The Seattle Mariners boast two of the game’s most promising young arms. Second and third respectively in a highly regarded farm system, Ryan Sloan and Kade Anderson also reside in the front half of our 2026 Top 100 Prospects list. Sloan, a 20-year-old right-hander, ranks 20th, while Anderson, a 21-year-old southpaw, comes in at no. 50.

How do the two compare in terms of repertoire and approach? Both are profiled in the write-ups that accompany the aforementioned rankings, but what about how the pitchers see themselves? Moreover, how are they viewed by a catcher who knows them well and a prominent member of the organization’s pitching brain trust? Wanting to find out, I spoke to Anderson and Sloan, as well as to Luke Stevenson and Trent Blank, at Seattle’s spring training complex late last month.

Before we get to those perspectives, here are brief snapshots, augmented with quotes from our prospect analyst team of Eric Longenhagen, Brendan Gawlowski, and James Fegan:

Drafted third overall last year out of LSU, Anderson, who threw his first professional pitch this spring, was described as follows: “Maybe the best pitcher in the 2025 draft, [he] projects as a quick-moving mid-rotation starter with a great breaking ball.”

Sloan, who was drafted 55th overall in 2024 out of York Community High School in Elmhurst, Illinois, debuted professionally last season and logged a 3.73 ERA, a 3.18 FIP, and a 27.0% strikeout rate over 82 innings between Low-A Modesto and High-A Everett. “The upside is sky-high here,” wrote our prospect analysts, “and it’s not too early to say Sloan is one of the best pitching prospects in baseball.”

Blank serves as Seattle’s director of pitching strategy, so let’s start with his thoughts. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Atlanta Braves. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the sixth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the New York Mets. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the sixth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Tyler Bremner is the top prospect in what is widely viewed as a below-average Los Angeles Angels system. Drafted second overall last summer out of UC Santa Barbara, the 21-year-old right-hander is anything but below average — and that is especially true when it comes to his signature offering. Bremner boasts one of the best changeups of any prospect, in any organization. Factor in a fastball that sits mid-90s and touches 98, and you can see why my colleague Brendan Gawlowski referred to Bremner as “the draft’s most big league-ready player.”

Premium strike-throwing is another of Bremner’s attributes. As Gawlowski pointed out in his January write-up, the 6-foot-2, 195-pound San Diego native not only averaged fewer than 2.5 walks per nine innings across three collegiate seasons, he also “missed a ton of bats.” His draft-year strikeout rate was a heady 35.8%.

Bremner discussed his high-spin changeup, his sometimes-sinking four-seamer, and what he’s been learning in big league camp, prior to a recent game at Tempe Diablo Stadium.

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David Laurila: I’ve read that you have a 70-grade changeup. What can you tell me about it?

Tyler Bremner: “I’ve kind of had the same grip since high school. I wouldn’t say it’s the most conventional grip. It’s a circle change, but I’m sliding down from the two-seam, so my middle and ring fingers are both on the horseshoe. I also like to tuck my pinky under it. That’s maybe a little unconventional, I guess. Not many people tuck their pinky like that.

“The grip is one thing, but there is also how you throw it. I’ve been blessed with being able to pronate the ball pretty well. For me, it’s not about trying to kill spin. I’m basically making it spin hard the other way, so I get that diving action. My arm speed also helps make it look like a heater. At the end of the day, you can have a changeup that moves a lot, but if it comes out in a way that hitters can pick it up — they can see the circle, or the spin is different than the fastball — then it’s not going to be as effective as one that isn’t as nasty. A changeup plays well if it is deceptive off the heater, so I’m really just trying to keep the arm speed and make it look like a fastball.”

Laurila: How much does your changeup spin? Read the rest of this entry »

Jamie Arnold has a six-pitch mix that plays up thanks to outlier traits. He also has a lofty ceiling. Drafted 11th overall last year by the Athletics out of Florida State University, the 21-year-old southpaw will debut professionally this season having just missed out on our 2026 Top 100 Prospects list. And while he didn’t quite make that cut, Arnold did merit inclusion on the prospect team’s Picks to Click list, which highlights players expected to make next year’s Top 100. (Eric Longenhagen was present for Arnold’s spring training debut last Friday, video of which can be seen here.)

His delivery plays a role in his effectiveness. As Michael Baumann wrote prior to last summer’s draft, “Arnold’s long arm swing and extreme low release point make it hard to find an easy comp for him.” My colleague also referred to him as “a pitchability lefty,” which is notable given that the 6-foot-1 Tampa native possesses plus raw stuff. He certainly dominated at the amateur level. Over his last two collegiate seasons, Arnold went 19-5 with a 2.96 ERA while allowing just 153 hits over 190 1/3 frames. Moreover, he punched out 278 batters and issued just 53 free passes.

Arnold discussed his arsenal — which currently includes two changeups — as well as the mindset he takes with him to the mound, at the A’s spring training facility in Mesa, Arizona.

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David Laurila: I’ve read the reports, but how would you describe yourself as a pitcher? How do you get guys out?

Jamie Arnold: “I’m in the zone a lot; I’m a strike-thrower and like to limit walks. You could say that I’m a groundball pitcher, but I also put up strikeout numbers. So I like to play both roles: a pitcher who gets quick outs, and a pitcher who punches guys out.” Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Detroit Tigers. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the sixth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re putting a bow on Prospect Week with a post-hype look at one of last season’s top farmhands, Kristian Campbell. This time last year, Campbell was the biggest riser on prospect lists across the industry, a consensus top 10 player who had gone from relative obscurity to the cusp of the big leagues in just a year. Now, as we head into the spring’s first contests, he’s fallen out of the lineup and is likely to begin the 2026 season in Triple-A. His career path serves as a good reminder that growth isn’t linear, and that a player’s development path doesn’t conclude when he reaches the majors or exhausts his status as a rookie.

