Explaining Baseball America’s Updated MLB Prospect Grades & Risk System

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When we rolled out BA Grades in 2012, we described the addition as the biggest change to the Prospect Handbook since we first published the book in 2001.

Now, as we begin the unveiling of our Top 10 Prospects lists for all 30 teams entering 2026, itâ€s time for a refresh. 

This year, weâ€re making the biggest tweak to the process since BA Grades debuted nearly 15 years ago.

Details will follow in a moment, but to summarize our goal: Weâ€re trying to reset the baseline for how we account for risk to more accurately reflect what we are attempting to convey.

We casually refer to them as “BA Grades,†but in reality, our grades have always had two vital components: a future role grade and the likelihood of achieving that grade.

The number component is an attempt to summarize the likely projected role of a prospect on the familiar 20-80 scouting scale:

• 80: A player we expect to see in Cooperstown one day.
• 70: One of the best players in the game and someone who may reach the Hall of Fame.
• 60: A top-tier regular who likely makes All-Star Game appearances.
• 50: A solid regular for a competitive team and someone who would not look out of place in a postseason lineup.
• 45: A regular for a second-division team or a player with a smaller role on a competitor.
• 40: An MLB role player.

While these role grades paint a picture of a playerâ€s upside, they don’t account for the likelihood of that upside being achieved. Risk assessment, then, is crucial when comparing, for example, a tooled-up Dominican Summer League star to a Triple-A player ready to contribute now. Or when comparing a position player to a pitcher. Or when comparing a player who missed a year to injury with one who has a long track record of good health.

When BA Grades were introduced in 2012, we settled on “high†as the baseline risk for all players, because prospects carry high risk when compared with major leaguers. 

In that scheme, players who were recent draftees or productive Class A players with tools or even players with more modest tools but who had performed at the upper levels were assessed as having high risk. Players with glaring flaws or significant injury issues were assigned extreme risk. Some of the most well-rounded prospects with tools and upper-level production were medium risk.

In many ways, that is accurate. It was our attempt to spell out just how difficult it is for even solid prospects to turn into MLB regulars. Prospects, by their very nature, are risky.

But it also wasnâ€t what we wanted to fully convey. Those prospects deemed high risk werenâ€t riskier than the average prospect. They were just risky, like all prospects.

So this year, we are resetting and restating the baseline for risk.

In the past, we have used 50/High—which represents a 50 role grade and high risk—as a baseline for the run-of-the-mill, solid prospects we rank. This year, those will be 50/Average prospects.

By changing our baseline risk grade from high to average, we hope to better convey how a prospect compares to other top prospects. All prospects are risky, but a prospect with average risk is a player who is not particularly risky when compared to other prospects. 

As such, the Baseball America risk scale for 2026 now looks like this:

• Low risk: A player who is close to the majors, typically with little or no projection remaining and no pressing injury questions, with a high probability of having a major league career in some capacity.
• Mild risk: Some work left to refine their skills, but a proven player who typically comes with upper minors performance.
• Average risk: The most common or median risk level for players ranked among a teamâ€s Top 30 prospects. The average prospect has significant risk or weaknesses in some areas of their game, typical of most prospects.
• High risk: Players with injury questions, players who struggle with a key skill (especially control for pitchers or contact for hitters) and many teenagers in the low minors with significant projection remaining.
• Extreme risk: Players who have well above-average durability issues, multiple skills/tools issues to resolve and inexperienced teenage prospects who are years from the majors.

Internally, we have always fused the BA Grade and risk together into what we call an adjusted grade. For the first time, we are printing those adjusted BA Grades to provide maximum transparency. Here’s how it affects BA Grades:

• Low: No penalty
• Mild: –5 points
• Average: –10 points
• High: –15 points
• Extreme: –20 points

Adjusted grades are designed to capture how different player types with varying levels of experience can line up on an ordinal ranking. A 40/Low, for example, carries the same adjusted grade of 40 as a 45/Mild or a 50/Average or a 55/High or a 60/Extreme.

For those teams that chase upside and are tolerant of risk, a 60/Extreme prospect ranked four spots behind a 50/Average player may be preferable. For those who donâ€t want to be burned by the siren song of potential, the 45/Mild prospect may appear to be the better bet.

Top 100 Prospects can be counted on to carry an adjusted BA Grade of 45 or better (e.g. 50/Mild, 55/Average or 60/High). Conversely, a farm system full of players with an adjusted grade of 35 or lower is either full of unproven, faraway prospects or low-ceiling role players—or some mixture of the two.

This is a big adjustment for BA, and it doesn’t come without some concern about changing a system that we have maintained for more than a decade. Its roots trace back to the days when Mike Trout, Bryce Harper and Nolan Arenado were still prospects.

But we donâ€t want to let a reverence for history or tradition prevent us from improving something that can be made better. We always want to be striving to improve, and we hope this takes us forward.

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