MiLB Top 10 Prospects - Week Sixteen
Tim Kanak brings MLB DW members 15 prospects to watch from all of the minor league action in Week Sixteen
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!
What’s kickin? Welcome to my weekly prospect report, now only found with an MLB Data Warehouse subscription! The goal of this column is to give you the most fantasy-relevant prospect information throughout the last week, all in one place. The format of this weekly prospect report will be a run-though of my top 15 prospects of the week.
I will try my best to highlight new prospects every week, rather than repeat names, unless the repeat is so warranted I just can’t help myself.
This should not be seen as a weekly stash rankings, but as a ranking of top performers each week through all levels. My updated top 150 rankings can currently be found on MLB Data Warehouse and thanks to Jon, we will now have regularly updated fScores throughout the year.
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NOTE: Rookie status is determined by 130 ABs, or 50 IPs at the Major League level.
NOTE: All stats from Sunday, July 19th - Saturday, July 25th 2026
T-10 Prospects
1. OF Gavin Cross (Royals) - AAA
ETA: Late 2026
Comp: Carlos Beltran-ish swing mechanics, but a Garrett Mitchell profile
Prime Skills: Cross has a nice power stroke from the left side to go along with decent plate skills, average contactability and plus speed. I could see some 20/20 seasons with a good OBP when he breaks through. Cross was in my preseason Top 150 (#149) in 2025 and every year manages to have killer second halves, this year does not appear to be an exception as he has a .373/.405/.733 slash with five homers, 14 extra base hits and 3 steals since the beginning of July. He’s always had some contact struggles since getting drafted in the first round, but makes enough contact in zone that he could be a solid fourth OF on most teams. This week Cross hit .462 with 8 extra base hits, 4 homers and 2 steals.
Hitter Tool Grades:
Hit: 35/40
Plate Approach: 30/40
Power: 50/55
Speed: 60/60
Prospect Rank: Top 300
2. 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. This week, Peete hit .500 with 6 extra base hits, 4 bombs (which he pimped two) and a steal. Plus he stole a Bryce Rainer bomb on Sunday.
Hitter Tool Grades:
Hit: 35/45
Plate Approach: 30/40
Power: 50/60
Speed: 60/65
Prospect Rank: Top 250
3. SP Kendry Chourio (Royals) - A+
ETA: 2028
Comp: Smaller Jose Fernandez light
Prime Skills: Chourio is a 6’0 righty with some ridiculous velocity for his age, there’s some wonderful video of him in A ball with yellow smoke that looks like a Vietnam / Agent Orange situation. He has some decent ride on the fastball, but nothing great and a very nice 2-plane breaking curve against a circle change that he throws inside to righties and down and away to lefties. His biggest asset right now is his ability to locate the fastball, while he has some trouble with control on the curve, the movement is great on it. Chourio only walked 5 batters in 51 ⅓ innings last year, which is completely ridiculous for a 17-year-old. Chourio added two new pitches between the sweeping slider and the cutter (a traditional cutter, not a gyro slider). The slider doesn’t have enough bite to make it a potential plus pitch and the cutter doesn’t get whiffs, but it does lead to mishits and has a high groundball rate. Chourio racked up 10 strikeouts in his first start this week, while walking 2 and allowing NO HITS in 5 scoreless innings; however in his second start gave up 1 ER with 4 strikeouts and 0 walks, allowing 4 hits in 6 innings.
Arsenal Grades:
FA (94-98 mph): 55/60
CU (78-80 mph): 55/60
CH (85-87 mph): 40/50
SL (81-84 mph): 25/40
FC (88-91 mph): 40/45
Command: 60/70
Prospect Rank: 75
4. SS Wilder Dalis (Rockies) - A
ETA: 2029
Comp: Switch hitting, less polished Ezequeil Tovar
Prime Skills: Dalis is a switch-hitting Venezuelan shortstop. He’s repeating Low-A in 2026 and the start was ugly, he was down around .161 from the left side through the first month, which is notable because he actually prefers hitting lefty even though he came up a natural right-handed swinger, but he’s flipped the whole season around since, he’s already stroked double-digit doubles and has gone deep half a dozen times. The swing gets long against spin, and that’s the flaw evaluators keep circling on both sides of the plate, he’s got a nearly identical path from either box which is rare for a switch-hitter this age, but he pulls off the ball a touch and it costs him the outer half. He’s also spent the year getting mentored by fellow Maracay product Ezequiel Tovar, who’s worked with him on staying back in the box and creating a better hop in the field, and Dalis credits it as much as anything for the turnaround. Just 19, plenty of runway left as he’s been on the periphery of the T-10 list the last 3-4 weeks; hitting .376/.453/.693 with 19 extra base hits, 6 bombs and 12 steals in his last 25 games. This week he hit .444 with 6 extra base hits, 3 homers and 3 steals. The kid has tagged max EVs around 113 and could grow into mid 20s power if he can improve on his angles.
Hitter Tool Grades:
Hit: 35/45
Plate Approach: 45/50
Power: 40/55
Speed: 60/60
Prospect Rank: Top 500
5. OF Theo Gillen (Rays) - AA
ETA: 2028
Comp: Christian Yelich
Prime Skills: Gillen has great timing at the plate, nice load and really gets on pitches with a sweet and powerful lefty swing. He has a nice sized athletic build and should develop into a power / speed threat. He played SS in high school, but with a weak arm has moved off to the OF. The hit tool is performing better than I had expected out of the gate with a 74.3% contact rate and near 25% line drive rate. The eye is plus with only an 8.8% SwStr%, while he’s shown but he has been a little too patient with only a 34.3% Swing%. He’s been getting to better angles this year with a plus air-pull rate, as he’s also lowered the groundball rate and increased the linedrive rate. He has EV improvements of 3-4 mph this year, boosting his power grade from 45/55 to 50/60 for me. The biggest issue with Gillen is in the splits, he is terrible against lefties - but absolutely destroys righties. Gillen continues to break out and in my next rankings update will be a clear Top 20 guy. I went from being the highest in the industry to falling behind the aggression curve of other analysts. Gillen has been a T-10 a couple times this year and here we go again, hitting .389 this week with 4 extra base hits, 2 bombs and 3 steals.
Hitter Tool Grades:
Hit: 45/55
Plate Approach: 50/60
Power: 50/60
Speed: 65/65
Prospect Rank: 46