Where Baseball's Top Prospects Are Opening the 2024 Season

By Benjamin Chase

The 2024 Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball seasons have now officially kicked off, with all full-season minor league levels now active on the season. That can lead to the question - where are the top prospects at to open the season?

Let’s take a look at that, using the Baseball America rankings, the longest-running prospect rankings in the industry, as our guide. In large part, they’ll all be in the upper levels of the minor leagues, as only three of the top 25 prospects open the 2024 season in either High-A or Single-A.

Major Leagues - 6

The Opening Day major league lineups across the majors featured five members of the top 25 prospects, including three of the top five. Second-ranked Jackson Chourio opened the season in the Milwaukee Brewers’ outfield, Evan Carter (4th) and Wyatt Langford (5th) both opened 2024 in the Texas Rangers lineup, No. 17 Jackson Merrill started for San Diego in center field, and Kyle Harrison (25) was in the San Francisco Giants’ Opening Day rotation.

Jasson Dominguez, ranked 16th, opened the season on the MLB injured list.

Among the rest of the top 100, sixteen others ranked in the preseason BA rankings: Jared Jones, Pittsburgh, No. 26; Colt Keith, Baltimore, 28; Colton Cowser, Baltimore, 32; Michael Busch, Chicago Cubs, 45; Mason Miller, Oakland, 47; Brayan Rocchio, Cleveland, 54; Gavin Stone, Los Angeles Dodgers, 65; Shane Baz, Tampa Bay, 68; Austin Wells, New York Yankees, 71; Victor Scott, St. Louis, 77; Nolan Schanuel, Los Angeles Angels, 78; Curtis Mead, Tamps Bay, 79; Max Meyer, Miami, 88; DL Hall, Milwaukee, 93; Ceddanne Rafaela, Boston, 94; and Luis Gil, New York Yankees, 100.

Jackson Holliday prepares to bat for the Florida Complex League Orioles in 2022Photo byBryan Green

Triple-A - 9

The most populous initial placement among top-25 prospects was in Triple-A, including top overall prospect Jackson Holliday of Baltimore. Junior Caminero of Tampa Bay, ranked third, opened the year with Durham, but he was injured and already has been placed on the injured list. Ninth-ranked prospect Jordan Lawlar opened on the Triple-A injured list, hoping to make it to Arizona by the end of the season.

Seventh-ranked Paul Skenes and No. 8 James Wood each have made an impact already early in the season. Colson Montgomery (15), Pete Crow-Armstrong (20), Ricky Tiedemann (22), and Coby Mayo (24) were all assigned to their clubs’ respective Triple-A squads to open the season.

Double-A - 7

Dylan Crews was the lone top-10-ranked player to be assigned to Double-A. The sixth-ranked player and last season’s second-overall draft pick was assigned to Harrisburg. Orioles’ power hitter Samuel Basallo, ranked 11, was also assigned to Double-A as was 12th ranked Tigers hurler Jackson Jobe.

Andrew Painter (13) opened the season on the minor league injured list while Red Sox teammates Roman Anthony (18) and Marcelo Mayer (21) opened the year with Portland. Top Cubs’ pitching prospect Cade Horton, ranked 23, opened the season in Tennessee.

High-A - 1

Tenth-ranked Ethan Salas surprisingly opened the season with San Diego’s High-A club. Salas was an international signee in January 2023 the Padres jumped straight into full-season ball last year at 16 years old. Salas worked his way all the way up to Double-A with nine games in High-A and Double-A each, but the Padres chose to assign him to Fort Wayne.

Single-A - 2

The final two assignments among the top 25 are two high school outfielder drafted early in the 2023 draft by American League Central teams. Walker Jenkins, ranked 14, was assigned to the Twins’ Fort Myers club, and the Tigers’ assigned 19th-ranked Max Clark to Lakeland.

That highlights the top prospects, but who are the interesting placements of prospects this year? Check back tomorrow to find out!

Benjamin Chase is a newspaper reporter for the Plainsman in South Dakota. His passion for the game of baseball has led to numerous writing and podcasting credits over the years. Currently, Benjamin is a co-editor for IBWAA’s Here’s the Pitch newsletter, writes for his Medium site, Chasing Baseball Greatness, and also is a co-host of the Pallazzo Podcast prospect show. He’s on most social medias under the username biggentleben.