On the four episodes of the MLB Pipeline Podcast preceding the 2026 Draft, Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo will be looking at each demographic in the class: College pitchers, college hitters, high school pitchers and high school hitters. The series kicks off with a deep dive into the top college arms available in July.
2026 MLB Draft presented by Nippon Express
July 11-12:
Top 5
Jackson Flora, RHP, UC Santa Barbara (No. 5):
More than any other pitcher in the college game, Flora posted every week and dominated, separating himself like the scouting industry hoped college pitching would. -- Mayo
Cameron Flukey, RHP, Coastal Carolina (No. 11):
College World Series hero, quality fastball, some question on feel for spin, missed much of the season with injury. -- Callis
Liam Peterson, RHP, Florida (No. 14):
Peterson has arguably the best array of pure stuff, but question marks come up because of his lack of command and inconsistencies, especially in postseason play. -- Mayo
Hunter Dietz, LHP, Arkansas (No. 15):
Pros: Four plus pitches. Cons: Not a lot of track record. -- Callis
Tegan Kuhns, RHP, Tennessee (No. 24):
Tegan Kuhns has one of the best combinations of fastball and feel for spin, and he also throws a ton of strikes. -- Callis
Could anyone go No. 1?
No chance. -- Mayo
I don’t think (Flora) goes higher than five. -- Callis
More from MLB Pipeline:
• Top 100 prospects | Stats | Video | Podcast | Complete coverage
How many first-rounders?
Callis: I think the over/under if I was going to set it, I’d set it at 5.5. I think Flora, Flukey and Peterson are all pretty much locks to go in the first round. I think Hunter Dietz has a strong chance to go in the first round, although I think we like him a little more than the industry. And then I think you have your Tegan Kuhns, Cade Townsend, Cole Carlon has a lot of love. That could be seven right there.
Mayo: I still think I’ll take the over because I think enough of those other guys could land in the first round. I’ll throw in Mason Edwards, even Logan Reddemann.
Biggest wild card
Callis/Mayo: Logan Reddemann, RHP, UCLA (No. 28)
This is one that we decided we didn’t each need to pick somebody because he is clearly the biggest wild card because before he got shut down, he was racing up boards. I think given his performance and how he was doing it, he felt like a guy who could’ve gone in the top half of the first round. And then he was shut down with what was called arm fatigue and didn’t return. -- Mayo
If he hadn’t gotten hurt, he conceivably could’ve been the second college pitcher drafted behind Flora. He was putting himself in that conversation. … He’s going to have to do a physical at the Combine because teams are going to want to know what’s going on and that will provide clarity. I’m just guessing here, but let’s say if it were Tommy John surgery -- and everyone feels pretty good about guys coming back from Tommy John surgery -- he could still go in the first round. -- Callis
Most helium
Rabe is a guy who coming out of high school hurt his elbow [and] had Tommy John surgery. So he redshirted his first year at Mississippi, was a reliever, opened this year as a piggyback starter with Hunter Elliott and then became a starter. He’s just gotten better. He can hit 99 with his fastball. He’s got an upper-80s cutter that can be really nasty. He had a good changeup against the Tar Heels, and even though he walked a season-high four, I don’t think he’d walked more than two in any start. He still ranks fourth in NCAA Division I with a 7:1 K/BB ratio. I don’t think he’s going in the first round, but if you told me he’s pitched his way into the sandwich round with the way he’s pitched in the last five or six weeks, I would believe that. I think he goes no later than the top half of the second round. -- Callis
I’m going to go with Cole Carlon. It seems strange to talk about a guy with helium who we already have ranked No. 25, but I think I picked him more based on the conversations I had when I was working on the mock. I had more than one team mention him as a possibility in the top 10. … He is a 6-foot-5 lefty. He had been a reliever in his first couple years, and the big question was, "Can he start, can he throw enough strikes?" I think enough teams feel that he answered that question resoundingly enough to take him as a first-rounder because of his ability to throw enough strikes. … 6-5 lefties with four-pitch mixes and the ability to miss bats with all of them, you don’t see that every day. -- Mayo
Guys we like outside of the first round
Cal Scolari is a guy that I wrote up when we expanded to 200. He’s at No. 191 currently and he’s really interesting. There are injury questions. He had Tommy John in high school, he got shut down for a little bit this year. That made a lot of teams nervous, but he came back, pitched really well in the Big Ten Conference Tournament. He’s 6-foot-4, 220 [pounds]. ... It’s four pitches, if he throws enough strikes, he has a chance to start. I think he showed enough where teams feel more comfortable with that potential to stay in a rotation and that’s helped him move up a little bit… He’s a guy who’s interesting, under the radar, could be a nice find in the third or fourth round for a team. -- Mayo
I’m going to go Carson Wiggins, who’s No. 84 on the Top 200. Super intriguing because he has not thrown a pitch this year. He had internal brace surgery after he got hurt last year and has not pitched this year. [He's the] younger brother of Jaxon Wiggins, and it’s kind of the same story, where Jaxon Wiggins pitched at Arkansas, missed his Draft year following Tommy John surgery and he went in the supplemental second round, has become a Top 100 prospect. Carson, who’s a Draft-eligible sophomore, is kind of on a very similar path, but last year when he pitched at Arkansas, he might have had the best stuff in the country. … He’s healthy, I believe he’s thrown a bullpen, I don’t know what more he’s going to do, if he’s going to throw a bullpen at the Combine. But his brother, who was less polished than him, came back strong. I think he’s going to go in the second round somewhere. -- Callis
Overall grade
Callis: 45
Mayo: 45
I think it’s a 45 class of pitchers. There isn’t a No. 1 overall pick contender, and after you get past Jackson Flora, there’s an obvious question about any pitcher you could come up with as a potential first-rounder. There is some depth, there are super interesting guys. I think I’m maybe being a little bit of a tough grader, but I think it’s more of a 45. -- Callis
The depth of it is why I would lean towards a 50. The questions of the guys at the top abound. I do think that there are more Cal Scolari-type of arms that could go mid-rounds who might end up being quite good, and that’s the only reason why I was leaning in that direction. But that lack of top-end talent when I think the industry really wants to see college pitchers separate themselves isn’t there, so that’s why I ended up agreeing with the 45 grade. -- Mayo