RotoWire’s Updated Top 400 Fantasy Baseball Prospects

In case you missed it, the RotoWire Top 400 Prospect Rankings for fantasy baseball leagues are fully updated, as are the team top 20s, the First-Year Player Draft rankings/tiers and the sixth-annual First-Year Player Draft Blueprint! The FYPD rankings are now 165 players deep, including over 20 prospects who signed on Jan. 15 as part of this year's international signing class, so you've got all the tools you need to dominate your dynasty leagues this spring.

I've written the outlooks for 250-plus prospects with more on the way, so if you have any questions about a specific player, there's a good chance I wrote them up already on the site, but don't hesitate to reach out in the comments or on Discord if you have any prospect or FYPD questions.

A reminder to make sure you're utilizing the My Leagues tool -- it will save you hours of waiver wire scouting throughout the year by letting you know exactly which players are available in your league.

Additionally, last year we introduced a feature on the top 400 that allows you to exclude FYPD prospects, or isolate them, from the top 400 prospect rankings. 

Here is the accompanying Prospect Podcast mailbag in which I answered all your questions about the updated prospect rankings, and below that is the written version of the mailbag. Enjoy!

Where are the tiers?

As always, I'll start of the mailbag with a breakdown of where I see the tiers falling on this update.

TIER ONE: Konnor Griffin

TIER TWO: 2-5 (Kevin McGonigle - Sebastian Walcott)

TIER THREE: 6-18 (Samuel Basallo - Bubba Chandler)

TIER FOUR: 19-35 (Carson Benge - Jonah Tong)

TIER FIVE: 36-53 (Kade Anderson - Josuar Gonzalez)

TIER SIX: 54-95 (Emil Morales - Joe Mack)

TIER SEVEN: 96-158 (Roldy Brito - Noah Schultz)

TIER EIGHT: 159-239 (John Gil - Dasan Hill)

TIER NINE: 240 - 331 (Blaine Bullard - Jake Cook)

SneakyTurtle: The Golden Age of Shortstops is upon us.

James Judge: Holy Shortstops Batman

These were comments, not questions, but I did want to take a second to comment on the fact that eight of the top nine prospects are listed as shortstops. We list minor leaguers by the position they played the majority of their games at the prior season, as that's the position they're eligible at in fantasy leagues. However, these players won't all end up at shortstop. Konnor Griffin (PIT) can play center field but will probably end up at shortstop. Kevin McGonigle (DET) has a lot of detractors regarding his shortstop defense, but that's where he fits cleanest on the Tigers roster. He seems like a natural fit at second base, but he may retain SS eligibility for a couple years. Jesus Made (MIL) is likely to end up at third base long term, particularly with Cooper Pratt (MIL) likely reaching the majors ahead of him and being the superior defender at shortstop. Leo De Vries (ATH) will likely be the Athletics' second baseman of the future. Sebastian Walcott (TEX) could stick at shortstop, but he could just as easily debut at third base and never leave that post. Aidan Miller (PHI) and Colt Emerson (SEA) are capable shortstops, but they are likely to man third base for their teams as long as Trea Turner and J.P. Crawford are around. Similarly, JJ Wetherholt (STL) will either play third base, second base or both this season. So of those eight shortstops, it's possible that half or less than half are even eligible at shortstop in 2027.

Todd: How much weight does proximity to majors carry? If you were to rank top 10 on just raw talent how similar would the top 10 look ? Who would be in who would be out if any different? 

Todd asked one of the most fun, yet challenging questions. I'm going to interpret this as if all the prospects reach their absolute ceiling, how would they rank for fantasy.

1. Konnor Griffin, PIT
2. Jesus Made, MIL
3. Sebastian Walcott, TEX
4. Joshua Baez, STL
5. Eduardo Quintero, LAD
6. Dax Kilby, NYY
7. Seth Hernandez, PIT
8. Kevin McGonigle, DET
9. Leo De Vries, ATH
10. Steele Hall, CIN

Someone else asked a question about proximity vs. ceiling because Baez, Edward Florentino (PIT) and Elmer Rodriguez (NYY) are available in their FYPD and they wanted to make sure they weren't going proximity over upside by taking them. Proximity vs. upside is always discussed, but there's a third element that I think people exclude or don't consider enough, and that's confidence or certainty in a player. McGonigle and De Vries score very well on the confidence factor -- as in, I'm extremely confident they'll have long, productive careers as valuable fantasy contributors. Meanwhile, with Kilby, Hernandez and Hall, they're ranked lower in part because they're multiple years behind these guys, but in part because I'm not nearly as confident in them approaching/reaching their ceiling as I am with these other guys. I listed Hall here, but he could easily fall outside of the top 100 on the late-May update if they assign him to Single-A and he struggles to hit.

