These Are The Best Pitches In The 2025 Top 100 Prospects

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Image credit: Jarlin Susana (Photo by Tom DiPace)

Every January, the Baseball America Top 100 Prospects list profiles the top prospects in the game. But we never stop there. Over the last few seasons, we have also dug deep into the unique characteristics of each player on the list. We’re continuing that tradition once again by ranking and rating the best pitches thrown by Top 100 Prospects. 

We will break these pitches down based on pitch types, combining four-seam and two-seam shapes when evaluating fastballs. We’ll also look at the best breaking balls and changeups, meaning we’ll combine sliders, curveballs and cutters into a single category and changeups and splitters into one category. This is because there’s some ambiguity in how pitch types are marked. There’s a case where certain sliders could classify as cutters, while other sliders could classify as a curveball. To this end, we look at which pitches have the most unique combinations of velocity and movement and which had the best results in games in 2024. 

Below, find the best pitches in the 2025 Top 100 Prospects List.

FASTBALLS

PlayerTeamPitch TypePVeloMax VeloIVBHBSpinVAAEXTRelease Height
Bubba ChandlerPiratesFour-Seam113396.899.518.182405-4.26.6469.2
Chase DollanderRockiesFour-Seam129196.310016.311.22497-4.025.9965.8
Jackson JobeTigersFour-Seam63996.599.718.292449-4.47673.1
Jacob MisiorowskiBrewersFour-Seam102196.9100.715.810.72628-4.17.4264
Jarlin SusanaNationalsTwo-Seam30398.4102.67.514.92366-5.976.3971.1

The velocity on the Top 100 list continues to climb. At this point, starters need to average a minimum of 96 mph to even be considered among the best fastballs on the list. The median fastball velocity for Top 100 pitchers this year was 94.7 mph. This differs a bit for lefties, as not a single lefthander on the Top 100 averaged over 94.7 mph this season.

Bubba Chandler takes the honor for the top fastball on the list. He fends off swift competition in the top five and beyond. Fastball quality has never been more important or easily measured. Chandler combines a blend of traits that make his four-seam stand out among the rest. He combines plus velocity sitting 96-98 mph with plus ride, a flat vertical approach angle, high spin efficiency and armside run. His heater is a demon in the making. 

Rockies righty Chase Dollander has the highest-performing fastball on the Top 100. He also threw his heater more than anyone else on the list. Dollander generated the highest swinging strike rate on his fastball among Top 100 peers. His 20.4% swinging strike rate is over four percentage points higher than the next highest SwStrk% on the list. While Dollander’s fastball is slightly softer than Chandler’s, he throws it from a lower release height, creating a Jacob deGrom-like 4.0 vertical approach angle on his fastball. Dollander’s slightly below-average extension puts him behind Chandler. 

We briefly got a glimpse of Jackson Jobe’s elite fastball in the majors in 2024. Eno Sarris’ Stuff+ rated the pitch at a score of 127 or 27% better than the average MLB fastball. Jobe has arguably the best arsenal among Top 100 prospects, and it’s led by his plus-plus fastball. 

Jacob Misiorowski is the extension standout. The Brewers righty averaged nearly 7.5 feet of extension. This allows everything to play up on his fastball and keeps him among the best fastballs on the list. Misiorowski’s combination of velocity and deception makes it difficult to barrel up. 

Jarlin Susana’s two-seam fastball is the only non-four-seamer to make the list. It’s a turbo sinker at 98-100 mph touching nearly 103 mph at peak. Susana threw his four-seamer more than his two-seam in 2024, but the two-seamer projects to be his primary fastball at peak. His ability to create sink in the upper registers with heavy armside run make it a unique pitch. 

BREAKING BALLS

PlayerTeamPitch TypePVeloMax VeloIVBHBSpinVAAHAAEXT
Jarlin SusanaNationalsSlider75888.895.7-2.8-5.22590-8.05-2.766.38
Kumar RockerRangersSlider16085.893.7-3.5-1.42349-8.87-3.076.48
Noah SchultzWhite SoxSlider44482.589.71.112.52873-7.443.885.82
Nolan McLeanMetsSlider64785.192.20.5-13.92983-6.74-4.215.95
Brandon SproatMetsSlider45285.790.82.8-7.22357-7.51-3.996.27

Susana is certain to stand out on any article detailing the top pitches among prospects. Beyond sitting nearly 100 mph on his fastball, Susana’s slider might be an even better pitch. The 88-90 mph slider touches 95-96 mph with an almost deathball-like shape. He generated a 24.7% swinging strike rate against the pitch, the seventh-highest swinging strike rate of any pitch thrown by Top 100 Prospects. His combination of power and the ability to play the pitch off of his fastball generates loads of whiffs and chases. 

