Keith Law’s top 2026 prospects. Plus: Catch up with the Angels’ new hitting coach

The Windup Newsletter ⚾ | This is The Athletic’s MLB newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Windup directly in your inbox.

It’s a special day in baseball’s offseason calendar: Keith Law’s 2026 top 100 prospects list is here — and so is Keith, to tell you about it himself. Welcome to The Windup!

Top 100: What to know about 2026 prospect rankings

I’ve been writing about prospects for nearly 20 years now, and over that time, that whole world has changed in more ways than I can count. Players have gotten bigger, faster and stronger, and they throw several miles an hour harder. We’ve had a data-driven revolution that started when I worked with the Blue Jays but truly picked up speed in the last 10 years, with no end to its effects on the sport anywhere in sight, leading to new pitches, swing changes, delivery changes and even players learning to run faster.

Major League Baseball decided to strangle the goose that lays its golden eggs by eliminating short-season baseball, pushing many teenage prospects to Low A before they’re ready. There’s video everywhere of players, down to the Dominican Summer League. Twenty years ago, I didn’t have enough information. Today, I think I have too much.

This year’s prospect rankings package reflects all of the information I was able to synthesize, including my own looks at players, video work, data and, most importantly, collecting the opinions of the scouts and executives around the game whom I respect and who are kind enough to share their thoughts with me.

The minors aren’t in great shape right now, the result of the epidemic of torn UCLs (requiring Tommy John surgery), the loss of those 42 minor-league teams in the low minors and major-league teams moving players to the big leagues more aggressively, but there is still a slew of potential stars across minor-league baseball, highlighted by the most exciting No. 1 overall prospect we’ve had in a decade, Pittsburgh’s Konnor Griffin:

Griffin was the Pirates’ first-round pick in 2024, out of Jackson Prep in Mississippi. The 6-foot-4, 225-pound Griffin is a superb athlete whose ability to hit decent pitching was the biggest question everyone had about him before the draft.
He raked at three levels last year, reaching Double A at age 19, passing Detroit’s Kevin McGonigle (another high school draftee) and Milwaukee’s 18-year-old wunderkind Jesús Made.

Those three rank atop my list, and they make up half of the shortstops in my top 10, as that’s the strength of the minors right now. That’s where the best prospects often start out, moving to less difficult positions from there as they grow or are pushed off by superior defenders.

As strong as the minors are with position players up the middle, there’s a real paucity of pitching right now, unfortunately. They break, they throw hard, but they don’t throw strikes; occasionally, they throw strikes but don’t throw hard enough, and teams don’t let them pitch as much because everyone is so afraid of them getting hurt. It’s a systemic problem that isn’t going away, and the sport will have to reckon with it down to the youth level if it’s going to change.

There is a number of prospects on this list who’ve already debuted in the majors, as I use rookie eligibility as my cutoff for consideration as a prospect. Once a player has passed the thresholds for rookie status — 130 AB, 50 IP or 45 days on the major-league roster — then he has “graduated” and, like Fredo, he’s dead to me.

The top 100 is just the beginning of my prospect rankings, and it’s worth noting, as I do every year, that a prospect’s omission from that list isn’t a statement that he’s not good — there are more than 100 prospects in the minors, and some guys off the list will end up stars because they reach their ultimate ceilings or make some significant changes to their bodies or mechanics or arsenals.

After this, I’ll have another story with a dozen guys who I considered for the top 100 but who didn’t make the cut, a ranking of all 30 farm systems and then individual rankings of the top 20 prospects for each team, along with a note on who might appear in the majors this year and a prospect I think could break out in 2026.

Peruse (and bookmark) the full 100 here.

Over to Ken now for a check-in with a familiar name.

Ken’s Notebook: Anderson lands first formal coaching job

As a player, Brady Anderson never imagined he might one day coach. But the three-time All-Star outfielder experienced something of a revelation in 2003, his last year in professional baseball, after the San Diego Padres released him in spring training. Rather than simply retire, Anderson surprised late Padres general manager Kevin Towers by asking if he could go to Triple A. Towers agreed, and Anderson relished his time with the Portland (Ore.) Beavers. For the first time, at age 39, he found himself serving as a mentor.

Years later, after rejoining the Orioles in his front-office role, Anderson gravitated not just to hitters but also to pitchers. “Seeing the potential in guys,” former Baltimore star Trey Mancini said, “they might not see in themselves.” The Orioles parted with Anderson after the 2019 season, Mike Elias’ first as head of baseball operations. But Anderson continued working with players on his own.

In 2024, he spent a week as an instructor with the Angels in spring training. The 62-year-old did not anticipate that, a little more than a year later, GM Perry Minasian would contact him about becoming the team’s hitting coach.

The idea gave Anderson pause.

“I know in these jobs, and in jobs in general, if you want to be good, it has to be your life’s obsession,” Anderson said. “That was the first question I asked myself: Am I ready to make this my life’s obsession? I quickly answered yes.”

Helping players improve, he said, is a driving force in his life.

Keith Law’s top 2026 prospects. Plus: Catch up with the Angels’ new hitting coach

Tags: