Catching up With the ZiPS Top 100 Prospects, 2025

The midseason is a good point to catch up on one’s mistakes, to see where reality has crushed your predictions. We’re nearly half a year from the most recent iteration of the ZiPS Top 100 Prospects, and with a flurry of trades likely to happen in the next week, it seems to be time to check in on how the algorithms which have seized my life and crushed all traces of humanity ZiPS projection system is doing in the prospnostications for 2025.

For each of the top 100 prospects, I’m including a chart of their 2025 minor league translations and how their 2026-2030 WAR has changed since February. Last year was my first midseason review of the prospect list, and some of my charts just made things confusing, so I’m making them less dense/opaque this time around, in the hopes of communicating the data better. The translations and projections are through Monday’s games. As a quick reminder, ZiPS ranks prospects by the average of their 20th-percentile and 80th-percentile career WAR projections, and explicitly leaves out players for which it has nothing to bring to the table, so no high school hitters or pitchers without professional experience.

ZiPS is naturally a bit down on Carson Williams given his struggles offensively this year, but he still has the glove, and a 102 wRC+ in Triple-A for an excellent defensive shortstop isn’t so bad that it would send him tumbling down the ranks. If February ZiPS had known about the first half of the 2025 season, it would have had Roman Anthony hurdle over Williams, Roki Sasaki, and Samuel Basallo to be the no. 1 prospect in baseball. Unlike Williams, Basallo has been very good, it’s just that Anthony has been even better.

Dylan Crews has continued to struggle offensively in the majors, though to their credit, the Nationals haven’t panicked about it. Still, it’s concerning that his contact rate has backslid considerably since his major league debut late last August. Bryce Eldridge is still very young, but he hasn’t hit at all in Triple-A, so he’s far less likely to force his way onto the Giants’ roster this year. ZiPS still likes Cole Young, and that’s without it seeing his big walk-off hit in the 11th a few days ago! Even so, it remains to be seen how much his defense actually plays in the majors. Speaking of big hits, Kristian Campbell and Coby Mayo have their own… but to their future projections instead of at the plate. It’s not just major league performance either; Mayo has only a .201/.277/.374 translation in the minors this year, and Campbell has actually hit worse at Triple-A than he did in the majors since his demotion.

Matt Shaw and Jace Jung are two more infielders who have been dealt decent-sized blows, though they haven’t fallen as much as Campbell or Mayo. Both will likely be fine, but it’s fair to downgrade them a bit. Jordan Lawlar is a big gainer not because of his poor major league debut (0-for-19), but simply because he got onto the field after missing so much time last season.

This has been an absolutely brutal year for the ZiPS top pitching prospects, and since there’s typically a lot of overlap between ZiPS lists and other top prospect lists, our projections here may not be alone. Jackson Jobe has been in the majors all year, but with a 5.13 FIP and five walks per nine innings, ZiPS isn’t any more excited about him than it was over the winter. Bubba Chandler is the only real winner in the group this year, and would now likely be the second-best ZiPS pitching prospect. Chase Burns didn’t get a projection coming into the season, but with a translated 3.16 FIP from his 13 minor league starts, he’d be way up there in the ranks, at least until he stopped qualifying as a prospect at some point over the next few weeks.

Jacob Wilson is the biggest gainer in the next tranche of hitters. His mega-contact approach at the plate has played really well in the majors, so his projections saw a huge upgrade as he graduated from prospect status. ZiPS has been up and down with Jett Williams the last few years, but it was decidedly down after he lost a crucial season due to surgery on his triangular fibrocartilage complex, which is either part of the wrist or some kind of building. (I’m guessing wrist.) That said, hitting .291/.399/.495 as a 21-year-old shortstop in the high minors is a great way to get a bandwagon going again. Kevin McGonigle has been brilliant in the minors, though it just remains to be seen how he’ll fare at Double-A.

