Why The 2026 High School Pitching Class Is Incredibly Strong | Future Projection
Image credit: Gio Rojas (Mike Janes/Four Seam Images)
In this week’s Future Projection, Ben Badler and Carlos Collazo talk about how deep and talented the high school pitching crop is for the 2026 MLB Draft class.
We try to contextualize where this class of prep arms stacks up with some of the best in recent memory, and then discuss why pitchers across the board seem better today than they were five, 10 and 15 years ago. We talk about the general risk of pitching prospects vs. hitting prospects, how there are tools today that give us more precision in our pitching evaluations and then hit on a few of the different pitcher archetypes available in the class.
After that, Ben gives a rundown and update on the upcoming 2026 international signing period, which opens on Jan. 15.
Time Stamps
- (0:00) Intro
- (5:35) Kaiden McCarthy reclassifies
- (8:00) Contextualizing the 2026 prep pitching class
- (12:00) The additional risk of pitching prospects
- (16:00) Misses from the vaunted 2018 class
- (18:30) Pitchers are better today in absolute terms
- (22:30) Better ability to evaluate pitchers
- (26:00) A variety of pitching styles
- (38:00) 2026 International Class thoughts
- (41:00) Luis Hernandez as the top bonus player
- (45:00) The status of an international draft
- (50:50) The state of international pitching
- (53:00) Notable names to keep in mind
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