4 Top 2026 College Draft Prospects Who Made Pitching Changes This Offseason

The 2026 MLB Draft class is headlined by several college pitchers who entered the offseason with clear areas to sharpen. Rather than standing pat, each made targeted changes to their mechanics, pitch mixes or both with the intention of converting raw traits into sustained performance.Â

The early returns suggest meaningful shifts in how each pitcher’s stuff plays and how they attack hitters.Â

Below are four of the most notable 2026 arms who reshaped their profiles heading into their draft year.

Liam Peterson, RHP, Florida

• 2026 Draft Ranking: No. 4

Peterson enters his draft year as the top-ranked pitcher in the 2026 class thanks to his unique release traits and multiple potential plus pitches.

While Peterson’s back of the baseball card numbers have not fully aligned with his talent yet, there has been steady movement toward a more polished version of what his stuff suggests he can be. Across two seasons, he owns a 5.30 ERA with 173 strikeouts to 76 walks over 132.1 innings. His 2025 performance marked progress, as he posted a 4.28 ERA with 96 strikeouts to 32 walks in 69.1 innings, showing improved strike-throwing and more durable execution. However, he allowed more line drives and fewer ground balls in 2025 than he did as a freshman.

One of the clearest points of focus came from how hitters—especially righties—fared against his fastball. Righthanders hit .253 against it in 2025. To address that, Peterson has introduced a two-seam fastball intended to change the look and movement profile of his attack. The two-seamer adds horizontal run rather than vertical sink and is used situationally to vary angles and avoid giving hitters repeated looks at the same shape rather than as a primary pitch.

Petersonâ€s approach is most effective when he works north and south against both lefties and righties. To sharpen that style, he’s raised his arm slot to an even more over-the-top release, reinforcing the vertical attack lanes that best suit his pitch shapes. He has also continued refining his delivery by staying stacked over his back leg, moving more directly toward the plate and improving the efficiency of his arm action. Those adjustments, paired with added strength, have helped him throw more strikes throughout the fall—an area that has fluctuated at times over his first two seasons.

The physical gains and mechanical clarity have also shown up in velocity and pitch quality. Peterson has sat consistently in the high 90s with several fastballs near triple digits in the fall. He has worked his offspeed pitches in with better deception, especially his slider, which remains his primary secondary pitch. His curveball has looked particularly sharp from his more extreme slot, and his changeup has also benefited from the improved arm speed and sequencing in his delivery, allowing him to maintain similar intent across his pitch mix.

Petersonâ€s profile has always suggested a frontline starter if the command and pitch execution tightened. His offseason adjustments were designed to make his strengths play more consistently while addressing how hitters keyed on his fastball. If the improved strike-throwing and more efficient delivery carry into the spring, the top-ranked pitcher in the class will arrive in his draft season with the momentum evaluators have been waiting to see reflected in his performance line.

Jackson Flora, RHP, UC Santa Barbara

• 2026 Draft Ranking: No. 17

Flora enters his draft year as the ace of UC Santa Barbaraâ€s staff and firmly positioned among the nationâ€s premier talents. His sophomore season provided a clear look at how high the ceiling may eventually reach. There is a real pathway for him to contend with Peterson for the title of top pitcher in the 2026 class, a scenario reminiscent of former teammate Tyler Bremnerâ€s rise in 2025 when Bremner became the first pitcher selected and the highest draft pick in UCSB history at No. 2 overall.

Across two seasons, Flora has thrown 122 innings with a 3.69 ERA and 126 strikeouts against 42 walks. His 2025 campaign marked a full step forward. Working almost entirely as a starter, he delivered a 3.60 ERA with 86 strikeouts to 17 walks over 75 innings. The raw ingredients were already present, but the goal now is conversion from promise to sustained dominance. Flora and UCSB coach Andrew Checketts spent the offseason tailoring his arsenal to get there.

The fastball was the first point of emphasis. Floraâ€s velocity has long been a separator, and the pitch could show explosive life at the top of the zone, but there were periods in 2025 when the shape backed up, creating a dead zone look that hitters could square. A four-start stretch in March illustrated that vulnerability when Flora allowed 20 earned runs in 17.1 innings.

To combat this, grip adjustments were made to help the pitch carry more consistently, and early fall outings suggested the change took hold. Flora sat 98.5 mph in his opening appearance of the fall with his first pitch registering 99 and holding its plane with more conviction at the upper part of the strike zone.

Attention then shifted to solving lefthanded hitters, who found more success against Flora last season, largely due to the lack of a reliable weapon that moved away from their barrels. After experimenting with splitters and circle-change variations without the desired consistency in 2025, Flora worked to adopt a kick changeup, a pitch trending across professional baseball thanks to a grip and release that keep arm speed intact. He has taken to the pitch quickly, and it now gives him a true change-of-pace offering to neutralize lefties.

