Projections-Fueled Top 30 Pitching Prospects, Midseason 2025 Update

This article takes a look at baseball’s top 30 pitching prospects from a projections-based perspective now that half of the 2025 season is in the books. Jump to the bottom for the updated list!

The projections capture prospect performance across the minor and major leagues in recent years, making use of aging curves, major league equivalencies, league environment adjustments, park factors, and regression to project peak (late-20s) prospect performance. They also capture Stuff+ courtesy of Eno Sarris (only for arms with MLB experience), and, starting this season, velocity (for all minor and major leaguers). They do not capture scouting or amateur performance. For comparison and more methodological detail, you can find the preseason list here, last year’s midseason list here, and an introduction to the projections here.

Before getting to this year’s list it’s worth checking in on last year’s midseason list. While my pitching projections have a good track record in terms of accuracy for projecting rookies, a qualitative review of last year’s list may offer some insight for thinking about this year’s list.

Half of the arms on the projections-based midseason top 30 2024 list also made the 2024 FanGraphs Top 100 (either the preseason or in-season version). While 13 of the top 15 projections-based midseason hitting prospects made the FanGraphs list, only nine of the top 15 arms made the FanGraphs list. There was less agreement between projections and scouts on top pitching prospects relative to top hitting prospects.

Players on both the scouting and projections-based 2024 lists who have maintained or improved their projections thus far in 2025 include Paul Skenes, Will Warren, Max Meyer, David Festa, and Cade Horton. Prospects on the projections-based 2024 list, but not the FanGraphs 2024 list, include lower velocity arms in Matt Wilkinson and Yu-Min Lin, both of whom have regressed significantly since that list was published, and some underappreciated arms in Landen Roupp, Grant Taylor, and Zebby Matthews. Arms that made the FanGraphs list but not the projections-based list include notable misses for the projections in Jackson Jobe, Bubba Chandler, Chase Dollander, and Jacob Misiorowski, but also some arms whom have struggled in 2025, including, Chayce McDermott, Noble Meyer, Dylan Lesko, and Hurston Waldrep.

Reviewing last year’s lists is a reminder that it’s tough to predict how pitchers will develop, whether you’re using projections or scouting. They often break – or break out – without much warning. At least for outlier velocity cases where there was a large deviation between the projections and scouting reports, like Matt Wilkinson and Jacob Misiorowski, it clearly would have been worth trusting the scouts more. Including Stuff+ for minor leaguers also would help, but it’s only available for a handful of prospects. Capturing velocity should also help; I didn’t capture it for minor leaguers last midseason but I do now. At publication time last midseason, Jacob Misiorowski and Bubba Chandler had compiled, respectively, a worldly 12 K% minus BB% and 13 K% minus BB% in Double-A. Of course, both have been dominant since then, with performance rapidly catching up to the scouting reports. B0th prominently feature on this year’s list.

Without further ado, the top 30 pitching prospects are ranked below by their peak MLB ERA projection, assuming 5 innings pitched per game (IP/G). The peak projections assume a neutral park in the 2024 MLB scoring environment, with a 4.08 league average ERA. They capture data through the games of June 22^nd. The 5 IP/G assumption is a conservative one that makes it easier to compare prospects with different usage patterns. ERA, K%, BB%, and HR/BBE projections assuming actual past usage (past IP/G) are also shown for comparison. I use the 50 IP threshold to determine prospect eligibility for convenience.

A bit reminiscent of Paul Skenes last midseason, Chase Burns looks like the clear top pitching prospect, with strong endorsements from scouting reports and projections. There is a bit of a gap between the top five–featuring Chase Burns, Trey Yesavage, Travis Sykora, Jacob Misiorowski, and Jonah Tong–and everyone else, with the top five also making the FanGraphs 2025 Top 100, except for Yesavage who just missed. Yesavage has first round pedigree and velocity, topping out at 97 MPH, so I don’t see any red flags to discount the projections here. I wouldn’t overreact to 6.2 poor innings at Double-A; he remains underrated.

Scanning the list for arms with velocity concerns, Brandon Walter, Noah Cameron, and Sean Sullivan stick out. In comparison to Wilkinson last year, however, Walter and Cameron throw a bit harder, both averaging 92 MPH, and have performed across Triple-A and the majors, so the velocity is only a minor concern. I wouldn’t expect Walter to keep posting a sub-three xFIP, nor Cameron to keep posting a sub-three ERA, but both look like good mid-rotation options — Walter moreso than Cameron. Sullivan has performed strongly at Double-A, unlike Wilkinson and Yu-Min Lin, but with velocity in the upper-80s he is probably overrated here, even though the projections give some weight to velocity now. In any case, his value would be limited in Coors even if he threw 100.

Clayton Beeter and Mason Montgomery have been used exclusively in relief this year after mostly being used as starting pitchers in the past. The projections like them assuming a starting role and love them in a relief role. Generally they assume a one-ish run gap in ERA when a starting pitcher is converted to a reliever and vice versa. Whether or not they’d hold up well as starters is very much an open question though, and one better suited for scouts than a projection system. Grant Taylor has also been used as a reliever lately, but that is more the White Sox trying to preserve his health than anything else. Of the three arms mentioned here, Taylor is by far the likeliest candidate to return to a starting role.

Logan Henderson has been excellent across the minors and majors in 2025 and would rank near the top of the list by K% minus BB%, but he allows a lot of fly-balls so the projections also expect him to be prone to home runs. Quinn Mathews got off to a rough start this year, with 15 walks and seven strikeouts across his first three starts. He has been much better since returning from the a trip to the injured list with shoulder inflammation, with an 18 K% minus BB% across four starts at Triple-A. Andrew Painter’s projections have fluctuated wildly after his record-breakingly long recovery from Tommy John surgery. Scouts are more bullish on him at this point. I think the projections will catch up to the scouting reports eventually, after he has compiled more post-TJ innings.

Turning to prominent players who didn’t make the list, a few stand out. First, Jackson Jobe would have ranked in the middle of the list had he not eclipsed 50 IP. However, unlike Misiorowski and Chandler, his MLB performance had not caught up with the scouting reports, with a 6 K% minus BB% and 5.00 xFIP, before he went down with Tommy John. Noah Schultz is the highest ranked arm on the FanGraphs 2025 Top 100 that did not make the projections-based list. He was the 11th best prospect on the preseason projections-based list, but his performance in 2025 thus far has trended in the wrong direction, with his Double-A K% minus BB% dropping from 23 in 2024 to 9 in 2025.