10 Up-Arrow MLB Draft Prospects Climbing Our 2026 Rankings

Today, weâ€re circling back to some of the most notable draft risers from that update and drilling down into a bit more detail on their profiles.

Impressive Top 15 Risers

Cameron Flukey, RHP, Coastal Carolina

Flukey leapt over three high school pitchers in our most recent draft update, going from No. 21 overall to No. 10. He now sits as the No. 2 arm in the class, behind only Florida righthander Liam Peterson.Â

Flukeyâ€s ascension was less about anything specific he did this summer, and more an attempt to get him more accurately positioned on our board based on scout feedback. Heâ€s viewed much closer to Peterson than our previous ranking would have suggested, and there are scouts who believe he has a chance to become the SP1 in this class at some point next spring.

This fall, Coastal Carolina has given Flukey a light workload after he logged 101.2 innings in the spring. But even without significant changes, he checks plenty of the boxes teams are looking for in a college starter among the first 15 picks, as heâ€s got a great pitcherâ€s frame at 6-foot-6, 210 pounds, he throws a 95 mph fastball that has been up to 98, he has a complete mix of quality secondaries and he also took a big step forward with his control, going from a 10.9% walk rate in 2024 to a 5.8% in 2025.

Flukeyâ€s fastball command, in particular, could be a separator for him in this class. He threw his fastball for strikes 68% of the time as a freshman in 2024, then upped it to an exceptional 74% this spring. While Flukeyâ€s release point, attack angle and extension are all reasonably modest figures, he grades out well in terms of fastball velocity, command and riding life. He averaged more than 20 inches of induced vertical break with the pitch in each of his two seasons with Coastal.

Blake Bowen, OF, JSerra Catholic HS, San Juan Capistrano, Calif.

Weâ€ve written positively about Bowen for months now (see here and here). Thatâ€s generally what happens when a high-level prospect repeatedly turns in some of the best performances. While he was consistently referenced as one of the most significant up-arrow players in the class this summer, itâ€s worth highlighting some of the numbers he put up.

Bowen played at many of the top showcases and tournaments throughout the 2025 summer and fall seasons, and we have 38 games of Synergy data and video from his play this year. That doesnâ€t represent everything he did this year, but itâ€s a large chunk of production from June through October and a big sample to work with for a high school player.Â

In the sample, he hit .344/.436/.516 with three home runs, a triple, five doubles, 22 strikeouts and 11 walks. Thatâ€s good for a 20% strikeout rate and 10% walk rate against some of the best pitching in the class.

Bowen’s home run power came exclusively to the pull side in this sample of games, but he also used the opposite field for a handful of extra-base hits. Overall, Bowen managed a 76% contact rate and a 25% chase rate, which are the two areas scouts will want to see him improve on next spring and moving forward.Â

Here’s a look at Bowen’s production against various pitch types:

• Vs. fastballs:.945 OPS, 80% contact rate, 26% chase rate
• Vs. breaking balls: 1.068 OPS, 73% contact rate, 23% chase rate
• Vs. off-speed: .522 OPS, 50% contact rate, 21% chase rate
• Vs. pitches 90+ mph: 1.152 OPS, 78% contact rate, 29% chase rate

Showing more contact ability vs. sliders and changeups will be a point of emphasis for Bowen this spring. Generally sharpening his plate skills and approach could further elevate him up the board.

Bowen has been critiqued in the past for having an overly-aggressive approach. He likes to swing, and he has expanded the zone with a high frequency as an underclassman. His strides in both areas in 2025—and the increased quality contact that came from those improvements—were key developments for his up-the-board-movement. As of now, heâ€s still not an elite contact hitter or elite manager of the strike zone. Heâ€ll have a better opportunity to prove himself in both those areas next spring while playing against some of the best competition in the country in Southern California.

Overall, Bowen remains one of the more exciting hit/power threats in the class—with a big league physique and real speed to go with it—but he is far from a finished product offensively.

The Up-Arrow Prep Pitching Quartet

One of the strengths of the 2026 class is the depth of prep pitching. Each of the four high school pitchers mentioned below moved up at least 25 spots in our latest draft update. As a result, we now have eight prep pitchers ranked inside the top 40.Â

That could be bad news for the industry at large, as most teams either steer away from high school pitching entirely or would prefer to draft those players later and pay them overslot deals. Below are the number of high school pitchers drafted and signed among the first 40 picks in each of the last 10 drafts:

• 2025:2
• 2024: 4
• 2023:4
• 2022: 6
• 2021: 6
• 2020: 4
• 2019: 5
• 2018: 6
• 2017: 7
• 2016: 8

Will the talent distribution of this yearâ€s class force teams to draft more like the 2016-2018 drafts? Or will teams continue to shy away from that profile with their first and second picks? This yearâ€s pitching crop could be as deep as the vaunted 2018 high school pitching class. Depending on how the college hitters and pitchers pan out next spring, high-upside arms like those in the quartet below could be hard to pass on, first-round pick or not.

