The prospect mavens have been working hard over the past few months here at the TDG offices to bring you some of the best consensuses at least in our opinion rankings of the top and not-so-top prospects in the game that will hopefully give you a leg up on your competition that just looks at the MLB.com rankings (with all due respect of course.) If you`ve been with us for a while you will generally see the same rollout as past years, one week will focus on outfielders, next on shortstops, and so forth.

This year however we decided to break down our rankings into tiers and provide commentary for each tier as a whole with multiple Guru`s chiming in where they see fit. This will provide more than just a single voice to the readers while letting the authors offer their opinions on players they deem worthy enough to write about. Hopefully, it will be a fun, informative read and you will come away with an idea of how a certain player is looked at by the industry.

As always, our rankings are geared towards a 15-team OBP roto league with a three to five-year view on our team.

This week we`ll be looking at the pitching prospects.

Tier 4

I don’t know what other rankers see, or don’t see, in David Festa.  Across Double-A and Triple-A last year, he had a 30% K rate, 10% BB rate, and a 16% swinging strike rate. He throws three pitches well and should be pitching in the majors this year.  I have him two tiers higher on my personal rankings and encourage fantasy managers to take a hard look. This is a strong tier overall and I try to roster Chandler and Lalane in deeper leagues. Yu-Min Lin is an enigma.  During the off-season I read articles concerned about his build and pitch selection, specifically his best pitch is his change but without a stronger fastball, what’s the point of a change?  Then as soon as Lin pitches in spring training, social media’s blowing up with advice to be sure to pick him up.  I don’t know the answer, but I have him on one roster in case he does break the mold and succeed. (Drew Klein)

 I’m taking a chance on the big Yankee lefty in this tier, Henry Lelane. He hasn’t had a great deal of innings pitched (only 21.2 in 2023), but his stuff has been on an uptick for a while now and the 19-year-old is looking more and more like he has an extreme breakout season coming down the pipe in 2024. He had a 34.1% strikeout to walk rate in 2023 and an improving fastball. Big things could be coming, get ready (Daniel Labude).

Yu-Min Lin and Cade Povich are the pitchers that stand out in this tier. Lin is just 19-years-old, but made it all the way to Double-A in 2023. He has a sub-par fastball, but very good offspeed pitches. Due to his age, I really like his fastball velocity to increase some over the next couple of years and allow his offspeed arsenal to play up even more than it already has in the low minors. His strikeout rate dropped from 32.1% at High-A, to 24.7% at Double-A. His walk rates stayed pretty stagnant between nine and 10%, but his ERA jumped from 3.43 to 4.28. If he is to warrant value in this fourth tier, the results this season will need to be better than what he did at Double-A last year. His value really won’t increase too much unless his velocity ticks up to match his play. Povich now has a real shot at making the starting rotation on opening day for the Baltimore Orioles. His walk rate and strikeout rate went in opposite directions when he jumped from Double-A to Triple-A last year, as they ended at 14.7% and 26.9% respectively. This spring training is critical for him and his dynasty value. If he can pitch more like he did at Double-A (10.5% walk rate and 33.4% strikeout rate), he will break camp with the big league team (Brian Labude).

Tier 5

I’m all in on Carlos Rodriguez, I think he and Robert Gasser (Tier 3) will play important roles in the Brewers rotation before too long. (Drew Klein)

 Good to see the Brandon’s uniting in this tier. Both Brandon Barriera and Brandon Sproat are my favorites of this group. Barriera had a bit of a rough go of it in his first professional season. He battled injuries most of the season and only threw 20.1 innings between Rookie ball and Low-A. He did muster up a 31.5% strikeout rate. His fastball left something to be desired though. Billed as a potential plus pitch and potentially hitting the upper-90s, it only stayed around 93 mph for the most part. He is in better shape now and if the fastball comes alive, he could have two plus pitches, with work to do on a third. Sproat is just a mystery bag attached to an electric arm. If he can throw strikes, he could be a top tier pitching prospect. He showed at times in college that he could take on the best of lineups with ease. Too many walks though have bogged him down, especially his prospect value. This is definitely an arm to bet on. Just a few tweaks here and there, maybe even an arsenal change and he could fly up rankings in the future (Daniel Labude).

Joey Cantillo, remember the name. I fought hard to move him up one, even potentially two tiers. He had some walk issues in 2023, with a 13.2% walk rate on the year, but I think you have to take some of those problems with a grain of salt. He didn’t pitch in 2020, only 13 innings in 2021, and 60 innings in 2022. Last year he jumped up to 119 innings, a massive increase and almost all of them came at Triple-A, where they were using the ABS system for some of the games. 10 of his 55 walks at Triple-A came in his last two starts. So 20% of his walks came in 10% of his games. He has a solid 4 pitch mix that he used at Triple-A, with three of his offspeed pitches appearing to be plus or better. His changeup, slider, and curveball, all generated elite whiff rates (49.7%, 38.3%, and 41.4% respectively). If he can get back to a walk rate below 10%, which was where he was at in his last full season (2020), he will force his way into the Cleveland Guardian rotation before we know it (Brian Labude).

Tier 6

This tier has a mix of pitchers who some of us like and some of us didn’t have ranked at all.  The three in this group that I like more than the others and have added to my watch lists are Ryan Bergert (29.2% K Rate, 2.73 ERA), Jordan Wicks (26.5% K Rate, four pitches graded 50 or higher), and Landon Roupp, who was out with a back injury much of last year.  Early reports from the Giants’ camp indicate he’s in good shape and impressing the coaches. If that 30+% K rate is real, Roupp and his 70 grade curveball will move up these ranks quickly. (Drew Klein)

 Ryan Bergert. That is the man here and let’s get the hype train going for him. 2022 was a down year as he was coming off of an injury, but boy did he shine like a rockstar last season. In 2023, he was one of only four pitchers in the minors who had over 100 innings pitched, an ERA under three, a strikeout rate above 27%, a walk rate under 11%, and a swinging strike rate over 14%. His numbers are almost exactly the same as Carlos F. Rodriguez across the board. I think Bergert has better stuff overall though. His fastball is very underrated and his slider can be a plus pitch. Given the state of the Padre rotation, a good showing this year from Bergert may earn him a shot at the big leagues. He is a super underrated pitcher in my opinion. Definitely one I have been targeting in most leagues for basically no cost (Daniel Labude).

Alex Clemmey, Travis Sykora, Ronan Kopp, and DJ Herz are the standouts in this tier. Clemmy and Sykora are recent draftees out of high school. I like Sykora more between the two, because he throws in the upper-90s and has a splitter to complement the fastball. The tools for a top tier pitcher are bursting at the seam for him. Kopp is in the deep Los Angeles Dodgers system and pitched both as a starter and a reliever in 2023. It did appear that the Dodgers were trying to monitor his innings as the season progressed. He threw 72.1 innings and ended with a 2.99 ERA, with a monster 35.8% strikeout rate, and a poor 16.7% walk rate. Throwing deeper into games and decreasing his walk rate as he moves up to Double-A could see him jump up a couple of tiers by the end of the season. Herz is in a similar boat as Kopp, but much closer to the big leagues. Last year at Double-A, he threw 94.1 innings, had a 3.43 ERA, with an excellent 32.3% strikeout rate and a bad 13.9% walk rate. He has an outside shot at making the opening day roster for the Washington Nationals, but it will be doubtful, unless he throws more strikes (Brian Labude).