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- 10 Biggest Breakout Pitching Prospects Of 2025
10 Biggest Breakout Pitching Prospects Of 2025
Plus: Complex League hits/misses, 30 USA 16U/17U NTDP standouts & more
10 Biggest Breakout Pitching Prospects In 2025
Nothing in baseball evolves more rapidly from year to year than starting pitchers.
Pitchers can alter their arsenals and usage drastically from one season to the next. So it’s important to continually evaluate and catalog these changes. Each year, a group of pitchers who begin the season outside the Top 100 establish themselves as potential midrotation starters, if not better, by showcasing a better blend of stuff, strike-throwing and durability. Often this mix of traits will allow them to find future success as big league starters one day.
With that in mind, Geoff Pontes has compiled a list of 10 need-to-know pitching prospects who have raised their stock the most in 2025.
CHECKING IN ON COMPLEX PICKS
Revisiting 2025 Complex League Picks: Hits, Misses & More
Before the first pitches were thrown in the Arizona and Florida Complex Leagues, Baseball America picked 10 players to watch on each circuit. Some were standouts from the 2024 Dominican Summer Leagues, while others were draft picks from last summer who were unlikely to land on full-season rosters immediately.
Both leagues are finished—the Angels and Blue Jays claimed the respective titles in Arizona and Florida—so now is as good a time as any to take a look back and see how many of our preseason picks hit the mark.
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USA 16U/17U NTDP
30 Players Who Impressed At The USA 16U/17U NTDP
USA Baseball’s annual 16U/17U National Team Development Program brings together a group of the top underclass players in the country.
Held in Cary, North Carolina from July 24-27, this year’s event included 10 of the top 20 prospects in the 2027 class, many others in the top 100, several big names for the 2028 class and a handful of intriguing follows for the 2026 class.
The players split into four teams, each playing three games plus batting practice and infield/outfield pregame looks. Ben Badler highlights 30 standout players from the NTDP with scouting reports and video, starting with the event’s three biggest winners.
College Tampering: What To Know
What We Know About College Baseball’s Tampering Problem
In this week’s College Baseball Podcast, Jacob Rudner and Peter Flaherty dive into one of the sport’s biggest issues: tampering in the transfer portal era. Coaches are speaking out. Rosters are getting gutted. And mid-major programs are feeling the squeeze as Power Four schools swoop in, often before players officially hit the portal.
The guys break down how tampering really works, why it’s nearly impossible to regulate and what it means for roster building at every level of the game. From Western Kentucky losing 30 players to programs using tampering complaints as smoke screens, they cover it all.
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