Five Former Top Prospects In Need Of a Change of Scenery
With the offseason getting underway, let's take a look at some former prospects who need a change of scenery ahead of the 2026 season.
Whether you are an individual fully devoted to Minor League Baseball, or even just a “casual” fan, the admiration for your favorite team’s prospects tends to loom large.
Every fanbase loves to look at its team’s top prospects list to see what the future of the organization looks like. The ugly part about this game is that not all progress is linear. Some of the prospects up at the very top of lists just don’t pan out, let alone even make their MLB debut.
As we enter the 2025 offseason, I want to highlight these five former top prospects who look to have exhausted their time on their current team and could use a fresh start somewhere else.
Jordan Walker (OF) – St. Louis Cardinals
- 2025 Stats (MLB): 111 G, 6 HR, 41 RBI, 10 SB, .215/.278/.306, 66 wRC+, -1.2 fWAR
- 2025 Stats (MiLB): 14 G, 2 HR, 9 RBI, 1 SB, .185/.267/.352, 67 wRC+
I believe that it is only right to start off an article about fresh starts with the one who needs it the most.
Jordan Walker had been a highly touted prospect for years before making his big league debut. The Cardinals were even willing to move him off of third base after the acquisition of Nolan Arenado just to make sure he had a spot on their major league roster.
Unfortunately, things just have not worked out for him.
Across three years in the big leagues, Walker has a career .240/.302/.378 slash line with just 27 home runs and a -0.9 fWAR. Even when it looked like a swing change during spring made it seem as if he was making strides towards bouncing back in 2025, a -1.2 fWAR and a 31.8 K% ultimately led to a demotion down to Triple-A Memphis, where he also seemed to be just too far gone. However, not all hope is lost.
As you can see from the table above, Walker has seen his Barrel and Hard Hit percentage both trend in the right direction as he’s gotten more ABs in the majors. The issue is derived from the contact rate. That number has gone from 72.1% in 2023 all the way down to 66.5% in 2025. This also goes hand-in-hand with a career high Chase percentage in 2025 of 34, 6% more than the major league average.
Walker screams change-of-scenery, and you have to imagine there is going to be a team out there willing to take a chance on the former top prospect.
Jordan Lawlar (SS/3B) – Arizona Diamondbacks
- 2025 Stats (MLB): 28 G, 0 HR, 5 RBI, 2 SB, .182/.257/.288, 52 wRC+, -0.5 fWAR
- 2025 Stats (MiLB): 63 G, 11 HR, 50 RBI, 20 SB, .313/.403/.564, 130 wRC+
From one Jordan to another, it is only right to have Dbacks shortstop PROSPECT Jordan Lawlar on this list. Why is the word prospect capitalized? Well, that’s because the three-year pro has yet to exhaust prospect status.
The 23-year-old has just 108 MLB plate appearances under his belt as we enter the 2025 offseason. It’s easy to say with confidence that this is not where the Diamondbacks wanted Lawlar to be at this point in his career.
Now, while much of it may be due to injury, that does not allow us the ability to dismiss the stats, or lack thereof, that Lawlar has produced when he has been on the active roster. A career 34 wRC+ is far less than ideal. As is the 34% K-rate he has to this point as well.
The past week has been really interesting in terms of what the future may hold for the young infielder. The Dbacks permitted Lawlar to play in the Dominican Winter League this offseason in hopes that he would start to get reps in the outfield while he is down there. Then, on Nov. 5, it was reported that the Dbacks were “open to trading top prospects” in search of starting pitchers for the upcoming season. Whether they still consider Lawlar one of these prospects or not isn’t known, but you’d have to think his name is going to be mentioned in discussions.
Lawlar was a quick riser in the Diamondbacks’ farm system for a reason. The talent was not much of a concern. The durability aspect seems to be what’s ultimately holding him back, but that should not deter us from believing that a new start in another organization is not what’s best for both parties.
Marco Luciano (SS/2B/OF) – San Francisco Giants
- 2025 Stats (MiLB): 125 G, 23 HR, 66 RBI, 10 SB, .214/.335/.413, 97 wRC+
As we entered the start of spring training, a fresh start in the outfield was supposed to rejuvenate Marco Luciano and hopefully help him revert to the player that once had him atop most prospect rankings across all media platforms.