Carson Bolemon, LHP, Southside Christian HS, Simpsonville, S.C.

Bolemon might be the most polished strike-thrower in the class. This summer, he threw each of his three primary pitches—fastball, slider and curveball—for strikes at a 67% rate or better. Both the slider and curveball eclipsed the 70% mark, which is a rare figure to see for a prep pitcher.Â

Logan Schmidt, LHP, Ganesha HS, Pomona, Calif.

Schmidt has earned comparisons to Braves 2024 first-rounder Cam Caminiti. Caminiti reclassified to be one of the youngest players in the 2024 class. He now ranks as the Braves†top overall prospect and should earn Top 100 Prospect consideration this offseason.

Schmidt reclassified from the 2027 class, is now one of the youngest players in the 2026 class and will be 17 on draft day. He has a fastball up to 97 mph, and his breaking ball is more advanced now than Caminitiâ€s was at the same time.

Jensen Hirschkorn, RHP, Kingsburg (Calif.) HS

Hirschkornâ€s 77-spot jump made him the single-biggest riser in our October update. He had a Dasan Hill-esque summer with a lights-out Area Code Games performance that made him a slam dunk first-round name for many scouts. And he’s not too far off for those who arenâ€t quite that bullish, either.

The 17-year-old is the tallest prep pitcher ranked in the first round at 6-foot-7, and he has a swing-and-miss arsenal across the board with a fastball up to 96 mph, a slider around 80 and a changeup in the mid 80s. He generated at least a 41% miss rate with each pitch this summer in five Synergy-logged games and had a 49% miss rate overall.

Joseph Contreras, RHP, Blessed Trinity Catholic HS, Roswell, Ga.

Contreras is one of the best candidates in this class to continue the resurgence of the splitter—or in the case of the Contreras family, the forkball. The son of Jose Contreras, who pitched 11 big league seasons and used the fork regularly, Joseph learned the pitch from his father and throws it in the mid 70s with hard tumbling action. He also has a more typical changeup in the low 80s with fading life, and he has pushed his fastball up to 98 mph. Synergy data we have available lumps many of Contreras†forkballs in with his changeup, but between both pitch labels, batters hit just .040/.077/.080 against it with a ridiculous 74% miss rate.

A Trio Of Rising Hitters

Eric Booth Jr., OF, Oak Grove HS, Hattiesburg, Miss.

Can we finally put to bed the Mississippi high school hitter stigma? Perhaps itâ€s already behind us. JoJo Parker (2025) was just drafted eighth overall. Konnor Griffin (2024) is the top overall prospect in baseball. Cooper Pratt (2023) is looking like a sixth-round steal. There are multiple high school hitters from Mississippi in the 2026 class with first-round upside, and Booth is trending in the right direction.

Booth was slotted in the third round (No. 88) on our pre-summer ranking. In our October update, he jumped into the second round (No. 46). It would be hard for me to believe there arenâ€t scouts and teams who have him higher than that and would be happy to take him in the first round.

Booth has an extremely exciting power/speed combination with natural contact skills that are difficult to teach. Pair those traits and tools with a swing that is quite unorthodox, and itâ€s not hard to imagine player development groups around the league champing at the bit to get him in their system to see if they can unlock even more potential. Â

Will Brick, C, Christian Brothers HS, Memphis

Brick is an up-arrow player only in the sense that he wasnâ€t on the 2026 draft radar at all in our pre-summer update. At that point, he was a member of the 2027 class, but he became the most recent reclassification when he announced his intentions to join the 2026 group in mid October. As soon as he announced his decision, Brick became the top high school catcher in the class, topping Pennsylvania catcher Andrew Costello (No. 62). They are now the only two prep catchers to rank in the top 100.

Brick could be one of the most polarizing players in the class because of his reclassification and position. Like with high school pitchers, high school catchers are a risky demographic. On top of that, most scouts werenâ€t spending time bearing down on Brick this summer because, at the time, he was 2027-eligible.

