As we roll out our latest update to the RotoProspects Top 700 Prospect fantasy baseball rankings, let’s dive into the key updates surrounding the top-ranked prospects this week.

Athletics’ Devin Taylor climbs into the Top 100 after a promotion to Triple-A

Taylor (pictured above, No. 93, up from No. 126) has been a steady riser all year, and this week’s jump comes on the back of a promotion to Triple-A Las Vegas after hitting .323 with 14 home runs, 54 RBI, and a .943 OPS across 90 games at Double-A Midland. A 2025 second-round pick out of Indiana who signed for $2.5 million, Taylor set the Hoosiers’ all-time home run record and has continued to hit at every stop as a pro. He’s now one step from the majors, and his blend of strike-zone control and plus raw power gives him a real shot at everyday outfield at-bats down the line.

Yankees’ Yostin Pena continues his teenage tear, climbing into the Top 120

Pena (No. 119, up from No. 150) keeps rising fast for an 18-year-old who skipped the complex league entirely after a torrid Dominican Summer League stretch. He’s slashing .275/.385/.425 with 9 home runs, 47 RBI, and 34 stolen bases at Single-A Tampa, and his exit velocities are already elite for his age — a 90th-percentile mark around 108 mph and a peak north of 113. The chase rate and swing-and-miss are still works in progress, but few teenage bats in the minors are hitting the ball this hard.

Marlins’ Brandon Compton earns a Triple-A promotion after a historic power binge

Compton (No. 109, up from No. 135) has been the hottest bat in the minors over the last month and has now been bumped all the way up to Triple-A as a reward. He set a Double-A Pensacola franchise record with 12 home runs in July alone, and across all levels this season he’s slashing .277/.426/.596 with 30 home runs, 18 stolen bases, and a 164 wRC+ — best among all qualified Marlins farmhands. A former two-way college player who had Tommy John surgery before ever throwing a pro pitch, Compton has simplified his approach and is now squarely on the radar in deep dynasty formats.

Brewers’ Eric Bitonti keeps mashing, climbing into the Top 220

Bitonti (No. 213, up from No. 309) has already crossed 60 home runs in the minors before turning 21, and he’s in the middle of another hot stretch — 10 extra-base hits over his last two weeks pushed his season OPS to .934. The 6-foot-5 lefty first baseman has drawn Kyle Schwarber comparisons for his combination of massive raw power and a fly-ball-heavy approach, though the swing-and-miss remains a real question for the hit tool long-term.

The Top 25 players in this week’s updated RotoProspects Top 700 Prospect Rankings

The Top 50 can be found HERE (no subscription required). For the complete list, CLICK HERE (subscription required).

Fresh Cleats is our running look at the players stepping into the batter’s box — or back onto the mound — for the first time, whether that’s a true big-league debut or a hard-earned second chance. New face, new chapter, same question every time for fantasy baseball owners: is this the one that sticks?

Thirty-seven months. That’s how long it took Walker Jenkins to go from being drafted fifth overall to actually playing in a big-league game — an eternity by modern top-prospect standards, and a path that included three straight seasons interrupted by injury before he ever got the call.

He got it Friday night, batting ninth and playing center field against the White Sox at Target Field, with the Twins in genuine playoff peril and Byron Buxton nursing a hip injury that opened the door. Jenkins picked up his first career hit, a knock that put two runners on with nobody out — the kind of moment a player waits three years for. Minnesota still lost, 7-4, in a game that got away from them early. Baseball doesn’t care how long you waited; it cares whether the team wins that night. It didn’t. But the story of how Jenkins got here is worth telling regardless.

The prospect who was supposed to arrive years ago

Jenkins came out of South Brunswick High School in Southport, North Carolina, regarded as the best prep hitter the state had produced since Josh Hamilton went No. 1 overall in 1999. Minnesota took him fifth overall in 2023 — winners of the inaugural MLB Draft Lottery — and signed him for a full-slot $7.14 million bonus. The pro debut was exactly what you’d hope: a .988 OPS in 26 games across two levels right out of the gate.

Then the injuries started. A hamstring issue cost him two months in his first full season; he still managed 82 games across four levels, hitting .282/.394/.439 with more walks than strikeouts — advanced feel for the strike zone at an age when most hitters are still guessing. The next spring brought an ankle injury that limited him to just two Double-A games before a cortisone shot and a lengthy IL stint. Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers, who trains alongside him in the offseason, was raving about Jenkins’s makeup and physical gifts as early as 2024 — “genetically way above where any other 19-year-old is,” in Jeffers’s words — but the on-field track record kept getting interrupted before it could fully back that up. He slid from a preseason No. 3 overall prospect ranking down to No. 6, then further, purely on lost games rather than lost tools.

