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These are MLB’s No. 1 prospects at each position

@JoeTrezz
January 23, 2025

MLB Pipeline's 2025 rankings of the Top 10 prospects at each position are official and the 2025 Top 100 Prospects list will be revealed at 7 p.m. ET on Friday on MLB Network and MLB.com.

MLB Pipeline's 2025 rankings of the Top 10 prospects at each position are official and the 2025 Top 100 Prospects list will be revealed at 7 p.m. ET on Friday on MLB Network and MLB.com.

Before the list drops, here's a look at the No. 1 prospect at each position.

Catcher: Samuel Basallo, Orioles
Basallo is one of two Minor League backstops with 60-grade power and a 70-grade arm (Kansas City’s Blake Mitchell is the other) and he reached Triple-A two weeks after his 20th birthday last season. The left-handed slugger flashed impressive exit velocities going back to his days as a teenager in the Dominican Republic, when the Orioles inked him for a then-club-record $1.3 million. A few years of development later and he has size, strength and the ability to drive the ball to all fields, giving him the look of a productive left-handed power threat. Basallo claims the top spot on a positional preseason list for the first time after clocking in at No. 2 last year. Complete list »

First base: Jac Caglianone, Royals
The former two-way college star and sixth overall pick in the 2024 Draft will focus solely on hitting in his first full professional season, and his ceiling at the plate makes him the slam-dunk choice to claim the top spot on our first base list. The left-handed slugger sports 70-grade power and the exit velocities to match it, maxing out at 117.3 mph last season in the Arizona Fall League. It’s that powerful bat that will get him to Kansas City the quickest, and depending on how he acclimates to upper-level pitching, he could blaze that path very quickly indeed. Complete list »

Second base: Kristian Campbell, Red Sox
No prospect made a bigger leap in 2024 than Campbell, who went from redshirting at Georgia Tech in 2022 to a supplemental fourth-round pick in 2023 to winning MLB Pipeline’s Hitting Prospect of the Year and Double-A Eastern League MVP honors last year in his first full pro season. That’s what happens when you combine plus bat-to-ball skills with plus power and plus speed and it comes all together. Campbell showed in 2024 he can do a lot of everything, slashing a combined .330/.439/.558 with 20 homers and 24 steals in 115 games while advancing from High-A to Triple-A. He led the Minors in wRC+ and ranked second in on-base percentage and OPS. Complete list »

Third base: Coby Mayo, Orioles
A big right-handed hitter with a big arm and big, big power, the slugging Mayo has long drawn comps to Braves All-Star third baseman Austin Riley, and after cranking 54 homers over the past two seasons at the upper levels, he’s pounding down the door to Baltimore. Whether he stays at the hot corner long term remains an open question, but no matter where his eventual defensive home is, the Orioles won’t be able to keep his bat out of the lineup much longer. Complete list »

Shortstop: Carson Williams, Rays
The 28th overall pick in the 2021 Draft possesses a tantalizing combination of power and speed. He logged his second consecutive 20/20 season in 2024, socking 20 homers with 33 steals at Double-A Montgomery. He pairs those tools with plus-plus fielding ability and a 70-grade arm, giving the 22-year-old San Diego native one of the most striking tools profiles in the game. Complete list »

Outfield: Roman Anthony, Red Sox
After a breakout 2024 season during which he led the Double-A Eastern League in slugging and OPS as a 20-year-old, the former supplemental second-round pick has blossomed into one of the top position player prospects in baseball and the jewel of Boston’s enviable farm system. The calling card here is plus-plus raw power, but Anthony has also developed a consistent approach that could make him a .300 hitter with 30-homer power on an annual basis. Complete list »

Right-handed pitcher: Roki Sasaki, Dodgers
From the minute he was posted, Sasaki topped our international prospect rankings (for 2024 and 2025), and now that he’s signed with the Dodgers, he’s the hands-down No. 1 right-handed pitching prospect in the game. The 23-year-old Sasaki generated the kind of international buzz not seen since Shohei Ohtani arrived from Japan in December 2017, and for good reason. Now four years removed from breaking out in the World Baseball Classic as a 19-year-old, Sasaki has elite stuff: three plus pitches, including a fastball that’s been clocked at 102 mph, as well as plus command and control. Complete list »

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Left-handed pitcher: Noah Schultz, White Sox
Standing 6-foot-9 and generating whiffs with a wipeout slider he throws from a low three-quarters arm slot, Schultz draws inevitable comparisons to Randy Johnson. The scary thing is the 21-year-old is a much more polished pitcher at this stage in his development, and he's coming off a year in which he dominated High-A while emerging as baseball’s top left-handed pitching prospect. Schultz has three plus pitches and his control and command both grade better than average -- it’s a scary package for hitters at any level. Complete list »

Joe Trezza is an contributor for MiLB.com.

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