For the first time since Daisuke Matsuzaka came stateside before the 2007 season, a pitcher ranks No. 1 overall in the Baseball America Top 100 Prospects list. Headed by Roki Sasaki, it is peculiar that there are more pitchers in the Top 10 than there are hitters.
While 2025 is the year of the pitcher in some regards, there’s also a talented trio of hitters at the top of the list: Roman Anthony, Kristian Campbell and Walker Jenkins. All rank within the top five prospects in the game and follow a tradition over the last several seasons future star trios.
Today, we’ll compare Anthony, Campbell and Jenkins to some of the biggest names in MLB by taking a look at three other recent prospect trios who ranked as the top-three position players in their respective Top 100 Prospects list classes.
2022
One of the most star-studded trios at the top as this group was viewed as a 1A/1B/1C situation. In retrospect, Bobby Witt Jr. is likely the best player from this group, and he’s coming off an outstanding 2024 season. Meanwhile, Julio Rodriguez and Adley Rutschman are both multi-time all-stars who have finished inside the top 10 of MVP voting.
Here, we begin to see some top prospect hitter trends emerge, as each of these players present a look at archetypes for each class: Power hitters (Rodriguez), Sum-of-Their-Parts (Rutschman) and Explosive quick-twitch (Witt) prospect subsets.
| Player | Rank | Year | IZWhiff% | Chase% | Swing% | 90th EV (mph) |
| Adley Rutschman | 1 | 2022 | 12.0% | 18.0% | 39.0% | 104.5 |
| Julio Rodriguez | 2 | 2022 | 17.0% | 25.0% | 46.9% | 108.6 |
| Bobby Witt Jr. | 3 | 2022 | 26.0% | 31.0% | 49.8% | 106.9 |
Adley Rutschman, C, Orioles
- Preseason 2022 Rank: 1
- Age: 24
- Archetype: Sum-of-his-parts
Rutschman is an elite switch-hitting catcher who’s ballyhooed defensive skills helped carry him to the top spot. He showed elite bat-to-ball skills, strong approach metrics and above-average exit velocity data. In some ways, Rutschman signifies the high end of the sum-of-his-parts profile.
Julio Rodriguez, OF, Mariners
- Preseason 2022 Rank: 2
- Age: 21
- Archetype: Power hitter
Rodriguez fits a power hitter profile to a tee. His blend of an in-zone whiff rate below 18% and a chase-minus-swing rate of 21.9% is evidence of his strong skills, which he pairs with plus-plus raw power.
Bobby Witt Jr., SS, Royals
- Preseason 2022 Rank: 3
- Age: 22
- Archetype: Explosive quick-twitch
Witt had the least-refined plate skills of the group but the most athleticism and twitch of…