MLB's Next Wave of Super Prospects Is Here to Redeem Disastrous Rookie Class

A little over two months into the 2025 MLB season, and the kids are not alright.

In fact, here's a little secret about this year's rookie class: It stinks.

So far, anyway. Assuming FanGraphs is accurate in tracking rookie eligibility—which can be tricky—the league has gotten 8.9 WAR from rookie hitters and 8.0 WAR from rookie pitchers. This is with about 40 percent of the season complete, so we're looking at...[does back-of-the-envelope math]...about a 45-WAR pace.

Not counting 2020, that would mark the lowest WAR total for a rookie class since Bobby Crosby and the class of 2004 managed only 39 WAR.

If ever there was a time for hope, though, it's now.

There has been a run of exciting call-ups within the last month, starting with Jordan Lawlar and continuing with Dalton Rushing, Marcelo Mayer, Jac Caglianone and the most hyped of them all: Roman Anthony. He occupies the No. 1 spot in MLB Pipeline's top 100, while Lawlar (No. 4), Mayer (No. 8) and Caglianone (No. 10) are likewise in the top 10.

Yet before you ask what could possib-lie go wrong, let's just say MLB's first wave of rookie standouts didn't exactly hit the ground running.

It's Been a Dismal Year for Big Hype Prospects

An interesting artefact for right now is an article by Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com from January 5, which revealed the results of a survey of MLB executives focused on the Rookie of the Year favorites for 2025.

For the American League, Anthony, Jackson Jobe, Jasson Domínguez, Coby Mayo, Kristian Campbell and Jacob Wilson got votes. For the National League, it was Dylan Crews, Matt Shaw, Bubba Chandler and Lawlar.

Mind you, this was before Rōki Sasaki signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers. If he had been an option, 79.2 percent of respondents favored him to win Rookie of the Year regardless of which league he landed in.

All of this initially aged well. Of those purported favorites, only Anthony, Mayo, Chandler and Lawlar didn't make their way onto an Opening Day roster. And by then, Sasaki (No. 1), Crews (No. 4), Jobe (No. 5) and Campbell (No. 7) were entrenched among the league's top 10 prospects.

That's how it started, anyway. Here's how it's going for those four:

• RHP Rōki Sasaki, Los Angeles Dodgers: 0.1 rWAR, -0.3 fWAR
• OF Dylan Crews, Washington Nationals: 0.3 rWAR, 0.0 fWAR
• RHP Jackson Jobe, Detroit Tigers: 0.2 rWAR, 0.0 fWAR
• 2B Kristian Campbell, Boston Red Sox: -0.4 rWAR, 0.0 fWAR

Neither Sasaki nor Jobe looked ready for the spotlight before each landed on the injured list with a shoulder impingement and a flexor strain, respectively. Both struggled with walks, and neither was having any success throwing the fastball by anyone.

Crews is also on the IL with an oblique strain, and he and Campbell otherwise have hitting around the Mendoza Line in common. Each has been especially disastrous against sliders.

As for the other names up there, Mayo has been a sub-replacement-level producer and both Domínguez (109) and Shaw (96) are basically in average offensive territory for OPS+. Lawlar got his shot on May 13, but he was back in the minors two weeks later after going 0-for-19 in eight games.

Thank goodness for Wilson. The Athletics shortstop is running away with the AL Rookie of the Year race, not to mention chasing history with a .366 average and 93 hits in 64 games. The rookie records are .373, set by George Watkins in 1930, and 242, set by Ichiro Suzuki in 2004.

Wilson aside, though, the 2025 rookie class resembles a bloodbath from which none can escape. And Caglianone and Anthony just dove in.

For Hitters, MiLB Is Increasingly Nothing Like MLB

You'll have to forgive me for pouring on the bad vibes, but it isn't just Lawlar who has set a bad precedent for Caglianone and Anthony.