Luciano has seen time at shortstop, third base, the outfield, and even some first base in a pinch during his time in the Giants organization. There is no way to sugarcoat it, this is not the $2.6 million player the team hoped they were signing out of the Dominican Republic back in 2018.
It does not matter which way you look at it; there isn’t one stat that does him any favors. The contact rate, quality of contact, chase rate, and even his swing percentage are all trending in the wrong direction as each season goes by. Dating back to January, there have been people clamoring for the Giants to move on from Luciano. I believe them not calling him up once this year was a true testament to how they feel about him.
No, I am not saying that a new start elsewhere is going to help him regain his top prospect form, but it could be beneficial for both sides to part and just see what another organization may have to offer him. We have seen success stories like this happen in the past, and there is still a chance Luciano can carve out a big league role somewhere.
Adael Amador (2B) – Colorado Rockies
- 2025 Stats (MLB): 41 G, 1 HR, 10 RBI, 1 SB, .177/.256/.265, 35 wRC+, -0.9 fWAR
- 2025 Stats (MiLB): 80 G, 11 HR, 59 RBI, 20 SB, .303/.405/.478, 115 wRC+
This is not a player I would have envisioned including on a list like this one so soon into his career, but here we are. The Colorado Rockies are looking to have made the same mistake as in the past with Adael Amador, and have made it so that a split would be best for Amador’s sake.
Rather than admit the team was not ready to compete by any means and rotate veteran stop-gaps after the spring training injury to Thairo Estrada, the Rockies decided that the 22-year-old Amador, who had only had 110 games played between two years in Double-A, was ready to be called up to the big leagues. It wasn’t until his inevitable demotion that he made his Triple-A debut.
I, personally, am not going to take much of the 41 games played in Colorado this year against Amador. It’s the same way I did not look much into the brief cup of coffee he got in 2024 when he also struggled after being called up to replace an injured Brendan Rodgers. Which in itself was a surprise considering he was slashing .230/.343/.376 and was striking out at a higher rate than he had in his entire minor league career.
As a prospect, Amador was a highly-touted player who had all the makings of being an everyday player in the big leagues after some more seasoning in the minors. Well, after the Rockies decided to Rockie, the growth of this young player was likely stunted.
For the sake of Amador’s future big league career, a new start elsewhere is going to be best for him going forward.
Harry Ford (C) – Seattle Mariners
- 2025 Stats (MLB): 8 G, 0 HR, 1 RBI, 0 SB, .167/.250/.167, 29 wRC+, 0.0 fWAR
- 2025 Stats (MiLB): 97 G, 16 HR, 74 RBI, 7 SB, .283/.408/.460, 125 wRC+
There might not be another prospect who’s MLB career has been delayed more than Mariners’ catching prospect Harry Ford. Now, there’s a reason for that. The current catcher on the M’s roster just had an MVP-worthy season in 2025, but has been one of the best in all of baseball for years.
Ford looked to have been finally making his debut in June when he was added to the Mariners taxi squad, but ultimately did not until Sept. 1 when the Mariners decided to officially call him up.
Ford has always been known for being an above-average athlete behind the dish. The Mariners have taken advantage of that and occasionally flirted with giving him reps in the outfield to try and find another way to get him to the majors, but it just hadn’t worked out. Due to the logjam behind the plate in Seattle, Ford’s name is constantly being discussed in trade rumors whenever they find themselves in conversations.
The young backstop is in dire need of a change of scenery and, unlike the other four mentioned on this list, it has nothing to do with his performance. He has a career minor league slash line of .266/.405/.428 with 52 home runs, 261 RBI, and 92 stolen bases in parts of five seasons. He is coming off his best season in 2025 where he hit .283/.408/.460 with a 125 wRC+ to go along with 16 home runs and a zone contact rate of 85.4%.
Let’s finally see what Ford can do on a consistent basis in the majors. We just saw what Drake Baldwin was able to do in a situation that also seemed jammed up prior to Sean Murphy’s injury.
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Cristian has been at Just Baseball since 2021, when he first started writing about prospects. He spent eight years working in Major League Baseball with the…