The McHugh: What's the overall 'state of the list' compared to this point in past years? 25 MLB regulars in the top 100 and 5 stars, more firepower, less?

My two big takeaways from this set of prospect rankings is that a lot of the best, highest ceiling prospects have less experience above A ball than in a typical year. The best hitting prospects who have debuted are sluggers: Samuel Basallo (BAL), Bryce Eldridge (SF), Sal Stewart (CIN), Carter Jensen (KC). None of the power/speed guys have debuted yet, just because of the cyclical nature of things, it didn't make sense for any of these top guys to debut last year. The other big takeaway is how loaded the pitching prospect class is. I have 50 pitching prospects in the top 135, 32 in the top 100 and 25 in the top 75 -- those are all higher figures than on a normal update. It's partly because of the loaded college pitching draft class, and we also just had a greater number of high-end pitching prospects get to the big leagues without exhausting their eligibility.

Mike: What causes big drops or rises during the offseason?

A lot of factors, but essentially, I'm taking the last set of rankings I submitted at the end of the regular season and trying to make them better by spending more time and using more information to evaluate each prospect. I obviously can't take several months to do the in-season updates, but that's the great thing about this update -- I literally get 3.5 months to work on it. I didn't spend much time evaluating Konnor Griffin on this update or the last update, but I probably spent 10x as much time evaluating certain prospects for this update as I did for the last update. Additionally, there is more information available on prospects from sources and other scouting services in the offseason than there is during the season, and there's also a lot of player movement that affects the timelines and short-term value of some of the older prospects.

Danny J: Does Rainiel Rodriguez (STL) have room to rise? Or will the rain stop at around 11 in the ranks?

He's got room to rise, especially if the Cardinals pull him off catcher. I haven't been this excited about a non-speed hitting prospect since Vladimir Guerrero, and obviously Guerrero graduated as the No. 1 overall prospect.

FantasyBaseballGuy: I guess I should be targeting Joshua Baez (STL) at the end of my NL auction (based on your ranking). When do you anticipate his call up?

The Cardinals still have some roster organizing to do with Brendan Donovan and potentially Lars Nootbaar. I'm not sure what the new regime's approach will be. They could easily spend a couple months letting guys like Victor Scott and Nathan Church show what they can do, but I also expect Baez to be one of their most impressive players in camp. He's clearly their right fielder of the future, so Jordan Walker's play will also loom large in determining how quickly Baez is up. I think 250-300 plate appearances is a fair expectation for 2026.

Paul Thomae: Walker Jenkins (MIN) -- just seems he should be higher…Hoping he's up soon this year and raking!

I agree! It does feel like Jenkins should be higher, and it's scary to not have him higher, and I kind of already regret not finding room for him higher. I'm skeptical that Minnesota would bring him up this year prior to late-August, barring him being one of the best hitters at Triple-A. They've just got a lot of outfielders ahead of him that they need to evaluate and make decisions on, and there's not service-time related incentives for them to bring him up prior to late-August. If you don't care about his injuries (averaged 83 games the last two years) or his ETA, you could value him around Miller/Emerson/Wetherholt.

Caleb Benoit: Who is this year's Luke Keaschall (MIN)?

Keaschall, who reached Double-A in 2024, ranked No. 25 on my January 2025 update and was valued more in the 45-60 range by the big public sites. So I'm looking for a player with upper-level experience that I'm higher on than the consensus with a murky 2026 MLB timeline. It's not a great comp from a fantasy output standpoint, but I'll say Ryan Waldschmidt (ARI), who I've got ranked No. 22 but who I expect to be more in the 40-50 range on real-life lists. 

FantasyBaseballGuy: Do you see Edward Florentino (PIT) as a future top 5 prospect? 

It's definitely possible. The two main things for him to do in 2026 to stay on that path are perform better against left-handed pitching and continue to use his speed on the bases while continuing to see time in the outfield.

Thomas Nestico: I'm quite surprised by the Carter Jensen (KC) omission (from the top 25). Do you have concerns with his bat translating and/or him sticking at catcher?