This year brought one more injury scare — an AC joint sprain in his left shoulder cost him more time — but what happened once he got back on the field is the actual headline. Jenkins hit .308/.407/.532 with 12 home runs and 17 steals across 69 games at Triple-A St. Paul, and then, in August specifically, something clicked that hadn’t shown up before: eight home runs in 18 games, including three multi-homer performances after zero in his entire career to that point. He entered his debut hitting .411 with a 1.283 OPS for the month — the kind of stretch that makes a front office stop worrying about service time and start worrying about wins.

The scouting report

RotoProspects has Jenkins ranked No. 3 overall in our latest Top 700. Our grades on him, 20-80 scale: 70 Hit / 50 Power / 55 Speed / 65 Future Value. A 70 hit tool is about as rare a grade as this sport hands out — true 80-grade-adjacent bat-to-ball skill that public evaluators have echoed for years, and a 65 FV puts him firmly in perennial-All-Star territory if the health holds up.

Hit — 70: Elite, full stop. This has been the carrying tool of the profile since high school, when scouts were already comparing him to Josh Hamilton on pure bat-to-ball ability. The swing produces hard, consistent contact to all fields, and even through three injury-shortened seasons, the plate discipline never wavered — he’s walked more than he’s struck out at multiple levels, a rare feat for a hitter this young.

Power — 50: Average on our card, which may undersell what August suggested. Jenkins managed just six homers in his first 74 games at Triple-A this year before hitting eight in his next 18 — a real, visible power spike that coincided with better pitch selection rather than a mechanical overhaul. A 50 is a fair, conservative grade given the track record; it’s also the number most likely to move if the August version turns out to be the real one.

Speed — 55: Above-average, and it shows up as much in the field as on the bases. Seventeen steals this year plus strong defensive reports in center — MLB Pipeline has separately praised his instincts and routes — round out a genuinely well-rounded athlete, not just a bat waiting for a defensive home.

Future Value — 65: Squarely in perennial All-Star range, the kind of grade normally reserved for one of the very best prospects in the sport — which, on our board at No. 3 overall, he is. The only question mark left is health: three straight seasons shortened by injury is a real pattern, not bad luck, and it’s the one variable that could keep a 70-hit, well-rounded five-tool talent from just being really good rather than genuinely great.

The debut: a taste of the good, a reminder of the stakes

The circumstances around Friday’s game underlined exactly how much pressure Jenkins was walking into. Minnesota entered the night four games out of a Wild Card spot and 6½ back of the division-leading White Sox, fresh off a disastrous road trip, with 15 straight games against AL Central opponents looming. This wasn’t a low-stakes September look — it was a team fighting for its season, hoping a 21-year-old fresh off Triple-A could be part of the answer immediately.

It didn’t start well for Minnesota. Chicago and Dean Kremer traded big innings early, with the White Sox eventually pulling ahead for good. Jenkins’s moment came in that stretch: his first major league hit, a clean knock that put runners on first and second with no one out — instant proof that the swing translates, even if nobody drove those runners in behind him. He finished his debut without a highlight-reel moment attached, but with the far more important box: he belongs.

Jenkins’s own pregame comments framed the night better than any box score could: “I’m a big leaguer now. It’s an incredible thought,” he said, describing what he expected to feel standing for the national anthem for the first time. After 37 months, three interrupted seasons, and a scorching final month that finally forced the issue, the emotion clearly wasn’t manufactured for the cameras.

The verdict: One hit and a 7-4 loss isn’t the storybook debut some were picturing given the .411 average he carried in from St. Paul, but for a player whose whole prospect profile is built on hit-tool patience over instant power, a clean single that put two runners on is a perfectly on-brand first big-league moment. The Twins didn’t call him up to save one game — they called him up because their season is on the line and they believe the bat that’s been the best in baseball at times over three interrupted years is finally ready to show up on schedule.

Game two: the good is already showing up, the wins still aren’t

Saturday brought more of the same encouraging pattern — for Jenkins, not for the Twins. He doubled, drove in his first career run on an RBI groundout, and swiped his first professional stolen base, three real building blocks in a single game. Minnesota still lost, 3-2, in a game that turned almost entirely on one swing from the other dugout: Chicago’s Andrew Benintendi went 3-for-3 with a tie-breaking home run, meaning the entire Twins pitching staff allowed exactly three hits all night and all three belonged to the same guy. That’s the kind of loss that has nothing to do with a rookie center fielder and everything to do with one hot bat wearing the wrong uniform.

The bigger picture keeps getting grimmer for Minnesota regardless of what Jenkins does individually — the loss was their seventh in eight games, and the Twins now sit a season-worst 7½ games out of first in the AL Central, with the Wild Card picture sliding further away by the night. Jenkins is doing exactly what was asked of him: reaching base, using the whole field, showing off the speed that’s part of the profile. It’s just increasingly clear that no single 21-year-old, however talented, was ever going to be enough to single-handedly reverse a slide this deep on his own.

