We’re at an interesting point in the season, when we bid a fond farewell to a number of young players from the prospect rolls.
Guys like Kevin McGonigle and JJ Wetherholt have already graduated because they surpassed the 130 at-bat rookie status plateau. Most other prospects who made Opening Day rosters and are still in the big leagues will come off on Sunday because of service time. No. 1 prospect Konnor Griffin isn’t far behind. So there’s going to be a lot of changes at the top. We use this time to do our first "market corrections" of the Top 100, coming next week. It’s a chance to shuffle the deck a bit, adjust based on performance and what we’re seeing from players (and hearing from teams), adding and subtracting to that list.
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Two of this week’s questions in the MLB Pipeline Inbox are about prospects who could be impacted by that work, while the other two are about intriguing players on team Top 30 lists who are worth keeping an eye on.
Doyle was the No. 5 overall pick in the 2025 Draft out of the University of Tennessee, signing a below-slot deal of $7.25 million and entering pro ball with the hopes that his swing-and-miss stuff – especially his fastball – would help him move quickly. The lefty had a strong enough spring to earn that aggressive assignment to Double-A Springfield, where it’s been ... uneven, at best.
After five starts, the No. 27 prospect has some ugly overall numbers, including a 7.31 ERA, 1.69 WHIP and .308 batting average against. He is missing bats (10.1 K/9), and that heater is still eliciting a 31-percent miss rate, according to Synergy, but it’s clear that his command within the zone has been lacking. That fastball has been hit a bit more than in the past in the early going.
I’m providing all of this for some context. Yes, it’s not the start people would have liked to have seen from the organization’s top pick. But I’m not particularly worried. His stuff is still good, the velocity is still there. And it’s a very small sample size of 16 innings. If those 16 IP came in mid-July, I’m not sure we would really notice it other than a little blip.
Beyond that, the Cardinals are not the least bit worried. They have an overarching philosophy of caring more about developing big leaguers than now performance/production anyway, so they’re not going to put too much weight into numbers, especially this early. With that end goal in mind, they’ve pushed Doyle to learn to be a more complete pitcher at an advanced level. The key component in that is learning to not rely as heavily on his fastball and pitch with a full repertoire, especially learning to refine his slider. Last year at Tennessee, he threw his heater 63 percent of the time; so far this year, he’s at 54 percent. The new breaking balls he’s throwing, in conjunction with that drop in fastball usage, are pointing to a more well-rounded arsenal that, if all goes well, will work in the big leagues. So there are going to be some bumps on this learning curve. I would not advocate him being sent down and as the Cardinals might tell you, “Trust the process.”
Morii might be the most fascinating prospect no one is talking about. Currently No. 13 on the A’s Top 30, he signed for just over $1.5 million in January 2025. He made his pro debut last summer, hitting only in game action, playing in 43 Arizona Complex League games. We probably would have heard more from him at this point this season, but a hamstring injury suffered in the Spring Breakout game delayed him a bit. But he’s now playing in the ACL again, and the plan is for him to head to Single-A Stockton next week.
The A’s have a plan in place to allow him to continue to both hit and pitch, while also playing the field. The bat is ahead of the arm, with a good left-handed swing and some definite raw power to tap into. On the mound, he’s a bit raw, kind of what you might see from a high-level high schooler here, with a fastball in the low-90s, a good splitter and work-in-progress breaking stuff. For right now, he’s going to play second base and pitch this season. He’ll pitch on Thursdays, beginning with one-inning outings, maxing out at three this year. The rest of the week, he’ll play second and DH some, and he won’t hit on the days he pitches.
Since we’ve yet to see him on the mound competitively here, let’s wait and see what happens. There’s some confidence the bat will play, but we’ve yet to see anyone who can play a position and pitch while maintaining both, not even Shohei Ohtani. I think the only way it might possibly be sustainable is if he remains in a relief role and the A’s continue to be meticulous with planning out his schedule. If I had to guess, I’d say he ends up hitting full-time eventually, but I’m as excited as you are to watch how it plays out.
He’s pretty close. I was in Blue Jays camp this spring and I remember discussing Keys with player development staff because the 2024 fourth-round pick and No. 17 prospect in the system was having a very good spring after an inconsistent first full season of pro ball with High-A Vancouver. That’s carried over to how he’s swung the bat up a level in Double-A to kick off 2026. He’s posted a .309/.427/.629 line over 27 games with nine homers. He’s fifth in slugging and OPS in the Eastern League. The K rate is a little concerning (26.5 percent), but he offsets it with walks (12.8 percent) and if he’s going to get his power that consistently, you can live with that swing-and-miss. If that production continues, and he continues to play the majority of his games at the hot corner as he has, then yes, I believe he does at least belong in the conversation to be added to that list, especially when you consider the general weakness of that particular top 10.
We first answered this question, at length, on this week’s Pipeline Podcast, before Jones was called up. His callup – Jim Callis broke down what to expect from the somewhat polarizing prospect in the big leagues – changes the context a little bit. And I’ll disclose that the asker of this question, in a back-and-forth on Twitter, said he was not-so-secretly hoping Jones would get added to a couple of Top 100 lists and the Yankees wouldn’t call him up, or keep him up, early in the hopes of him earning them a PPI Draft pick next year. It remains to be seen if Jones can stick long enough now to make that point moot, but he remains one of the toughest prospects to figure out. The tools are immense – raw power, speed, defense in center – as is the swing-and-miss (32.4 percent K rate so far this year; 35.2 percent in 100 total Triple-A games in his career). As mentioned in the intro, we’re working on our first Top 100 adjustment and we always talk about him, so yes, he has a chance, but I’m not totally convinced he can make enough contact in the big leagues to warrant a spot.