The Hot Sheet Ranks The 20 Hottest Prospects In Baseball

We love watching James Wood. And one of his most enjoyable traits is his ability to homer on pitches where it looks like he’s just simply trying to extend his arms and make contact.

Wood and his prodigious power headline this week’s Hot Sheet, which ranks the top prospect performers from the past week. This is a good week for the Twins and Reds, who combine for five of the top 10 prospects on the list.

Baseball America subscribers can see top performances, new analysis for every player, plus a sleeper arm in the Marlins system at the end of the post.

The Hot Sheet show returns today at 3 p.m. ET! Scott Braun, J.J. Cooper, and Geoff Pontes are diving into the Pirates’ recent track record of player development. Pittsburgh has some wins — see Paul Skenes and Jared Jones — on the pitching side, with more intriguing arms on the way. But it has yet to fully maximize some of the high-profile bats in its system. We also dive into 90th percentile exit velocity leaders and highlight some prospects that are impressing us early in May.

10 Prospects Who Would Benefit From Hitting More Balls In The Air

In 2023, Justin Crawford did a lot of things right. In a season split between the Class A levels, he hit .332/.392/.467. Crawford stole 47 bases in 55 tries. He struck out just 17.7% of the time. He earned a spot in the Futures Game, was named the Florida State League’s most valuable player and was honored on BA’s postseason Low-A all-star team.

Despite all that, Crawford had one big area where he needed to improve: Launch angle. The 2022 first-rounder hit the ball on the ground around 70% of the time between both stops, including a rate of 68.5% at Low-A and then 74.5% after a promotion to High-A.

Beating the ball into the ground kept Crawford from hitting much in the way of power, and he had just three home runs over 87 games despite hitting the ball plenty hard. His average and 90th percentile exit velocities from 2023 were 87.6 and 103.1 mph, both above-average for a player his age.

Crawford’s 2024 season has started on a similar note. He’s hitting .308/.365/.404 with High-A Jersey Shore and already has two home runs, but he’s hitting the ball on the ground 63% of the time. Players with Crawford’s level of speed can benefit from hard grounders and lower line drives, but his current rate is too far in that direction.

Today, Josh Norris looks at the data for this season to see if we can find players like Crawford who are producing well but could take an even bigger jump if they got the ball in the air more often. Baseball America subscribers can read exclusively below.

Here’s what’s trending at Baseball America…

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• Jamie Arnold, Travis Bazzana highlight our NCAA Hot Sheet

• J.J. Cooper answered prospect questions this afternoon

• Remember that bat speed data is only one piece of the puzzle

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The @Was Nats have a new No. 1 prospect — James Wood. However, Dylan Crews isn’t far behind. The two Nats prospects rank in the Top 10 on ... See more

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