The updated verdict: Two games in, Jenkins has a hit, a walk, a double, an RBI, and a stolen base — a genuinely encouraging start by any measure, and exactly the kind of well-rounded production the 70-hit, 65-FV profile promised. What hasn’t shown up yet is a win, and that’s now squarely on the rest of the roster, not the rookie. The individual story remains exactly what it was after Friday: a legitimately great talent finally healthy and finally performing at the level scouts always believed was in there. The team story is a different, much more urgent problem — and it’s one Jenkins alone was never going to be able to solve.

Quick distinction before this one gets going: Wednesday night wasn’t technically Elmer Rodríguez‘s MLB debut — that happened back on April 29 against Texas. But what he did against Houston at Yankee Stadium was, in every way that matters, a much better story: a career-best outing in his return to the rotation, exactly when New York needed it most.

The Yankees’ message to Rodríguez ahead of his fifth career start was simple — find the swagger that got him here, and trust that his stuff belongs. He did that over a career-high six-plus innings, calling it “one of my best starts,” and Cody Bellinger backed him up with a go-ahead, bases-loaded double as New York rallied for a 9-3 win over the Astros. Not bad for a guy who was optioned back to Scranton just three months earlier after a rough first go-round.

The path: a Puerto Rico product with a fastball that jumped

Rodríguez was drafted out of Leadership Christian Academy in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, by the Boston Red Sox in the fourth round (105th overall) of the 2021 draft. He spent his early pro years as a name in Boston’s system before the Yankees acquired him in December 2024, sending catcher Carlos Narváez to Boston in a trade that also included international bonus pool money — the kind of secondary prospect swap that barely makes headlines until the pitcher involved turns into a top-100 arm.

That’s exactly what happened. In 2025, split across High-A Hudson Valley, Double-A Somerset and Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Rodríguez went 11-8 with a 2.58 ERA and 176 strikeouts over 150 innings — the second-most strikeouts of any minor leaguer in baseball, behind only the Mets’ Jonah Tong. Opponents hit .192 against him. Baseball America ranked him as the game’s No. 59 overall prospect and the Yankees’ No. 2, and the honors kept stacking up: Yankees Minor League Player of the Year, a spot on the 40-man roster to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft, and a selection to pitch for Puerto Rico in the 2026 World Baseball Classic — a full-circle moment for a kid drafted out of the same country he’d now be representing on a global stage, pitching alongside All-Stars Nolan Arenado and Willi Castro.

The Yankees called him up for his actual debut on April 29 against Texas. It didn’t go badly, exactly — four innings, two runs, three strikeouts, a loss in a 3-0 game — but the shaky command scouts had flagged showed up immediately: four walks in that first start alone. Over his first four big-league outings, Rodríguez walked 11 batters against just 10 strikeouts in 17 innings, and New York optioned him back to Triple-A in early May once Carlos Rodón was ready to return.

He didn’t sulk about it. Back at Scranton, Rodríguez kept dealing — a career highlight came in early August when he struck out seven over seven scoreless innings to continue what the org was calling a Triple-A tear, part of a stretch of three straight starts allowing two earned runs or fewer with zero walks. When Ryan Weathers went down with a forearm injury in late August, the Yankees didn’t hesitate to give him a second look.

The scouting report

RotoProspects has Rodríguez ranked No. 135 overall in our latest Top 700. Our grades on him, 20-80 scale: 55 Fastball / 50 Slider / 50 Changeup / 45 Future Value. That’s a solid, unspectacular three-pitch mix without a true plus offering — the kind of profile that leans on execution and sequencing more than one dominant weapon, which lines up well with the swing between his shaky first stint and Wednesday’s outing: when the command is on, the stuff plays; when it isn’t, hitters get to sit on one of three fairly hittable pitches.

Fastball — 55: Above-average, and it’s climbed as he’s developed — sitting mid-90s with late life and touching as high as 99 mph. It’s the clear foundation of the arsenal, but a 55 (not a 60-plus) suggests the carrying trait here is life and deception more than pure dominance.

Slider — 50: Average. Public reports have occasionally flashed it as a plus pitch, but a 50 on our card says it’s more of a solid complementary weapon than a true out-pitch — which tracks with a guy who’s had to lean on all four quadrants of his mix rather than one bat-missing breaking ball.

Changeup — 50: Also average, and notably the pitch scouts have flagged as his most improved against left-handed hitters. A 50 grade on a changeup for a hard-throwing righty is a legitimately useful piece — enough to keep opposite-handed bats honest without needing to be a wipeout offering.

