MiLB Top 10 Prospects - Week 17
Tim Kanak brings MLB DW members 15 prospects to watch from all of the minor league action in Week Seventeen
The MLB draft is done, and we’re getting ahead of the curve in preparing for the 2026-2027 First Year Player Drafts. Tim has ranked 140+ first-year players and given you details and scouting reports for each player. It’s available in a nicely organized Excel file. Purchase it for $9.99 via this link, today!
Please subscribe to the Fantasy Aceball podcast and MLB Data Warehouse podcast feeds or on YouTube (@TheTimkanak) and also follow me on X (@fantasyaceball) for more fantasy goodness!
NOTE: Rookie status is determined by 130 ABs, or 50 IPs at the Major League level.
NOTE: All stats from Sunday, July 26th - Saturday, August 1st 2026
T-10 Prospects
1. OF Josiah Ragsdale (Brewers) - AA
ETA: Late 2027
Comp: Lefty Mookie Betts light
Prime Skills: Ragsdale was a pure luxury-tax pick in the seventh round last year, a speed-and-contact table-setter out of Boston College by way of Iona who the Brewers popped at 215 mostly for the wheels and the hit tool, and now he’s forcing his way into the helium conversation with legitimate over-the-fence power nobody projected. In college he hit more triples (15) than homers (9) across his first two seasons, a pure gap-to-gap, get-on-and-run profile, and this year he’s suddenly a two-homer game guy, including a 441-foot oppo blast that tells you the bat speed was always underrated relative to how he was actually hitting. He’s not sacrificing anything to get there either: a 22% chase rate overall (20% specifically since the Double-A promotion) and he’s walked nearly as often as he’s struck out at Biloxi, 22 free passes to 29 punchouts. He’s currently running a .324/.451/.591 line with a 46-game on-base streak, and the Prep Baseball Report numbers from his high school days back up the tools angle on all of this, a 6.99 sixty, 92 mph exit velo, and 71.2 mph bat speed as a rising senior, plus-plus speed that’s translated into 31 steals on 34 attempts as a pro. Vaulted from barely a Brewers Top 30 prospect to No. 9 in a matter of months because of this stretch, Ragsdale had a heck of a week with 6 homers, giving him 12 now in 25 games at AA.
Hitter Tool Grades:
Hit: 50/55
Plate Approach: 55/60
Power: 45/55
Speed: 65/65
Prospect Rank: Top 250
2. SP Cam Caminiti (Braves) - A+
ETA: 2028
Comp: A raw McKenzie Gore with more wiry mechanics
Prime Skills: Caminiti has an athletic build at 6’ 2”, 195 pounds with a mid-to-upper 90s fastball from the left side with a fun under ¾ arm-slot, but inconsistent secondaries outside of the sweeper/slider (which has become nasty). The fastball has some natural ride and glove-side run as he almost just slings it from his arm-slot and the sweeper against lefties is funny, because guys think they are about to get nailed and flinch at the pitch that lands in the strike zone, however he needs a different breaker for righties. He finished the 2025 season with a 2.75 JA ERA and besides two or three starts was completely dominant the entire season as he increased his pitch count into the 90s to end the year. Caminiti has had a rough transition to high A this year, but is coming off of what is easily his best start of the season nabbing 14 strikeouts and only allowing one walk, 3 hits and one run this week.
