Purchasing Prospects: Pitchers to Target Ahead of Spring Training

With less than two months until the 2025 Major League Baseball season gets underway, we here at Just Baseball wanted to give you some potential names to focus on who could see value increases this year.

We’ll organize these in different position groups starting with pitchers, who have seen an uptick in hobby love thanks to Paul Skenes’ success last season. Here are five names to watch from a card market perspective:

Bubba Chandler – RHP – Pittsburgh Pirates

The former third-round pick in the 2021 draft, Chandler is the next big arm ready to hit the majors following the aforementioned Skenes and Jared Jones. This time last year, you could get his 2021 Bowman Draft base auto PSA 10 for around $50. You’re paying more than double that now, but there is definitely room to grow when he’s eventually called up.

The #15 overall prospect on the Just Baseball Top 100 has a power fastball that collectors will immediately fall in love with. The only concern I have is that his Rookie of the Year teammate might cannibalize the market share there in Pittsburgh.

Tink Hence – RHP – St. Louis Cardinals

If you’ve been holding Tink Hence 2020 Bowman Draft autos then kudos to you. His PSA 10s are down about 15% over the past 12 months according to cardladder.com, but there is a lot of positives here. His entry point of around $75 for said graded base auto is palatable for a majority of collectors.

Hence had a really solid 2024 campaign ending his Double-A season with a 2.71 ERA while increasing his strikeouts and lowering his WHIP.

Now there is a logjam in the Cardinals rotation, but most of the arms are 30+ years of age, so we could see a fire sale coupled with a youth movement. Hence may not be a part of that in 2025, but the spike is coming at some point this season so you’ll have an exit strategy.

Jacob Misiorowski – RHP – Milwaukee Brewers

The 6’7″ fireballer has been a favorite of collectors and this might be the last chance to buy low before Milwaukee calls up the #79 prospect in our Top 100. His 2022 Bowman Draft base auto PSA 10 fluctuated between $55 and $125 at various points in the summer of 2024 but that can be attributed to a low pop count of just 37 PSA 10s out there.

The jury is still out on if the Brewers will use Misiorowski as a starter or a reliever. He does look like a right-handed Josh Hader so the bullpen could be his future. Regardless of where he initially impacts this roster, there should be enough buzz to generate a healthy market spike.

Trey Yesavage – RHP – Toronto Blue Jays

The next two guys both come from 2024 Bowman Draft and at the moment of this being written neither have any autos graded by PSA given their current turnaround times. Yesavage was Toronto’s 1st rounder in last summer’s draft and has the potential to be one of the first players from that class to reach the majors.

His raw base autos are selling for around $15, which is an absolute steal given he’s widely regarded as a Top 5 prospect in the Jays system.

He has yet to appear in a pro game after being drafted 20th overall last summer, but if reports are true that he’s added a curveball to the arsenal, it could be a meteoric rise given his college pedigree where he had a 14.0 strikeouts per nine innings last spring at East Carolina.

Chris Cortez – RHP – Los Angeles Angels

Okay, this is my long shot. Cortez was a second-round pick (45th overall) in the 2024 Draft coming out of Texas A&M where he compiled a 2.98 ERA while amassing a 14.17 strikeout per nine innings mark last season in a very loaded SEC conference.

Like Yesavage, he’s a 2024 Bowman Draft product so very few graded copies with zero of them being autographed as I write this. You can currently get his base autos for around $5. That’s cheaper than a fast food combo meal.

He is my dark horse for the first guy to the big leagues from this draft class as a possible relief arm for LA at some point before the All-Star break. If that happens, you can expect those autos to sell for closer to a decent steak dinner instead.