Future Value — 45: Below-average-to-average, translating to a fringe rotation piece or a good multi-inning reliever if things don’t fully click. It’s a grade that reflects real swing risk in both directions — the ceiling scouts once dreamed on (176 strikeouts across three levels, a near-perfect strikeout-to-walk ratio in his best minor league stretches) hasn’t yet been the version showing up consistently in the majors, and a 45 says the jury’s still out on which Elmer Rodríguez sticks. Wednesday’s start is exactly the kind of evidence that could start moving that number in the right direction.

The return: trouble early, dominance late

Rodríguez’s second stint didn’t open cleanly. With two outs in the first inning, a defensive misplay by Trent Grisham let Isaac Paredes score from first on what should have been a routine play — the kind of moment that could unravel a pitcher trying to prove he belongs. Instead, Rodríguez settled in and shut the door: six-plus innings, three runs on three hits, six strikeouts, just two walks, 88 pitches. Paul Blackburn came on and stranded a bases-loaded jam, and the Yankees bullpen — which had struggled the night before — rebounded behind him.

The Yankees’ offense made sure the story had a happy ending. Ben Rice opened the scoring with a solo homer, George Lombard Jr. added a run on a groundout, and New York blew the game open with four runs in the seventh, capped by Cody Bellinger’s go-ahead, bases-loaded double. Final score: Yankees 9, Astros 3 — evening the series and pulling New York within 3.5 games of Tampa Bay in the AL East race, while Boston’s own loss that night kept the Yankees ahead in the Wild Card picture too.

Rodríguez’s own read on the turnaround was straightforward: “It was just trusting myself. It’s something that I’ve been building up since my first couple of starts, and so each time I’ve felt better.” A far cry from a guy who was walking the ballpark back in May.

The verdict: This wasn’t a debut, but it might have been more meaningful than one — a legitimately talented arm proving his rough first stint was a stepping stone, not a ceiling. The command question that got him sent down is the same one that got answered on Wednesday, and if it sticks, the Yankees may have just found a real weapon for the stretch run. One start doesn’t erase 11 walks in 17 innings from April — but it’s the best evidence yet that the version worth watching is the one wearing pinstripes in August, not the one that got demoted in May.

Welcome to the #22 installment of our Weekly Hot Prospects Report ranking the top minor-league performances from the week ending August 23. We’re back with this week’s top performers making waves across the minors—and this week’s trio at the top is stacked with rising stars who are soaring up the fantasy baseball rankings, headlined by a teenage DSL slugger putting up video-game numbers. 

Fantasy baseball owners, take note. CLICK HERE to check out the full list, with ETAs and updated statistics (subscription required).

This edition is loaded — a Triple-A veteran flirted with a six-homer week, a High-A arm threw a near-perfect complete game, and the Top 10 stretches from Single-A all the way up to the doorstep of the majors.

The Top Five

1. Ralphy Velazquez (1B, CLE, AAA)

Velazquez’s (pictured above) week was as complete as it gets: a 1.773 OPS with 6 homers and 12 RBIs, going 10-for-22 at the highest level of the minors. Production like this at Triple-A, with a 2026 ETA already attached, puts him firmly on the doorstep of the majors.

2. Daniel Brooks (SPRP, ATL, High-A)

The week’s most dominant pitching performance, hands down. Brooks tossed 9.1 innings across two starts, allowing just 4 hits with an eye-popping 16-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio and a microscopic 0.55 WHIP.

3. Seaver King (SS, WAS, AAA)

King backed up his prospect pedigree with a 1.548 OPS week that included 4 homers, 10 RBIs, and 3 stolen bases, going 11-for-25. A five-tool showing from one of the more well-known infield prospects in the minors.

4. Walker Jenkins (OF, MIN, AAA)

Jenkins matched King blow for blow: a 1.700 OPS with 4 homers, 7 RBIs, and 3 steals, going 10-for-20. Two Triple-A outfielders/infielders both flashing power and speed in the same week is a great sign for either dynasty roster.

5. Jake Casey (OF, TOR, High-A)

Casey’s 1.487 OPS week featured a week-leading 13 RBIs, 4 homers, and 2 stolen bases, going 9-for-23. The counting stats here are as good as anyone’s this week outside the top four.

Other Pitchers Who Were Lights-Out

The zeroes piled up everywhere this week. Ryan Sloan (SP, SEA, AA) struck out 11 without issuing a single walk over 5 innings. Liomar Martinez (SP, MIA, High-A) was nearly perfect, allowing just 1 hit with a 9-0 K-BB mark and a 0.17 WHIP. Keyner Martinez and Argenis Cayama, both in the Single-A San Francisco system, each posted 0.00 ERAs with sub-0.25 WHIPs.