That doesnâ€t mean teams canâ€t, or wonâ€t, do the work to draft him in an aggressive position if he proves worthwhile. Steele Hall was just drafted ninth overall despite reclassifying from 2026 to 2025 last November, for example. But it does mean the variance of Brick’s stock is probably more extreme than other players who rank around him on the draft board, which makes him one of the most interesting players to keep an eye on heading into 2026.

The last two drafts have been relatively light for high school catchers. In 2025, Michael Oliveto was the first high school catcher selected at 34th overall, and in 2024, Ivan Luciano was the first high school catcher selected at 64th. Brick currently ranks higher than where we had both Oliveto and Luciano at the time, and he has a chance to become the first prep catcher selected in the first round since Blake Mitchell (eighth) and Ralphy Velazquez (23rd) in 2023.Â

Gavin Gallaher, 3B, North Carolina

In our initial tracker of October risers and fallers, I noted Gallaherâ€s jump from outside the top 100 to No. 49 was due more to underrating him previously than any change in profile he made over the summer. In fact, as weâ€ve dug deeper into Gallaherâ€s profile, he seems like an extremely well-rounded college hitter who checks a lot of boxes and will be the sort of profile almost every team in the industry likes quite a bit.

Gallaher was three days shy of being a draft-eligible sophomore in the 2025 class, but will now get another year to add to an already impressive college resume.

In two seasons with North Carolina, Gallaher has hit .320/.402/.556 with 25 home runs, 20 doubles with a 17.8% strikeout rate and 12.0% walk rate. He showed a significant power uptick as a sophomore, going from eight home runs in 2024 to 17 last season. That power jump also came with improvement to his approach. He dropped his strikeout rate from 20.1% in 2024 to 16.0% in 2025 while largely maintaining his walk rate. That improved approach was even more extreme when comparing his year-over-year conference numbers:Â

• 2024: 24.3 K% and 8.7 BB%
• 2025:14.0 K% and 10.9 BB%

The 6-foot-1, 190-pound righthanded hitter and third baseman could have made an even bigger jump with a stronger summer in the Cape Cod League. His 2025 tour with Chatham (.278/.350/.300 in 24 games) was better than his 2024 summer with Yarmouth-Dennis (.202/.227/.333 in 28 games), but his general lack of power with a wood bat is going to be a question mark for him on draft day.

A College Arm Outside The Top 50

Cole Carlon, LHP, Arizona State

A demographic Iâ€d like to do a better job with on our preseason draft rankings is college pitching. In last yearâ€s class, we had two college pitchers who went inside the first five picks—Kade Anderson and Liam Doyle—ranked outside of the top 50 on our preseason draft board.Â

In early February, we ranked Anderson 97th and Doyle 52nd. Both players were in the correct spots on draft day (Anderson fourth, Doyle eighth), but in hindsight, we could have done a better job slotting them both on the preseason list.

I think college pitchers can be a bit more “out of sight, out of mind†than other position groups because many top arms shut things down entirely in the summer and fall. Additionally, college pitchers have some of the greatest potential to shift their draft stock and make wholesale profile changes within one season compared to other draft demographics, either because of pitch changes, command changes, role changes or a mix of all three.

With that in mind, Iâ€ve been doing a lot of squinting at any college pitcher we have ranked in the 50-plus range on our current draft board. Carlon is one such player. He made a 15-spot jump in our October update, going from No. 70 to No. 55 with loud scout feedback for his efforts in the fall with Arizona State.Â

Carlon has pitched as a reliever for two seasons at ASU, posting a 5.23 ERA in 94.2 innings with a 28.6% strikeout rate and 12.4% walk rate. Those numbers donâ€t show how much he improved as a sophomore, however, as he lowered his ERA from 7.75 to 3.33, improved his strikeout rate from 17.3% to 38.7% and lowered his walk rate from 13.7% to 11.3%.Â

Among college pitchers with at least 50 innings in 2025, Carlonâ€s strikeout rate was fourth-best in the country, and his K-BB% was ninth-best. After improving his control in the spring, he appeared to continue trending up in this department in the summer with Team USA and in three appearances in the Cape Cod League.

Carlon has been largely a two-pitch pitcher in college, as his fastball and slider account for about 90% of his pitch usage. But they are both loud pitches. The fastball sits 94 mph and touches 98, while his slider is a banger of a breaking ball with tight, gyro shape in the mid 80s. He generated a 56% miss rate and 30.5% swinging-strike rate on 46% usage with the slider during the spring.

If Carlon can continue to make strides with his control, show more of a third pitch and handle a starting role this spring, this ranking could also look quite low on draft day.

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