Who Could Be Baseball America’s No. 1 Prospect In 2026?


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Here at Baseball America, there’s never enough looking ahead. We previewed the top prospects for the 2025 season yesterday with the release of the 2025 Top 100. But what about 2026?
For the second consecutive year, our staff convened to debate who could top the list at this time next year. Here are six candidates below.
Walker Jenkins, OF, Twins
If Jenkins has a healthy 2025 season, he has the talent to become the No. 1 prospect in baseball. He’s strong, physical and athletic. His efficient, powerful lefthanded swing lends itself to both contact and impact. In 2024, you saw the bat control and strike-zone discipline that enabled him to barrel the ball against all pitch types and get on base at a high clip. He also missed time due to injury, and when he was on the field, it seemed like those lower half injuries prevented him from fully getting into his power in games. When Jenkins is at full strength, there’s big raw power in there, and if he’s fully healthy in 2025, we could be talking out the Minor League Player of the Year.
— Ben Badler
Jenkins is an athletic lefthanded hitter with a chance to profile as an all-star right fielder if his power manifests. He has uncanny strike-zone judgment for a teenager with strong bat-to-ball skills and a high walk rate. Jenkins is comfortable letting the ball travel deep and hitting with authority to left field, but to reach his 30-homer upside, he will need to be more selectively aggressive in seeking pull power. He has dealt with injuries that have cost him time in each of the past two seasons, so a full healthy season at Double-A and Triple-A will go a long way toward cementing his prospect status.
— Matt Eddy
Sebastian Walcott, SS, Rangers
Even as Walcott struggled in High-A to begin 2024, scouts urged patience. The tools were there, even if the results weren’t just yet. They were right. The 18-year-old busted out in a big way and bashed himself to Double-A by season’s end. His career path has been non-traditional. He moved out of the DSL in 2023 in his first pro year and lit up the stateside competition in the Arizona Complex League before jumping over Low-A and landing at Hickory by season’s end. The aggressive assignments speak to Texas’ belief in Walcott’s ability to withstand failure and adjust to more advanced competition. There’s still some swing and miss in his game, but a strong turn at the upper levels could lead him to the highest perch on the 2026 Top 100.
— Josh Norris
Walcott sounds like one of the most physically gifted and purely talented players in the minors. It wasn’t uncommon for scouts to bring him up to me out of the blue when they wanted to gush about his athleticism and upside potential—and that’s unusual for me since my focus is on the draft. Walcott has above-average or plus tools across the board. When he starts to add more refinement as a hitter (which he has shown flashes of) he’s going to look like a star in the making. He’s the player on the top 100 I am most excited to see in 2025. These are the sorts of athletes you get excited to cover.
— Carlos Collazo
Jesus Made, SS, Brewers
For some the Made hype machine has reached a breaking point. The general skepticism of Dominican Summer League production has many questioning whether Made’s major helium over the past six months is justified. I believe he’s the most likely player on our current Top 100 to rank as the No. 1 prospect entering 2026.
Made signed with the Brewers for $950,000 in January of 2024, debuting a month after his 17th birthday. He hit .331/.458/.554 with six home runs and 28 stolen bases. His line was 69% better than league average despite being one of the younger players in the DSL. But it’s not switch-hitter’s slash line that makes him a potential No. 1 overall prospect in 2026. It’s his elite underlying data for age and level. There was one player in minor league baseball in 2024 age 25 or younger with these combination of numbers; a miss rate below 12%, a chase rate below 15% and a 90th percentile exit velocity of 104 mph or higher.
Made’s combination of elite plate skills, actualized power and remaining projection from a switch-hitting middle infielder provides the rarest of prospect profiles. If he can make a Chourio-like jump to a full-season level in 2025 and replicate his 2024 production, he’s a frontrunner for the top spot in 2026.
— Geoff Pontes
Leodalis De Vries, SS, Padres
Four teenage shortstops – Colt Emerson, Jesus Made, De Vries and Sebastian Walcott – are clustered in the Top 100. My bet is one of those four is No. 1 this time next year. You’ve heard the case for Walcott and Made already, but why not De Vries? Despite his age (17) and an early shoulder injury, he settled in admirably at Low-A Lake Elsinore. He showed flashes of advanced plate skills and solidly above-average future power projection with high-level athleticism. De Vries may not be quite the pure hitter as Emerson or have quite the same power ceiling as Walcott, but his mixture of tools might end up making him the most well-rounded shortstop of the bunch. He has already reached the lower minors and another optimistic showing in 2025 would send him further up the list.
— Mark Chiarelli
Cooper Pratt, SS, Brewers
I’m going to offer a pair of prospects who are further down the current rankings who could be No. 1 next year if everything breaks right. This is always a fun and difficult challenge, as the players who have already reached Double-A are likely to graduate before next year’s Top 100 Prospect rankings come out unless they have an injury, which would make them less likely to rank No. 1. Pratt should be in the minors all year, as he has less than 100 High-A plate appearances. But a best-case scenario for Pratt could see him be one of the most productive hitters in the minors while excelling defensively at shortstop. It’s a long shot, but he does have the skills and enough tools to thread that needle to be a top 10 or even No. 1 prospect if everything comes together.
— J.J. Cooper
Zyhir Hope, OF, Dodgers
Similarly, Hope would have to have a MiLB Player of the Year-caliber season to vault to No. 1, but that’s not an implausible ask. He has massive power potential with a chance to hit for average as well. As a bat-first outfielder, he’d have to vault multiple levels while showing exceptional performance. Hope has the ability to pull that off.
— J.J. Cooper