The highest swinging strike rate of any pitch thrown by a Top 100 Prospect this season belongs to Kumar Rocker’s slider. Rocker had a smaller sample in the minors this season, but he generated a 40.6% swinging strike rate when he threw his slider against minor leaguers. His slider didn’t perform as well against MLB competition but some of that is to be expected. It’s a hard gyro slider that generates lots of swing and misses outside of the zone. 

Noah Schultz and Nolan McLean are the sweeper representatives on the list, as each generate heavy armside run. McLean’s slider has an outlier combination of power and movement as it sits 84-86 mph with nearly 14 inches of sweep on average. While McLean didn’t miss as many bats as you’d anticipate with the pitch, it was rarely hit hard. 

Schultz throws a more traditional sweeper sitting 82-83 mph with around a foot of sweep. Lefthanded sweepers are unusual. As we saw with Ricky Tiedemann in previous years, they can often face less split issues against off-handed batters if they can backdoor the pitch to the outer half of the plate. Schultz generated swinging strikes at a rate of 19.8% against his slider in 2024 and showed excellent command with a 42.7% called strike rate. 

Finally, Brandon Sproat has a more traditional slider shape, but he rips it off at 85-86 mph and has touched as high as 90 mph. Sproat generated swinging strikes at a rate of 16.8% in 2024 while showing a consistent ability to fool opposing hitters. 

It’s no surprise that sliders dominate the best breaking ball category. Plenty of Top 100 Prospects mix in cutters and curveballs but very few, if any, use either pitch as their primary breaking ball.

OFFSPEED

PlayerTeamPitch TypePVeloMax VeloIVBHBSpinVAA
Travis SykoraNationalsChangeup20384.889.38.96.81281-7.29
Tink HenceCardinalsChangeup19782.787.712.115.51963-7.19
Alejandro RosarioRangersChangeup24390.893.42.714.91490-6.81
Thomas WhiteMarlinsChangeup25985.689.27.3-15.51875-6.81
AJ Smith-ShawverBravesChangeup36983.689.66.4111127-7.78

Travis Sykora has the best changeup. It’s arguably one of the best pitches in the Top 100. A mid-80s offering with splitter-like movement, Sykora laid Low-A competition to waste this season in large part due to the quality of his changeup. He generates an elite amount of swings and misses, generating a 28.1% swinging strike rate in 2024. Sykora creates excellent vertical separation off of his fastball while seeing a full 10 mph difference from his four-seamer on average. It’s Sykora’s best pitch and one of the best changeups in the minors at present. 

Tink Hence took a massive step forward with his changeup in 2023 and those changes held true in 2024, as he saw tremendous success with his cambio. Hence generates excellent vertical and velocity separation off of his fastball with a nearly 12 mph separation between the pitches. The pitch generated swings and misses at the second-highest rate on the list. Hence’s changeup has a lower swing rate, but when hitters do swing at the pitch he generates whiffs at a rate of 66%. It’s a pure chase pitch for Hence but an effective part of his arsenal. Hence had trouble commanding the pitch in the second half of the season as he dealt with injury. Still, it has all the elements of an effective changeup. 

Rangers righty Alejandro Rosario was one of the breakout pitchers of 2024 and his changeup makes the list. Rosario’s changeup boasts the third-highest swinging strike rate of changeups thrown 100 times or more in 2024. Rosario shows an excellent combination of the ability to miss bats, generate chases and a high rate of strikes on the pitch. Rosario’s ability to kill lift on his changeup makes it among the most drastic of vertical separations between fastball and changeup on the list. Rosario mimics the heavy armside run on his fastball on his changeup while showing a full 13 inches of induced vertical break separation and a -2.5 degree difference in approach angle. When looking at the components of Rosario’s changeup, it’s easy to see why it keeps hitters consistently off balance. His ability to challenge hitters with the pitch in the zone adds to its effectiveness. 

After the Marlins drafted two of the top prep pitchers available in the 2023 draft, it’s no shock to see one of them make the best pitches list 18 months later. However, it’s not first-rounder Noble Meyer but second-round pick Thomas White. The big lefty dominated Class A competition in 2024 and announced his presence in pro ball. White’s changeup performed well in 2024 generating a swinging strike rate of 24.3%, while boasting the highest called strike rate on the list of any changeup with a 25.8% marker. White doesn’t generate as much vertical separation as others on this list, but the 10 mph delta off of his fastball velocity gives the pitch what it needs to fool opposing hitters. White’s ability to command the pitch from day one as a professional speaks volumes about his pitchability and polish as a cold-weather prep arm. 

In one year, Braves righty AJ Smith-Shawver went from not throwing his changeup to making the pitch his primary secondary. He shows an uncanny ability to kill spin on the pitch. His changeup has the second-lowest spin rate of any offspeed pitch thrown by a Top 100 Prospect. The pitch generated swinging strikes at a rate of 22.5% this season and he shows the ability to fool hitters into expanding the zone against the pitch with a chase rate of 32.6% against minor league competition in 2024. The development of Smith-Shawver’s changeup has changed his trajectory as a starting pitching candidate long term.

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