Also dealing this week: Jamie Arnold (SP, ATH, AA), who struck out 9 without a walk over 6 innings; Luis Gamez (SPRP, LAD, complex-league), who fanned 12 across two starts totaling 9 innings; and Anthony Eyanson (SP, BAL, AA), who struck out 8 batters without issuing a walk. Rounding out a deep week on the mound: Justin West and Cade Smith, two Yankees system arms both sitting at a 0.33 WHIP, plus Liam Doyle, Junior Sanchez, and Reinold Navarro, all keeping WHIPs at or below 0.71 with strong strikeout numbers.

Other Hitters Who Dominated

Beyond the top five, the bats never stopped. Tony Blanco Jr. (OF, PIT, High-A) posted a 1.806 OPS — the highest mark on the entire board — with 4 homers and 7 RBIs. Rainiel Rodriguez (C, STL, AA) went a ridiculous 14-for-24 with 3 homers and zero strikeouts. Carson Tinney (C, MIN, Single-A), Broedy Poppell (C, SF, Single-A), and Daniel Jackson (C, COL, Single-A) all cleared a 1.600 OPS, giving catcher-needy dynasty leagues plenty of names to track.

Further down the list but no less impressive: Dylan Campbell and Carlos Jimenez both topped a 1.450 OPS at AA and High-A, respectively; Robert Calaz and Damian Bravo each hit 4 homers on the week; and Avery Owusu-Asiedu, Jesus Baez, Gavin Turley, and Brandon Compton rounded out a group of AA hitters all north of a 1.100 OPS. It was, across the board, one of the deepest offensive weeks we’ve tracked this season.

The Top 10 in the Weekly Hot Prospects Report

From dominant arms to scorching-hot bats, here are the Top 10 prospects below who turned heads and boosted their stock. CLICK HERE to check out the full list, with ETAs and updated statistics (subscription required).

Fresh Cleats is our running look at the players stepping into the batter’s box — or back onto the mound — for the first time, whether that’s a true big-league debut or a hard-earned second chance. New face, new chapter, same question every time for fantasy baseball owners: is this the one that sticks?

There’s hype, and then there’s whatever this is.

Saturday night at T-Mobile Park, on national TV, in front of a sellout crowd, against a Cubs lineup that leads all of baseball in OPS against left-handed pitching, Kade Anderson makes his major league debut. No gentle welcome, no soft landing in a rebuilding market against a last-place team — just the best pitching prospect in baseball, thrown directly into the deep end of a playoff race, thirteen months after LSU fans were chanting his name in Omaha.

If that sounds like a lot to put on a 22-year-old making his first big-league start, that’s because it is. But if there’s one player in this sport’s minor leagues who’s looked entirely unbothered by pressure all year, it’s this one. Let’s get into how he got here.

From a torn elbow to a national championship

Anderson’s path wasn’t a straight line to stardom — it detoured through a surgeon’s table first. At St. Paul’s School in Covington, Louisiana, he was 28-1 with a 0.22 ERA and 212 strikeouts before Tommy John surgery in April of his junior year wiped out his senior season and any shot at being drafted out of high school. He landed at LSU instead — “I’ve been wearing LSU clothes since I was a baby,” he said after the draft — where a modest freshman year (3.99 ERA, 59 strikeouts in 38⅓ innings) gave zero indication of what was coming next.

What came next was one of the great individual seasons in college baseball history. As a sophomore in 2025, Anderson went 12-1 with a 3.18 ERA and led the nation with 180 strikeouts in 119 innings, was named First-Team All-American, First-Team All-SEC, and Baseball America’s College Pitcher of the Year, then took over the College World Series entirely — 2-0, a 0.56 ERA, 17 strikeouts in 16 innings, and a complete-game shutout in the CWS finals to beat Coastal Carolina and deliver LSU’s eighth national title. He was named Most Outstanding Player of the tournament, becoming the answer to a trivia question he’ll get asked for the rest of his career.

Seattle took him third overall in the 2025 draft and signed him for a reported $8.8 million — the kind of bonus that comes with real organizational expectations attached, not just prospect-hype expectations.

The 2026 season that broke projection systems

The Mariners shut Anderson down after signing him, skipping the Fall League entirely in favor of rest, then assigned him directly to Double-A Arkansas to open his first full pro season — an aggressive placement for a college arm with all of zero professional innings. He made it look conservative almost immediately, striking out six over four scoreless innings in his pro debut.

The full season was a demolition. Across 18 starts, Anderson went 10-1 with a 1.06 ERA and a 0.64 WHIP, striking out 135 batters against just 13 walks in 93⅓ innings — numbers that, as ESPN’s fantasy baseball desk put it, broke most projection systems built on age-adjusted minor league equivalencies. He didn’t allow more than two earned runs in a start after May. The Mariners kept him at Double-A all year rather than bumping him to the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League at Triple-A Tacoma, preferring to protect the numbers (and the arm) rather than chase an unnecessary challenge.

