Key Highlights
- With that in mind, here is our third ranking of the best baseball players on Earth by birth year. Scouts and the public will often talk about baseball players in rookie classes, draft classes or international signing classes, occasionally ranking players by age or level, but very rarely in terms of when they were born, which is a great way to track movement over time among the same group of players. One of the most interesting parts of my job as a prospect evaluator is mixing the levels of play, countries and ages of the players I scout, from international amateurs in Latin America and U. S.
- high school and college prospects to players in the lower minors, and foreign professional leagues in Asia and, of course, the more straightforward work watching players in the upper minors and big leagues.
- This exercise gives me an excuse to check in with sources all over the world at all levels of baseball to make sure I still have my finger on the pulse. Also, as I get my offseason prospect rankings ready for later this winter leading into the beginning of MLB's international signing period Jan.
- 15 with draft season starting soon after that, it's good to review players through this spectrum rather than just by draft class or international signing class. Our last version of this ranking came in August 2024, so just over one full season has happened since then -- but it's been nearly 17 months on the calendar, which is an eternity when it comes to ranking teenaged players, though not as much changes with the more established big leaguers who start our list.2000These older age groups are much more stable because almost all of the players listed have had multiple big league seasons in the last iteration, so now I'm correcting for breakouts who have since had some regression (Lawrence Butler, Logan O'Hoppe, Colton Cowser) and subbing in more recent breakouts such as Bryan Woo, Maikel Garcia and Ceddanne Rafaela. All that said, I'm still surprised the top four stayed in exactly the same order since the last time we did this exercise. Recently signed Chicago White Sox slugger Munetaka Murakami was a late cut this time and in the last iteration, as well.
- Andy Pages, Caleb Durbin, Sal Frelick, Parker Messick and Triston Casas are some other players in the running domestically, while OF Shota Morishita (Hanshin of NPB) hit .275 with 23 homers in Japan last year.2001The top of this group had a little more movement than the year above, with Roki Sasaki and Anthony Volpe as the disappointments from the top five in the last ranking and Nolan McLean, Drake Baldwin, and Tyler Soderstrom (a longtime favorite of mine) taking steps forward. The last two spots on the list are still a bit unstable as Cam Schlittler and Cade Horton made big progress in 2025, but Matt Shaw, Chase DeLauter, Dalton Rushing, Alex Freeland and Ronny Mauricio could jump onto the list with strong 2026 showings.2002The separator for this group is either having already posted a 3-plus WAR season in the big leagues or looking like someone who might soon.