National prospect list season continued on Monday as Keith Law, prospect writer for The Athletic, dropped his new top 100 list. At this point you won’t be surprised to find three highly ranked Detroit Tigers prospects in his top 30. Max Clark continues to grade almost unanimously as the best all around outfield prospect in baseball, while Kevin McGonigle remains behind the Pirates’ Konnor Griffin as the second ranked prospect in baseball with the best hit tool of any player in the minor leagues.

Law’s intro does have some interesting points, namely that the top 100 at this point is very hitter heavy. There just aren’t many obvious, dominant pitching prospects who have already proven their ability to handle the workload around the game. He mainly cites injury as the cause, noting that as a result of the ever higher rates of injury that teams are pushing their pitching prospects along more and more carefully, focused more on stuff and control rather than on stretching them out, trying to save their workload until they reach the major leagues. In any case, this is reflected in the fact that there are a lot of talented pitching prospects with 45/45+ grades, but they just aren’t as proven enough to really draw certain top 100 level grades, and the demands and more limited workloads make it harder to gauge who might actually emerge to put up 3+ WAR seasons in the bigs.

The Tigers’ Troy Melton is a pretty good example of this. He’s super talented, but the lack of a good third pitch led most to keep him in those 45 tiers entering 2025, including us. Based on his production and outlook, that still seems like an accurate grade. But he’s clearly improved and has the potential to be a 3-4 level starter or possibily more if he commands his splitter more effectively in the coming years. We just don’t know how long it may be until he gets a chance to prove he can do it in a full-time starting role and those usage concerns nowadays make it trickier to forecast future value for pitchers unless the player is already an established stud starter in the upper levels prior to the next season.

None of that pitching development strategy really seems to be working out, however. The Tigers are uber cautious with workload, both in terms of overall innings, length of outings, and frequency of outings, rarely giving a starting pitching prospect two starts in a week’s time, and so far it isn’t doing them a bit of good.

Law has RHP Bubba Chandler of the Pirates as the top pitching prospect in baseball in the 14th spot, with the Mets RHP Nolan McLean behind him at 15. RHP Ryan Sloan of the Mariners is ranked 21st, with RHP Andrew Painter of the Phillies at 22. All together Law has just 12 pitchers in the top 50.

You can find the top 100 list with commentary here at The Athletic.

Law says: He’s an elite hitter for hard contact, pairing that with outstanding swing decisions, so the result is that he hits the ball in the air and pulls it a ton, getting to surprising power for a guy with more of a medium build and frame.

Law says: Clark has excellent bat speed and a very advanced eye at the plate, which combined to produce just an 18 percent whiff rate on the season, along with an 18 percent chase rate that dropped to 10 percent on pitches well out of the zone.

His MLB ceiling is as a plus defender with high OBPs and 18-22 homers a year, which is going to at least make him an All-Star and a big fan favorite.

Law says: When he played, he showed a bit of everything, with power (peaking at 111.6 mph EV, with a hard-hit rate over 52 percent), patience, plus defense and, at least before the injury, a plus-plus arm. He had no trouble with better velocity, hitting .333/.440/.476 last year off 94-plus mph in a sample of 80 pitches.

Law says: (at the Double-A level) He did still maintain his feel for the strike zone and continued to make plenty of contact in the zone (85 percent), so there’s reason to believe he’ll resume mashing with more reps at the level. It’s plus power already, even to the opposite field, as he understands how to hit the ball where it’s pitched…

Law says: He focused over the offseason on trying to change how he was making contact from getting on top of the ball to hitting it on the bottom half, and took off from the start of last season, with a .306/.358/.499 line in Double A in 90 games, then a .267/.327/.422 line in Triple A where he still had a 46 percent hard-hit rate. His production is almost entirely in his hit tool; he has average power, below-average patience and below-average speed, so he has to continue to post high contact rates given his lack of a current defensive position.

Overall the only thing in terms of the Tigers that hasn’t already been covered extensively is Max Anderson making the list. Law cites the defensive concerns we’ve brought up repeatedly the past two seasons, but is more optimistic that he’ll hit enough to make it as an everyday player. I continue to think his pitch selection and overall discipline is going to have to improve quite a bit, as major league pitchers aren’t going to have that much trouble getting the current version of Anderson swinging at pitchers’ pitches and getting him out on the ground.

Anderson does have good hands and makes plenty of contact. There’s just a lot of pressure on the bat to hit for power due to his lack of defensive utility, mostly because of his mediocre range. His fairly strong and accurate arm helps make up for it and will allow him to play back against hitters without the footspeed to beat out choppers and slower rollers hit his way. It’s nice to see some optimism for Anderson, and hopefully Law ends up being in the right on this one.