Mariners director of player development Justin Toole summed up what makes Anderson different from most hyped arms: “The cool thing with Kade is, despite how high our expectations are for him, just in terms of the Mariners’ standards of pitching, his own expectations and standards are higher… He’s chasing almost being perfect, and I think that’s his bar.”

By August, with Bryan Woo dealing with shoulder discomfort and Seattle fighting for a Wild Card spot, president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto made the call explicit: “We’re not going to put Kade in the bullpen. He’s the best starting pitcher in the minor leagues.” Anderson becomes the first player from the 2025 draft class to reach the majors — a full year ahead of schedule by prospect-development standards, and right on schedule by his own.

The scouting report

RotoProspects has Anderson ranked No. 9 overall in our latest Top 700. Our grades on him, 20-80 scale: 55 Fastball / 60 Slider / 60 Curveball / 45 Changeup / 60 Future Value. That’s a notably different shape than the industry-consensus read on him — where public grades tend to lead with the fastball/changeup combo, our card has the two breaking balls doing the heavy lifting, with a 60 FV that puts him in true frontline-starter territory regardless of which secondary ends up carrying the profile.

Fastball — 55: Above-average rather than elite, which tracks with a pitch that sits 92-94 and touches 97 — good, not overpowering, velocity for a top-of-the-draft arm. The pitch plays up because of everything around it: exceptional command, a deep secondary mix, and hitters never quite sure which quadrant it’s landing in.

Slider — 60: Plus, and on our card the true out-pitch. A sharp, high-80s breaker that’s given same-handed and opposite-handed hitters equal trouble all year — the pitch most likely to be the one that finishes at-bats once he starts climbing levels of competition.

Curveball — 60: Also plus, an old-school “Uncle Charlie” with real depth. Having two distinct plus breaking balls, not just one plus pitch and a show-me second offering, is what gives this profile its ace-level ceiling — it means there’s no predictable pattern for a lineup to lock onto the second time through the order.

Changeup — 45: Below-average on our grades, which is the most notable divergence from the public narrative built around a “fading changeup” that’s given right-handers fits. It may simply be underdeveloped relative to a fastball/breaking-ball combo that’s this far ahead of it — not uncommon for a college arm who leaned on velocity and spin more than feel in shorter starts.

Future Value — 60: Comfortably in frontline-starter range — a No. 1/2 starter ceiling with a very high floor given the command already on display in pro ball (13 walks in 93⅓ innings). It’s the kind of grade that shows up rarely, and it’s earned: elite performance at every stop, against increasingly difficult competition, without a single real hiccup yet.

The debut

Anderson takes the mound tonight against a Cubs lineup that’s been one of the best offensive units in baseball all season, led by Pete Crow-Armstrong (fresh off a two-homer night Friday) and Kyle Tucker. It’s about as difficult a first opponent as the Mariners could have scheduled — but as SI’s Mariners beat put it, four or five competitive innings would already be a perfectly good debut, and the real evaluation is less about the final line than about how he responds the first time something goes wrong.

Through six innings: Anderson’s leash was longer than expected. He worked into the sixth with a one-run lead, backed by a heads-up 5-3-4 double play off the bat of Weston Wilson and Josh Naylor that erased a Pete Crow-Armstrong leadoff double — the kind of play that keeps a rookie’s outing intact. Randy Arozarena also robbed a potential Miguel Amaya homer with a glove that went completely over the left-field fence back in the third. Anderson was one out away from his first quality start when the wheels came off fast: back-to-back solo homers to Alex Bregman and Michael Busch on consecutive pitches flipped the game and ended his day. Dan Wilson went to the bullpen, bringing in Carlos Vargas — making his own season debut after nearly four months out with a lat strain — who promptly allowed back-to-back doubles that pushed the score to 4-2.

Final line: 5⅔ innings, 5 hits, 3 earned runs, 2 walks, 5 strikeouts — 3 earned runs on the day, with the sixth-inning homers doing the real damage. He touched 72 pitches through the sixth, just shy of his 80-pitch season high at Double-A, and worked into unfamiliar territory: the third time through the Cubs’ order, historically one of the toughest stretches for any starter (MLB average OPS the third time through is .744; against Mariners starters specifically, .758).

The moment: A first-inning strikeout of Bregman on a changeup, capping a full eight-pitch battle, showed exactly why scouts fell in love with the arsenal. The disappointment, when it came, came fast and specific — two pitches, two homers, one shift in outcome.

The comeback: The Mariners answered late to secure the win and send Anderson’s debut out on a winning note.