Arsenal Grades:
FA (93-96 mph): 60/65
ST (80-85 mph): 60/65
CU (76-78 mph): 40/45
FS/CH (86-89): 50/55
Command: 40/50
Prospect Rank: 73
3. SP Caden Hunter (Orioles) - AA
ETA: 2028
Comp: Ranger Suárez if he sat 95-96 instead of 92-93
Prime Skills: Hunter was an afterthought sixth-round senior sign a year ago and he’s turned into the best swing-and-miss arm on the entire Orioles farm as a 22-year-old (Yes, more than the famous Joseph Dzierwa). The fastball sat 90-94 at USC and he is now running it out at 93-96, touching 97, out of a three-quarters slot with a delivery that hides the ball behind his back before he comes forward. It’s an odd blend too, scouts keep calling it a low-spin “heavy” or “bowling ball” heater, but it still carries an above-average 19.3 inches of induced vertical break, so hitters get a pitch that looks like it should sink and instead rides through the top of the zone, and it’s playing for in-zone whiffs, not just chase. Behind it he’s got a low-80s slider/sweeper with real horizontal bite that’s his best weapon against lefties, plus a separate, tighter curveball with more traditional downer shape he mixes in as a distinct third look, not just a slower version of the slider. The changeup is the one that’s developed the fastest as a pro, low-80s with 8 to 10 mph of separation off the heater, and it’s gone from a show-me pitch to something he’s actually finishing right-handed hitters with, evidenced by an outing where he got two separate changeup strikeouts against righties down and away. After Hunter finished last week as #13 in the T-10 he followed it up by making the actual T-10 this week netting 10 strikeouts, while only giving up 2 walks and 1 hit in 7 scoreless innings.
Arsenal Grades:
FA (93-97 mph): 60/60
SL (80-83 mph): 50/55
CU (77-80 mph): 45/50
CH (82-87 mph): 40/45
Command: 45/55
Prospect Rank: Top 300
4. 1B Blake Burke (Brewers) - AA
ETA: Early 2027
Comp: A lefty Rhys Hoskins
Prime Skills: Burke is a 2024 first rounder out of Tennessee who has translated his power from college to the pros smoothly with 27 homers and 79 RBI in just 85 games at Double-A Biloxi, leading the whole Southern League in both categories, a .276/.362/.604 line good for a .966 OPS, and he was just named Southern League Player of the Week capped by a three-homer game on July 24th that included a 114 mph, 379-foot leadoff shot and a 415-foot blast at 106 mph back-to-back with teammate Andrew Fischer. None of this should actually surprise anyone who watched the exit velo data last year: Burke posted a ridiculous 108.8 mph 90th-percentile exit velocity at High-A in 2025 but only hit five homers in 408 plate appearances because his ground-ball rate sat at 52.4%, all that raw juice getting buried into the dirt. Once he got to Double-A and started lifting the ball, that rate dropped to 42.4% and the power simply arrived, and it’s carried straight into this season. He’s still a well below-average runner profile on paper, though I’ll flag that the box score has him with 25 steals this year. Defensively he’s better than his 6-3, 236 frame suggests, soft hands and solid reactions at first, an average or better glove there. This is about as pure a bat-carries-everything profile as this system has, but the bat is now doing exactly what the underlying data always promised it could. Burke finished the week with 8 extra base hits, 6 bombs and a steal.
Hitter Tool Grades:
Hit: 40/45
Plate Approach: 40/45
Power: 60/70
Speed: 40/35
Prospect Rank: Top 250
5. OF Tai Peete (Cardinals) - A+
ETA: Late 2027
Comp: Smaller Oneil Cruz
Prime Skills: Peete is an athletic former SS and 3B prospect who is now playing CF for the Cardinals after they acquired him from the Mariners as part of the Brendan Donovan trade. The lefty hitter has some major contact concerns that have not much improved that were exposed this Spring in Jupiter when I saw him live quite a few times, but the power and speed are the real deal. We don’t have statcast data from him this year, but he did record an 111 mph exit velocity on a homer in Spring Training. Peete gets to good angles on the ball, but the contact rates hover between 65-70%, thus the balance in his hit tool profile. He has shown the ability to take a walk, but he chases outside of the zone too much and really needs to work on his plate approach. He has 9 homers and 7 steals in only 39 games so far this year (having spent a decent amount of time on the IL), including 25 extra base hits and while he’s fast, he is a little reckless on the bases and needs to refine his base running skills. I generally don’t like to repeat guys in the T-10, but Peete had another insane week by hitting for his second cycle of the season on Saturday and mashing to the tune of 5 extra base hits, one homer and stealing 5 bags.
Hitter Tool Grades:
Hit: 35/45
Plate Approach: 30/40
Power: 50/60
Speed: 60/65
Prospect Rank: Top 250