This question probably made me think the most, because I do like Jensen and didn't expect his ranking at No. 34 to be perceived as too low. However, I understand why Thomas likes him so much that he thinks he should be higher. The big problem is that he's a catcher and it's so hard to rank catchers in a way that's translatable across dynasty leagues. I've got Samuel Basallo (BAL) and Rainiel Rodriguez (STL) ranked top 15 because I think they each have No. 1 overall catcher upside in fantasy and I think they could be top five fantasy first basemen if they move off. Projection system OOPSY has Basallo for a .205 ISO and Jensen for a .173 ISO, despite Basallo being over a year younger, but I definitely see that argument that they should be closer than they are on the top 400. I don't have concerns about Jensen's bat or him sticking at catcher, but I also don't know what a full season is going to look like. If Jensen went out and did exactly what ATC thinks he'll do: .241/.317/.407 with 10 HR in 92 games, it would look laughable to have had him ranked in the top 20. I think he'll do better than that, but I'm also trying to factor in all formats, and I play in a lot of dynasty leagues where only 15-20 catchers are started, so you have to compare him to the No. 10 catcher and the No. 15 catcher and see where he stacks up. If you've got Ryan Waldschmidt or Robby Snelling, I'm guessing you'll be able to find room for them in your starting lineup, but I myself have a team in a one-catcher league where I've got Ivan Herrera, Gabriel Moreno and Carter Jensen and I don't have room to start more than one in the UT spot. It becomes a supply and demand issue that leads to Jensen's value fluctuating greatly from league to league and even team to team.

Phrappie: Is Luis Pena (MIL) at $4 a stash in Ottoneu with $400 budget, which increases $1 per year, knowing he won't contribute for a couple years?

FantasyBaseballGuy: I am curious why Luis Pena (MIL) fell so much?

I'd probably keep Pena at $4 in Ottoneu, especially if most/all of my top 30-50 prospects get kept. I'll be keeping Bryce Rainer (DET) for $3 in my Ottoneu league, and they're right next to each other in the rankings.

Pena didn't even have a down arrow -- he went from 18 to 27. I feel really good about where Pena is and the players he's surrounded by and the players I moved ahead of him -- notably Carson Benge (NYM) and Ryan Waldschmidt (ARI). 

Hsampson: I feel that discourse around Tyler Bremner (LAA) is consistently about the Angels org and less about Bremner the pitcher. I understand the org helps (or doesn't in the Angels case), but I can't help but feel he's a decent value at this point. How do you feel about him?

I know this question sounds like it came from my burner account, but I do agree word for word with the question. Part of me wonders if Bremner just kept slipping in the mock First-Year Player Drafts I participate in because he's not as fun to select/talk about as some of the position players, or even Kyson Witherspoon (BOS), who's been getting the Driveline PR push. I said on the RotoWire Mock First-Year Player draft pod that Bremner and Jamie Arnold (ATH) are becoming the two most underrated players in the class because of their unsexy landing spots. However, the Angels aren't bad at identifying players -- they got the best player in 2022, Zach Neto, with the No. 13 overall pick -- and I thought Bremner was a top-five player in the class pre-draft.

Coco: Would you categorize this upcoming spring training as do or die time for Andrew Painter (PHI)? If he looks awesome, is he back to a top 15-25 MiLB asset? If it goes poorly, could you see him falling out of the top 200?

More or less. Painter was obviously a very challenging player to rank. There aren't many historical comps for a pitcher going through Painter's last three years at that age, so I kind of tried to split the difference on a good outcome this spring vs. a bad outcome. I think the Phillies have intentionally left a spot sort of open -- Taijuan Walker is a classic swing man -- so that Painter can win a job with a good camp. If he decidedly does not win a job, he'll stay outside of the top 50 and could fall to around 100 on the late-March update. I don't think he'd fall outside the top 200 in the first half of 2026 barring another serious injury, but you never know.

Neil: Huge rises for some AL East pitchers in Elmer Rodriguez (NYY), Luis De Leon (BAL) and Trey Gibson (BAL). What brought them up the rankings?

I recommend checking out their outlooks, but they're actually all pretty similar in that they have full starter's pitch mixes and can miss bats and generate groundballs at high clips. De Leon I discussed on the first pod of the offseason as a player who just kind of slipped below the radar while having a dominant 2025 before impressing in the Arizona Fall League. De Leon probably has the highest ceiling and the lowest floor of the trio, and Rodriguez seems like a near-ready No. 2 or No. 3 MLB starter. We should see Gibson sometime this summer, and Rodriguez is a dark-horse candidate to win a rotation job in camp -- I think he's already better than Luis Gil and Will Warren and he's a better bet to stay healthy than Ryan Weathers.

PaulMax: What can you say about the double down arrows on Alfredo Duno (CIN)? A guy in my league thinks he's the second coming and will be shocked at this ranking.