The verdict: Anderson’s final line — 3 ER over nearly six innings against the sport’s best offense, with swing-and-miss stuff on full display in the good stretches — is a genuinely strong debut by any normal standard, undercut only by the two pitches that got away in his final frame. MLB.com’s framing captured it well: not a disappointing debut, but one the “uber competitive” Anderson will look back on wishing he’d finished stronger. For context on the stakes: this is a player the Mariners let ride into a playoff race, on a Fox national broadcast, against a Cubs lineup that mashes lefties — and he held his own against it for five-plus innings as a 22-year-old making his first career start. That’s a foundation to build from, not a red flag.

We update our fantasy baseball Top 700 Prospect Rankings weekly, and we keep track of the prospects who are rising the quickest to let fantasy baseball owners know which names are gaining steam before the rest of their league catches on. Below is this week’s power ranking of the 10 fastest risers, measured by percentage climb in the rankings.

The Power Risers: A power ranking of the fastest risers

Here’s our power ranking of the Top 10 fastest risers in this week’s update of the Top 700 Prospect Rankings. The entire list of the fastest risers, which includes the player’s major-league ETA, number of spots moved up and current new position in the Top 700, can be found HERE (subscription required).

1. Won-Bin Cho, OF, STL, Age 22
The biggest riser on the board, and one of the best stories in the minors. Cho (pictured above) spent much of the last two seasons lying awake wondering if he was about to be released — the first amateur free agent the Cardinals signed out of South Korea back in 2022. Now he’s the fastest-climbing prospect in our Top 700. After eight homers and a .269 average in 56 games at Peoria, his promotion to Springfield triggered a power surge — nine homers in his first 12 Double-A games, with his season total already matching his entire pre-2026 career output. He also has to be added to the 40-man roster this winter or be exposed in the Rule 5 draft, which makes the timing of this breakout awfully convenient. Buy in every dynasty format.

2. Zac Veen, OF, COL, Age 24
Second straight week on this list for Veen, and the second straight week he’s earned it. The former ninth overall pick is in the majors, playing in Coors, with 55-grade speed still intact and a reworked approach that finally got the power into games. Post-hype value doesn’t get much cleaner than this.

3. Dixon Williams, 2B/3B, ATL, Age 22
The single loudest weekend any hitter in the minors has had this year. On Saturday he went 4-for-5 with two homers and 10 RBI, becoming the first player outside the Complex Leagues with a 10-RBI game since 2024; on Sunday he followed with a 4-for-6, three-homer, six-RBI encore. Over the two games he went 8-for-11 with five homers, 16 RBIs and 24 total bases — no major leaguer has homered five times with 16 RBI in a two-game span since RBIs became a stat in 1920. The context matters, though: Williams is hitting .352/.419/.815 in August after not clearing a .225 average or .400 slugging in any month since April. One weekend doesn’t rebuild a profile, but it earned him a real look.

4. Joshua Baez, OF, STL, Age 23
Three home runs in his major league debut, the first player in MLB history to do it. He’s now No. 11 overall on our board and a must-roster asset in every format.

5. Francisco Renteria, OF, PHI, Age 17
A 17-year-old in the DSL carrying a 65 FV with 60-hit/65-power/60-speed. The 2029 ETA scares off the impatient. That’s exactly the point.

6. Santiago Solarte, SS, MIA, Age 17
Another 17-year-old DSL bat, this one with a 2030 arrival date. Pure lottery ticket, but Miami’s international pipeline has earned some benefit of the doubt. Deep dynasty only.

7. Seaver King, SS, WAS, Age 23
70-grade speed at Triple-A with a 2026 ETA. King is close, and Washington’s infield has openings.

8. Enddy Azocar, OF, BAL, Age 19
A 19-year-old holding his own at High-A with a 55-power/50-speed blend. Quietly one of the more balanced age-relative-to-level profiles in the Orioles system.

9. Ronny Cruz, SS, WAS, Age 19
The second Nationals riser in three spots. Cruz has been one of the hottest bats in the minors this month, showing a much more discerning eye and stringing multi-hit games together for Wilmington.

10. Xavier Isaac, 1B, TB, Age 22
The strikeout rate has collapsed from nearly 30% to 15% in August while the 60-power kept playing. That’s the swing-change signal dynasty managers wait years for.

This week’s Top 10 Power Risers at a glance

As we roll out our latest update to the RotoProspects Top 700 Prospect fantasy baseball rankings, let’s dive into the key updates surrounding the top-ranked prospects this week.

Cardinals’ Joshua Baez storms up near the Top 10 after the most explosive debut in MLB history

Baez (pictured above) didn’t just get called up this week — he authored a page in the record book. Cardinals manager Oli Marmol announced on August 14 that Báez would be promoted for the first time, and he made his debut the following day as St. Louis’ starting left fielder against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. He became the first player in MLB history to hit three home runs in his debut, going 3-for-4 with five RBIs in an 8-4 win. Cubs lefty Matthew Boyd challenged him with a 93.4 mph fastball up in the zone on the very first big-league pitch he saw, and Báez launched it a projected 449 feet to dead center at 108.6 mph off the bat. All three homers came off Boyd.