Rushing and Mayer have also struggled to adapt to the big leagues, with the former hitting .194 with 20 strikeouts in 11 games as a Dodger and the latter batting .225 with 11 strikeouts in 14 games with Boston. They don't look so much like saviors as, well, depth.

Caglianone and Anthony should be different. Before getting the call to the Kansas City Royals, Caglianone bludgeoned Double-A and Triple-A pitching for a .982 OPS and 15 homers in 50 games. In 58 games at Triple-A, Anthony got on base at a .423 clip with 10 homers.

Alas, neither made a strong first impression. Caglianone was 2-for-21 before breaking out with a four-hit game on Sunday. Anthony only just made his debut for the Red Sox on Monday, and he went 0-for-4 with a critical error. He at least redeemed himself by collecting a two-run double for his first MLB hit on Tuesday.

We'll see what happens from here, but it's not just you if it feels like even the hottest of hot-shot hitting prospects keep running into walls in the majors.

Even before this year pancaked so many of these types, 2024 brutalized Jackson Holliday and was rough on Jackson Chourio and Wyatt Langford before they eventually adjusted. Tales of a growing gap between the minors and majors were told by the likes of Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic and Travis Sawchik of The Score, with both focusing on how much the pitching landscape has changed.

There just aren't as many experienced pitchers at the highest level of the minors anymore, and even younger talent is in shorter supply than you'd expect. Organizations have so finely tuned the pursuit of stuff that any pitchers who have it tend to get bumped to the bigs more quickly.

And as Holliday told Sawchik: "I think Double-A might have better arms and more talented stuff than Triple-A."

At least in theory, hitters like Wilson would be the exception to the rule. He's a bat-to-ball guy with an all-fields stroke, not a slugger who's looking to drive everything he swings at. But lest anyone forget, even he struggled in his first exposure to MLB action in 2024, batting a modest .250 in 28 games.

In any case, the numbers confirm that life has gotten harder for rookie hitters. In the 30-team era, five of the seven lowest OPSes by rookie hitters have come since 2020.

The lowest (.644) is happening right now in 2025.

Could It Be Rookie Pitchers to the Rescue?

Then again, who says rookie hitters must have all the fun?

They usually do, but last year broke the mold with rookie pitchers (60.6 fWAR) easily outproducing rookie hitters (49.1 fWAR). Paul Skenes can pat himself on the back for that, but he got ample help from fellow Rookie of the Year Luis Gil and a number of other standouts.

Despite Sasaki and Jobe, another solid year for rookie pitchers is unfolding in 2025. Tomoyuki Sugano, Shane Smith, Chad Patrick and Jack Leiter have been racking up solid starts, while guys such as Ben Casparius, Jack Dreyer and Eric Orze have been shoving out of the bullpen.

And now, here comes Jacob Misiorowski to join the Milwaukee Brewers. He is MLB Pipeline's No. 68 prospect, and in his arsenal is a fastball that goes as high as 103.

As both have basically run out of things to prove at Triple-A, it's just a matter of time before Bubba Chandler and Andrew Painter are seen in Pennsylvania with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies. Each is a top-five prospect for MLB Pipeline, and one thing they have in common is a 70-grade fastball.

Even this late in the season, Misiorowski, Chandler and Painter may have a shot at the NL Rookie of the Year. Atlanta Braves righty AJ Smith-Shawver had been the leader in the clubhouse for the award, but he's done for the year after having Tommy John surgery on Monday.

If it does end up being a bad year for rookies, it need not be forever.

Shifting though the landscape may be, it's too soon to say it has turned against rookies. Per fWAR, 2023 and 2024 were the third- and fourth-best years ever for rookies. And as Holliday, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Ben Rice and Andy Pages can vouch, a tough introduction to major league pitching can be shaken off in, oh, about a year.

For the moment, though, to say 2025 is not shaping up to be a banner year for rookies would be underselling it. It's ugly out there, and nothing short of historic heroics by the new guys is going to change that.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.