Flora also added another breaking ball to bridge the gap between his sweeping breaking ball and his firmer slider. The new curveball carries a slurvy profile that adds another look without replacing the shapes already in his mix. The result is greater flexibility to sequence based on hitter tendencies rather than relying on only two breaking speeds.

Floraâ€s capacity to make these adjustments stems from two core strengths that have been evident since his arrival: advanced feel for spin and fast, athletic arm action. Those traits have allowed him to integrate new shapes and grips without overhauling his delivery.

As he enters 2026, Floraâ€s arsenal consists of a four-seam fastball, sweeper, slider, curveball and kick changeup. With improved fastball carry and a more complete plan against opposite-handed hitters, the Gauchos†ace is positioned to anchor his team’s staff and place himself at the forefront of the national draft conversation.

Joey Volchko, RHP, Georgia

• 2026 Draft Ranking: No. 25

Few pitchers in the 2026 class offer raw material as formidable as Volchko, a 6-foot-4, 225-pound righthander whose pure arsenal has long pointed to early first-round evaluations. His time at Stanford showcased that upside in flashes, but it also laid bare the distance between what he could be and what he has been.

Across two seasons and 113 innings, Volchko posted a 5.89 ERA with a 20.6% strikeout rate and 10.5% walk rate—a profile shaped largely by difficulty repeating his delivery and executing within the strike zone. The inconsistency clouded his on-field value even as evaluators remained steadfast about the ceiling.

Volchko sought a reset over the summer and transferred to Georgia, aligning himself with Bulldogs coach Wes Johnson, whose reputation as a progressive and detail-oriented pitching developer has been earned over a long track record that includes a stint as a big league pitching coach. The partnership is aimed at consolidating Volchkoâ€s considerable power into something more predictable.Â

Volchko arrived in Athens with a fastball that averaged 95 mph and reached 99, showing heavy cutting action. He paired it with a high-spin slider around 90, a mid-80s power curveball, a cutter in the low 90s and a low-90s changeup. Johnson adjusted the fastball grip to produce greater carry at the top of the zone while preserving the velocity and general intent. He also helped Volchko add a high-80s sweeper to expand his breaking ball shapes and introduced a true changeup to complement the existing velocity bands in his mix.Â

Strength and conditioning work, along with an emphasis on driving more directly toward the plate, have naturally lowered Volchkoâ€s arm slot by roughly 3-4 inches. It is the same type of adjustment Johnson once guided with Paul Skenes during his LSU tenure in 2023.

The totality of these changes is oriented toward allowing Volchko to live in the strike zone more often and to get more predictable movement profiles on each pitch. The power has never been the question. The determining factor is whether Volchko’s delivery and command can stabilize to let the weapons play inning over inning rather than in isolated spurts.

If the adjustments hold into the spring and the strike-throwing improves, the path is there for Volchko to push firmly into the upper tier of the 2026 draft board and possibly into the SP1 discussion. The talent has always suggested that possibility. Georgia will now attempt to bring it into full view.

Blake Morningstar, RHP, Wake Forest

• 2026 Draft Ranking: No. 86

Morningstar has steadily climbed from a bullpen role into a key rotation piece at Wake Forest, and he enters 2026 positioned to be one of the more intriguing power-armed righthanders in the class. His first season in Winston-Salem came with impact innings but also growing pains, particularly in the form of home runs. He allowed 10 homers in 29 innings as a freshman. In 2025, he worked more than twice the volume at 79 innings, again allowing 10 home runs but cutting his ERA to 3.87 and demonstrating sharper execution of his best traits.

Morningstar has a strong and durable 6-foot-4, 225-pound frame with a long, whippy arm stroke that creates carry and late life. He works with two fastballs, a low-80s curveball that at its best shows plus potential with depth and two-plane tilt, an upper-80s cutter and a mid-to-upper-80s changeup.

Morningstar’s developmental focus this fall centered on refining the fastball profile and expanding his breaking shapes. Wake Forestâ€s staff worked to create more separation between the four-seam and two-seam looks, giving him more distinct movement patterns rather than two versions of similar flights. They also introduced a sweeper that has tested extremely well in its early iterations, generating roughly 18 inches of sweep with about three inches of vertical break. The addition gives him a broader set of east-west looks to complement a heater that already plays with life.

Physical development has accompanied the pitch design work. Wake Forest coach Tom Walter noted that Morningstar engaged in a more aggressive strength program aimed at packing additional muscle onto his frame. The added strength has correlated with a velocity bump. This fall, his fastball has sat 95-97 mph and touched 98, a notable jump from 2025 when he averaged 93.4 on fastballs.

Morningstar already produced a quality statistical line in 2025 and showed progress in limiting damage while carrying a full starterâ€s workload. With improved velocity and the continued shaping of multiple fastball and breaking ball profiles, he has the chance to emerge as one of the ACCâ€s more imposing arms in 2026. His development trajectory is trending in the right direction, and the arsenal now offers enough dimension to challenge hitters on multiple planes.

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