After playing just one season of college baseball, Boston selected Campbell in the fourth round of the 2023 draft as a toolsy player with contact skill but also a quirky, choppy swing. He put on 15-20 pounds of muscle that offseason, which helped spark an offensive explosion. His power shot from average to plus overnight, and he started lifting the ball more, both of which he managed without ballooning his whiff rates out of proportion. He posted a 178 wRC+ across three levels that season, with 20 homers and a sub-20% strikeout rate. Though little about his operation in the box looked conventional, plenty of evaluators — including, critically, the Red Sox brass — fully bought in. The Red Sox put Campbell on the Opening Day roster and then inked him to an eight-year, $60 million extension less than a week into the season.

Initially, all went well. Campbell won AL Rookie of the Month honors in April after hitting .301/.407/.495 with four homers. His strikeout rate crept north of 25%, which wasn’t itself alarming, as it came with power and a 15% walk rate; it’s perfectly normal for rookies to swing and miss a bunch as they adjust to the league anyway. Defensively, Campbell was primarily playing second base while also filling in left and center. He didn’t look great at the keystone, and the jury was still out on his long-term defensive home, but if nothing else, his versatility was itself a boost for the ballclub.

On April 30, Campbell went 0-4 in a game against the Blue Jays, and then missed the next three games with rib discomfort. We can’t know to what extent that injury bothered him. Campbell, for his part, said it wasn’t an issue by late May: “No. That’s all clear. There was just a little side discomfort, but it’s all good.” Regardless, it was a turning point in his season:

By mid-June, the Red Sox had seen enough and sent Campbell to Triple-A for the remainder of the season. Critically, his dip in production coincided with a sudden and complete inability to pull the ball.

April:

May:

Campbell wasn’t mauling good velo over the Green Monster even in April, but he did hit some heaters hard to the left of second base and had no trouble driving spin out to left. He got back to that in Triple-A, though somewhat troublingly all of his pull-side damage came on hanging breaking balls. As Campbell gutted through an unspectacular summer in Worcester — 118 wRC+, 26.7% strikeout rate — the Red Sox lineup hummed without him. A mix of players capably filled in at second, Romy Gonzalez most notably among them, while Boston had more good outfielders than room to play them. All over the headlines in March and April, Campbell ended the 2025 campaign a forgotten man.

Even at his peak, Campbell was a somewhat divisive player. While some scouts were willing to overlook his unorthodox swing, others were apprehensive about his mechanics. He had a double toe tap and then a big front hip leak that worked in part because he has huge hip-shoulder separation and was able to keep from flying open even as his lower half crept toward third base. The upper half was also concerning for some evaluators, as Campbell’s violent and rotational hack came with a lot of head movement and often left him off balance. Plus bat speed and good hand-eye coordination helped, but not everybody loved what they saw.

Having literally bought the breakout, it’s fair to wonder if Boston is now taking the collapse at face value as well. There are signs, if you want to look at it that way. The Red Sox sent Campbell to winter ball this offseason, hoping that quieter movements in the box will again let him get to his power. Between those adjustments, the trade for Caleb Durbin, and unsettled defensive plans that initially seemed to focus on the outfield but then made room for him to take groundballs once back in camp (all of this just a few months removed from when he started working in at first base), you’d be forgiven for thinking that he’s not in the club’s immediate plans. Fair enough, given last season’s production and this season’s lineup.

But all of the tinkering raises more questions than it answers. Were Campbell’s struggles last May and June really the inevitable result of an unconventional swing? Is it possible that the league’s adjustments to the young upstart, possibly combined with a nagging rib issue, did a number on a rookie already shouldering a difficult defensive load after very little collegiate and minor-league seasoning? You can make arguments for, against, or in between on those questions; the guy is in limbo, after all.

Last year, just after Campbell’s demotion, Eric wrote, “I, like most everyone, entered 2025 convinced that this weirdo swing would work for Campbell even though it’s unconventional. Though he was demoted shortly before [list] publication, I still think it will… two years ago, this guy was playing in his lone college baseball season and now he’s facing the best pitchers in the world. He deserves time to adjust and hopefully get stronger so it doesn’t take his entire body winding up for him to swing hard.”

I’ll sign on to that idea, and the comment about increased strength in particular. It’s a long season, and all the moving parts in Campbell’s swing mean that a minor disruption to one area of the body might just throw off the whole operation; having the strength to withstand the rigors of the schedule is important for everyone, but perhaps him especially. And let’s not lose sight of the talent here. However unusual, Campbell’s bat speed, short swing, and good approach were, for a time, effective. The history of this sport is full of guys who went the other way with fastballs and tugged breaking balls, and for a month it looked like Campbell had found a way to follow those footsteps. I still think he can; whether or not he will is for us to find out.

It’s common for readers to ask which of the players who aren’t on this year’s Top 100 might grace next year’s edition. Who has a chance to really break out? This is the piece for those readers, our “Picks to Click,” the gut-feel guys we think can make the 2027 Top 100.

This is the ninth year Eric has conducted this exercise at FanGraphs, and there are some rules. First, none of the players you see below will have ever been graded as a 50 FV or better in any of our write-ups or rankings. Second, we can’t pick players who we’ve picked in prior years, though we can take players who other writers have previously selected. For instance, Eric picked Demetrio Crisantes last year, but he got hurt and didn’t make this year’s Top 100. He can’t select him again (though he would if he could), but James or Brendan could if they wanted to (though they didn’t). Cam Caminiti, on the other hand… Read the rest of this entry »