Robert Leahy: There is certainly some Alfredo Duno (CIN) hype, but I don't understand why it is not nearly as high for him as it is for someone like Rainiel Rodriguez (STL)...

Usually when I get multiple questions about the same guy dropping, that means I dropped him too much, and that's probably true with Duno. The two things that scare me with him are his size -- he was 6-foot-3, 248 pounds at the age of 19 -- and the length of his swing/potential contact concerns in the upper levels that could relegate him to a three-true-outcomes DH role. He has an elite eye at the plate and monster power potential, but every other aspect of his game is a negative. Throw in the fact he's three years away and it became easier to keep dropping him. One other factor: I decided that Nathan Flewelling (TB) is a better player to roster in dynasty leagues, as he's a lock to stick at catcher and has the upside to be a top six or seven fantasy option at the position, so I was going to bring up Flewelling in the ranks and lower Duno, and they crossed paths in that 115-130 range. 

Bitcloud: Who are some catchers you think could move off the position?

Of the 19 players listed as catchers who made the top 400, Rainiel Rodriguez (STL), Josue Briceno (DET), Ike Irish (BAL) and Alfredo Duno (CIN) are the four most likely to lose catcher eligibility shortly after reaching the majors. Samuel Basallo (BAL) and Carter Jensen (KC) will get starts at DH, but they'll catch enough to retain the eligibility.

MancBaseball: Can I ask why Harry Ford (WAS) has dropped a long way? I'd have expected his trade to have given his value a boost...

I knew he was ranked way too high on the top 400 before that trade happened, but I understand why lowering him after he got traded doesn't make sense. Basically, I ranked all the catchers (majors and minors) for dynasty when I went on the Toolshed Podcast earlier this offseason and Ford was in that 30-35 range, as a player who is valuable in two-catcher dynasty leagues but unlikely to be started in one-catcher leagues. Ford is a bit more valuable in OBP leagues than AVG leagues, but other than stolen bases, he projects to be a net negative in counting stats relative to other catchers.

SneakyTurtle: Im curious how you see the NPB and KBO. Would they be equivalent of AAA or a step above AA? I've personally seen NPB equivalent to AAA and the KBO a step below AA. Am I way off on those?

It's complicated, because the game is so different, but I think you nailed it, with NPB roughly equivalent to Triple-A and the KBO a touch below Double-A.

FreakyFatGuy: I'm a Mets fan and grabbed A.J. Ewing (NYM) and Jacob Reimer (NYM) in our rookie draft but someone is telling me Elian Pena (NYM) is going to be better. I see he's ranked much lower though. Am I going to regret my decision in a few years? I don't think it matters though with Jorge Polanco, Francisco Lindor, Marcus Semien, and now Bo Bichette -- the Mets prospects are all locked out.

I think a great outcome for Elian Pena in a couple years would be for him to be as good as Jacob Reimer currently is, so I think you did the right thing. Ewing is a very different type of player who is much more valuable in roto than points because of his speed, but I don't think you'll regret passing on Pena for those two as your homer stashes. 

Freddy Lou: I play in an Open Universe league and am already looking ahead to the 2026 draft class. Do you have any idea where Roch Cholowsky, Grady Emerson and Jacob Lombard would slot on this list?

As most of you know, I don't track future draft classes until a couple months before the actual draft, because so much changes in the months leading up, it wouldn't be a good use of my time, but I already know Roch Cholowsky would be in contention for the No. 2 overall spot behind Konnor Griffin (PIT). My hunch is that I'd have Emerson in the 15-30 range and Lombard in the 50-100 range, but I'm not locked in on that class yet.

Danny J: You're not feeling Felnin. What does Felnin Celesten (SEA) need to do to regain your affection?

Make an impact at the plate. He was at an age-appropriate levels last year and had a .102 ISO and six homers in 104 games. 

Gabriel Garcia: Surprised to see Miguel Ullola (HOU) fall of the top 400 entirely. Can you talk about why? Brandon Clarke (STL) also dropped significantly, could you also touch on that? 

It just doesn't seem like Ullola is on the track to start anymore. I've loved him in the past for his strikeout stuff, but he didn't take a step forward last year and got passed by several arms in the upper levels of their system. I'm assuming Clarke won't start either, but it's less of a sure thing with him and he's got more of a chance of eventually being the Cardinals' closer than Ullola does in Houston.

FreakyFatGuy: Robert Calaz (COL) doesn't even make top 400 anymore? 

Nope, he'd be on a top 500 probably, but he was an easy cut from the top 400. He's a power-over-hit corner outfielder who didn't hit for much power last year.