The production wasn’t a bolt from the blue, either. At the time of his call-up he had played 103 games for Triple-A Memphis with a .256 average, 34 home runs, and 90 RBI — a total that led all of Triple-A in homers prior to his debut. That’s the 65-power grade showing up in games, and paired with 60-grade speed (he swiped 54 bags in 2025) you’re looking at a genuinely rare three-category major leaguer.

The obvious caveat: Báez followed the historic debut by going 1-for-21 with eight strikeouts — no reason to panic, but a reminder that he’s a young bat who has worked through swing-and-miss issues for years. We’re comfortable with the 55-hit grade capping things where they are, but a full-time corner-outfield role in St. Louis alongside Jordan Walker makes him a must-roster asset in every dynasty format down the stretch.

Rays’ Xavier Isaac surges 63 spots on a genuinely different-looking August

Isaac (No. 137) is the best comeback story in the minors, and now the bat has caught all the way up to the narrative. He hadn’t played since June 25, 2025, when he was lifted from a Double-A Montgomery game with dehydration; days later a brain scan revealed a tumor and he underwent emergency surgery. That he’s playing at all is remarkable. That he’s slugging like a top-100 prospect again is the part fantasy managers need to act on.

The August surge has been staggering. This month marks the third time Isaac has hit six homers in a month, but unlike the previous two, he’s doing it without the strikeouts that usually came with the power — his August strikeout rate sits at 15%, way down from the 29.7% mark he carried into the month. That is the entire ballgame for a first-base-only profile. The 60-power was never in question; the contact was. He was also closing in on his first 20/20 season earlier in the month, and he’s a surprisingly capable runner for his size.

At 22 in Double-A, Isaac still projects as a 2027 arrival, and the platoon risk against lefties hasn’t fully gone away. But post-hype windows close fast, and this one is closing. If a manager in your league bailed on him during the down stretch, this is your last cheap week.

Phillies’ Francisco Renteria rockets into the Top 100 as a 17-year-old in the DSL

Renteria (No. 89) is the biggest pure-upside move we made this week, and the one we’d defend hardest. He is 17 years old, playing in the Dominican Summer League, with an ETA of 2029 — and he carries a 65 FV on our board, a grade shared by only a handful of players in the entire Top 700. The 60-hit/65-power/60-speed line is about as loud a triple-threat projection as exists at his age.

The scouting community is catching on quickly. He’s hitting .379/.472/.687 with 11 home runs and 24 steals in 52 games, and his August has been even better — a .459/.583/1.027 line across 11 games this month. Baseball America noted this week that while Renteria’s underlying data isn’t quite at the level of Royals outfielder Angeibel Gomez’s, it’s not far off, and Renteria hits the ball even harder. Gomez sits at No. 32 on our board, which tells you where Renteria’s ceiling lives if the swing decisions keep trending.

This is a patience play in its purest form — three-plus years from the majors, in a league where statistical noise is the norm. But in deep dynasty formats with expansive minor-league rosters, getting a 65 FV at 17 before the mainstream lists move him is exactly how you win a decade-long league.

Notable Faller: Nationals’ Jackson Kent slides 41 spots as the big-league look goes sideways

Kent (No. 180, down from No. 139) got his shot in Washington’s rotation and the stuff simply hasn’t held. The 23-year-old lefty’s profile was always built on command and a plus changeup rather than swing-and-miss velocity, and against major-league lineups the 40-grade curveball has been a genuine liability — hitters are sitting on the fastball-changeup pairing and doing damage. A 45 FV leaves essentially no margin for error, and the results have exposed how thin that margin was.

The path back exists, but it’s narrow: Kent needs a real third pitch to survive a second time through big-league orders, and until we see one, he profiles closer to a back-end starter or swingman than a rotation piece worth rostering in anything but the deepest formats. In leagues of 16 teams or fewer, he’s droppable.

The Top 25 players in this week’s updated RotoProspects Top 700 Prospect Rankings

The Top 50 can be found HERE (no subscription required). For the complete list, CLICK HERE (subscription required).

Also worth watching

Brandon Compton (MIA, No. 189, up from 256), Bryan Rincon (PHI, No. 117, up from 164), George Klassen (LAA, No. 176, up from 216), Ronny Cruz (WAS, No. 79, up from 117), Zac Veen (COL, No. 57, up from 94), Enddy Azocar (BAL, No. 68, up from 101), and Seaver King (WAS, No. 58, up from 90) all posted notable climbs this week and are worth a look in deeper dynasty formats.

Cruz in particular has been one of the hottest hitters in the minors this month, showing a more discerning eye at the plate while stringing together three straight multi-hit games this week for Wilmington.