Before the season, ZiPS thought Brayden Taylor might hit just well enough to support what it saw as a fantastic glove. Instead, he’s been one of the worst offensive players in 2025 for anyone who could remotely be called a prospect, and truth is, I’m not even sure why he’s struggling. Luckily, that’s more of a Rays problem than a me problem! Taylor’s tumble is the biggest drop for any prospect ZiPS projected last winter. ZiPS was hoping for more progression from Thayron Liranzo, and Orelvis Martinez has been dreadful enough that I’m not sure he ought to even be considered a Plan B for anyone in Toronto this year. Dalton Rushing has taken a hit here, but that’s because ZiPS is treating him as an outfielder now rather than a catcher.

There aren’t any big gainers in the 51-75 group, though Moisés Ballesteros comes closest. I’m no more sure he’s actually a catcher than I was six months ago, but given that he keeps crushing the ball every time he’s been promoted in the minors, he may not need to be adept at the tools of ignorance. I earned my special Sammy Sosa card in MLB The Show 25 thanks to Ballesteros, and while neither he nor the Cubs get any benefit out of that, it at least makes me happy.

Bryan Ramos was one of the players ZiPS was higher on than most a few years ago, and although it looked for a while like that might pan out, he really disappointed in 2024 and has not bounced back this year. Assuming he still qualifies for the prospect lists next winter, he may not be on the 2026 ZiPS Top 100. Thomas Saggese had a nice OBP in the minors this year, but ZiPS tends to frown upon minor league performances that are disproportionately walk-heavy, and his cup of coffee this year has been unimpressive.

Not missing time from a concussion or back problems, as well as having a second professional season, has been a real boon to Brice Matthews’ projections. It’s now looking like he may be the guy who pushes Jose Altuve back to left for good. I poo-pooed the idea of the Yankees getting a lot in return for Spencer Jones at the deadline, but looking at the translations and the projections, I might be guilty of being short-sighted. He’s 24, not 28, after all, and he’s absolutely eviscerating minor league pitching. It’s getting harder to dismiss the idea of him being a real masher in the majors, which as an Orioles fan conditioned not to root for the Yankees, is a hard pill to swallow.

Edwin Arroyo remains young and missed the entire 2024 season with a torn labrum, yet even though he’s been healthier (but currently out with a sore hammy), he’s come back as a middling singles hitter, so ZiPS sees far less upside than it did a few years ago. Enrique Bradfield Jr.’s raw line looks good, but the translation takes it all the way down to .211/.314/.301, and he’s already been on the IL twice with a hamstring injury. If he’s the successor of Cedric Mullins in center field for the O’s, it’s looking less like it will be an immediate hand-off. ZiPS has really soured on Jared Serna, who somehow has only five extra-base hits in 284 plate appearances in Double-A this season after 15 extra-base hits in far fewer opportunities at the same level last year.

In 12 Triple-A starts this year, Quinn Mathews has allowed almost as many walks (44) as he’s thrown innings (44 1/3), hardly an auspicious sign for a pitching prospect. This is one of those unusual situations in which you’d hope that his sore shoulder has actually been worse than advertised, just to provide a clearer explanation for what has been a brutal year for him. I’ll give the Rockies credit for giving Chase Dollander every opportunity in the majors this year, but it really hasn’t worked out well, and Triple-A is the right place for him right now.

But WAIT, there’s MORE! I’ve asked ZiPS for a table of the biggest improvers who didn’t make the ZiPS Top 100 list in February.

Jacob Reimer missed half of the 2024 season with a hamstring injury, but he’s been healthy this go-around, and is suddenly hitting for power. ZiPS was highly skeptical before the season that he could be above replacement level, but it now thinks there’s a real chance that he’ll become a starter in the majors at some point. Picking up Cam Smith in the Kyle Tucker trade is looking like a brilliant move for the Astros. Kaelen Culpepper has been absolutely terrific in his first full professional season, and I’d be shocked if he didn’t have a very high ranking on next year’s prospects list. ZiPS thinks Brock Wilken has worked himself back into being the Brewers’ best option at third base, or at least, he would be if not for the dislocated patella that’s likely to keep him on the shelf until this September at the earliest.