Last year’s class was so stacked, you could’ve landed Cam Smith with a pick at the end of round one, as happened in one of my leagues. This year, there’s not much of a difference between the top fifteen or so, and there’s no fast-moving monster among the college bats. 

1. Mariners LHP Kade Anderson

2. Rockies SS Ethan Holliday

3. Marlins SS Avia Arquette 

4. Reds SS Steele Hall

In a class without an obvious bat at the top, Kade Anderson in Seattle represents the best combination of proximity and upside. Easily the top pick in a league where quality pitching is at all hard to find. The shallower the league, the more I’d lean Holliday here. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?

College baseball is in full swing. Conference play is underway, games are hitting ESPN’s family of networks, and I can be found perusing ballpark exteriors sampling various hot dogs and sausages until my stomach turns into a hodgepodge of partially-cooked Southern meats. There’s almost too much baseball to take in this time of year, when the heart of the college slate meets the excitement of the start of the MLB season. But look no further than the Houston Astros’ Opening Day roster, which features 2024 draftee Cam Smith starting in the outfield on a regular basis. Smith played just two seasons at Florida State before becoming a first-round draft choice by Houston last summer, and is now positioned to be a regular fantasy contributor throughout the remainder of the campaign. We’ll see the same in 2026, 2027 and 2028. There is no question. College baseball is developing elite prospects faster and better than ever before and for this reason, a plethora of top-level players are making it to campus and getting their names called in their early twenties. We’ll dive into a handful of players that could fit that bill in this week’s collegiate corner.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Hello, dear Razzball readers! Although it has been many moons since we last checked in on the college game, my crack staff has been busy analyzing and organizing reports on countless prospects across the sport’s lanscape. My crack staff consists of two dogs with ADHD, an eight-month-old infant, my retired neighbor named Bill, and a cardinal that has been endlessly pecking on my window. His name is Jean Claude. 

Suffice to say, I have had my work cut out for me. Bill has spent significantly more time woodworking and making homemade canes in his garage than scouting this offseason. Not to mention, he sometimes takes the “crack” in crack staff a bit too literally. As for Jean Claude, well, he still thinks the love of his life is on the other side of the glass windows. He has been relegated to a new social role, Tweeting. The change has been quite unproductive.

As for myself, the top-10 prospects for the beginning of the 2025 college baseball season have been completed. It is not a dazzling class, but it isn’t shallow, either. Still, as I wrote these breakdowns, I couldn’t help but feel that it was one of the weaker top-10s since I started covering college prospects at Razzball in 2020. Sure, Jace LaViolette, Jamie Arnold and Cam Cannarella are awesome, but none of them scream slam-dunk, 1-1 overall to me. And the 8-10 spots could be beefier. Like a Runza.

As always, this list is a lot different than the industry consensus and what you’ll see elsewhere. These rankings take future fantasy contributions into account, especially a player’s ability to assist across multiple statistical categories. So, who is at No. 1 this year, and are there any major surprises? Here’s the list:

Please, blog, may I have some more?