Which Top 100 Prospects Have Looked the Best in MLB So Far?
While some top prospects have struggled so far this season, these names have gotten off to scorching-hot starts in 2025.
Ahead of the 2025 season, fans around the league were becoming incredibly excited to see yet another new wave of prospects make their way to Major League Baseball. Spring training featured numerous impressive performances that forced a few clubs’ hands, necessitating promotions earlier than expected.
The list of players making their first appearances on MLB rosters included many members of the Just Baseball Top 100 list, ranging from the No. 2 prospect in the sport to players further down on the Top 100.
With such a diverse group of players, we can expect some to take longer to develop, and that’s perfectly fine. However, amongst these top prospects, two names have stood above the rest.
Kristian Campbell and Jacob Wilson have both been bright spots for their respective ball clubs, becoming the frontrunners for the Rookie of the Year Award. It’s still early, but it’s been exciting to see these players immediately make such a large impact in the majors.
It’s also interesting to note that all of the best rookie performers so far are American League hitters, as the National League rookies have mostly disappointed to this point. Also, the top pitching prospects currently in the majors have struggled as well.
Without further ado, let’s examine these two rookies and take a look at what has made them so successful so far in the 2025 season.
Stats and rankings taken prior to play on April 11.
Kristian Campbell, Boston Red Sox
When taking a look at the best rookies in baseball, it’s hard to look past Kristian Campbell in any capacity. Although his career is still young, Campbell has been the best of the Just Baseball Top 100 prospects currently in MLB.
Campbell entered the 2025 campaign as our No. 36 prospect in the sport, and he’s lived up to this title so far.
In his 13 games, the right-hander has hit two homers and slashed .318/.426/.545 with a 176 wRC+. Arguably, the most impressive part of his season thus far is that Campbell has recorded nearly a 1.0 fWAR in the same span!
Campbell has also displayed good walk and strikeout rates, encouraging the Red Sox with the type of player they may have in him. He’s posted a walk rate of just under 17% while also maintaining a strikeout rate just over the 20% threshold.
Among all rookies to this point, Campbell currently ranks first in OBP and is tied for first in fWAR and homers. He’s also fourth in wRC+ and slugging percentage and third in xwOBA and ISO. Considering the concerns around Campbell’s swing and his development, this much success immediately after debuting is great to see.
He still hasn’t showcased an ability to consistently make solid contact, with his barrel rate, hard-hit rate, and exit velocity metrics all looking pretty unimpressive so far.
This has caused a pretty sizable discrepancy between his expected stats and his actual numbers, but once Campbell makes better contact, we could see these numbers improve.
Campbell has been so good that he was even able to channel his successes into a contract extension with the club. Campbell’s deal is worth $60 million over the next eight seasons, with the structure being more backloaded to give him more value during his peak seasons.
This is an incredibly smart contract for both sides of the deal. Campbell gets to secure himself some guaranteed money, while the Red Sox have a chance to lock up a young star for significantly less money. These types of contracts have been popularized in recent seasons, usually working out for both parties.
While we’re still just 13 games into Campbell’s big-league career, he looks very impressive to this point. If the season ended today, he’d more than likely take home the AL Rookie of the Year Award, and he should continue to push for that honor.
Jacob Wilson, Athletics
Another one of the top rookie performers this season is former 2023 first-rounder Jacob Wilson. Although Wilson has always possessed a very impressive bat, he was overshadowed by the top names in the 2023 draft class, allowing him to fall right into the A’s hands at the No. 6 overall selection.
Just like Campbell, Wilson is living up to his expectations in a big way. He has always had a knack for baseball, as his dad, Jack Wilson, was a former Silver Slugger winner for the Pittsburgh Pirates back in the early 2000s.
Through his first 13 games of the 2025 season, Wilson hasn’t just been one of the best rookies in baseball, but he’s also been one of the sport’s top players. So far, Wilson has hit two homers and slashed .396/.396/.583 to go with a 191 wRC+ and a 0.7 fWAR.
One of the most impressive aspects of Wilson’s game is that he simply doesn’t strike out. Through it’s the early part of this season, Wilson currently boasts a strikeout rate of just 4.2%, an incredibly impressive metric. With strikeouts becoming more and more common in the sport, this is virtually unheard of.
When Wilson decides to swing, he rarely doesn’t make contact. So far, his whiff rate of just 8.5% is one of the best marks in Major League Baseball. Granted, he’s struggled to hit the ball hard when he does put the ball in play. However, this is normal for contact hitters.
For example, Padres first baseman and known contact hitter Luis Arraez has yet to have a barrel this season while also boasting a hard-hit rate of just 18.5%.
While Wilson may not be hitting the ball extremely hard, his barrel rate and hard-hit rate are both noticeably higher than Arraez’s. In 2025, Wilson has posted a barrel rate of 4.3% alongside a hard-hit rate of 28.3%.
Although it may be early on in his major league career, Wilson already profiles as an elite contact hitter. He has the potential to surpass some of the best contact hitters we’ve seen in recent memory, which is very impressive.
The A’s should cherish every second they have with Wilson playing shortstop, with his ceiling being incredibly high.
Other Top Prospects Who Are off To Struggling Starts
When attempting to choose which Just Baseball Top 100 prospects were worth mentioning in this story, I couldn’t help but notice the number of players featured on our Top 100 who have struggled to find their footing in the major leagues.
As it currently stands, the rookie with the lowest wRC+ in baseball is Dylan Crews, our No. 6 prospect for the 2025 season. Crews has struggled at the plate early this season, as he’s slashing just .128/.171/.128 with no homers and a -12 wRC+.
Many people anticipated Crews to be at the top of this year’s NL Rookie of the Year Award voting, but so far, this doesn’t seem like it will become a reality. Crews still has plenty of time to get things turned around, but his performance at the plate has been less than impressive.
The fourth-highest strikeout rate among rookie hitters belongs to Cam Smith, who has significantly struggled since breaking camp with the Houston Astros this spring. Just like Crews, he was expected to be in the race for the Rookie of the Year Award, but this doesn’t seem likely anymore.
Through eight games, our No. 15 prospect has slashed just .200/.286/.280, with no home runs and a 71 wRC+, all while striking out just shy of 36% of the time.
In addition to both Smith and Crews, Matt Shaw, Drake Baldwin, and Jasson Domínguez have all posted wRC+ numbers below the league average mark of 100.
On the pitching side of things, we’ve seen some similar failures from our Top 100 prospects as well.
Our No. 3 prospect, Jackson Jobe, has posted an ERA of 4.99 through nine innings, which has been a disappointment. In addition to this, our No. 46 prospect, Kumar Rocker, has also struggled. He’s pitched to a 7.88 ERA across his first eight innings.
Roki Sasaki has been steadily improving, although he struggled early on as well. Control has still been a massive problem for him, with his walk rate currently sitting at just under 26%.
Despite the early struggles from all of these players, there is still plenty of time left in the season for them to turn it around. Prospects don’t always succeed immediately, and that’s normal.
All of these players still share one thing in common, though: They’re all incredibly talented players, with bright futures ahead of each of them.
Written by
Jay Staph, a huge baseball fan and stat nerd, founded and ran his own baseball writing website, BSBWrites, at just 16-years-old. With focal points around prospects,…