Cleveland Guardians Land Multiple Prospects On New Top-100 Ranking

Before spring training officially gets underway and the minor leagues begin, now is a perfect time to rank MLB’s best prospects heading into the 2026 season.

Kiley McDaneil of ESPN recently released his top-100 prospects list, and the Cleveland Guardians had quite a bit of representation on his ranking. Overall, seven Guardians prospects landed on the list. 

Here are the players and where they landed on McDaniel’s ranking:

Comparing this group to MLB Pipeline’s top-100 list, released over the weekend, there is some agreement and some differences. 

To start, MLB Pipeline agrees that Bazzana is Cleveland’s top prospect and deserves to be somewhere around No. 20.

However, McDaniel is much higher on Velazquez, who MLB Pipeline had ranked at No. 89. Perhaps No. 33 is a little high for Valazequez, but he did finish the 2025 season with an OPS of .994 in 28 games at Double-A, so he could be in the story for a breakout season.

McDaniel is extremely high on Velázquez because, “His exit velos are plus for the big leagues and his in-game metrics (50% hard hit rate, 21% barrel rate) are also plus while his contact/approach metrics are above average and he's still just 20 years old.”

It is hard to argue with that analysis.

The biggest disparity between the two rankings is that ESPN’s included pitchers Khal Stephen and Braylon Doughty, while MLB Pipeline included C Cooper Ingle in their place.

Doughty could definitely end up on more top-100 prospect lists by the end of the 2026 season. Right now, his biggest knock is his lack of experience, having made only 22 starts at the minor league level.

However, in Doughty’s appearances at Singel-A, he logged a 3.48 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, and a strikeout rate of 27.3 percent. There’s a ton of potential in the 20-year-old. 

Stephen is another promising pitcher who owns a minor-league career 2.53 ERA and a 0.99 WHIP. Even if some of those numbers inflate as he makes his way through the farm system, McDaniel is incredibly high on the right-hander’s floor. 

“Stephen's command is among the best in the minors, so he'll be an innings eater of some kind, but he could become a No. 2/No. 3 starter with another step of development,” wrote the analyst.

Even though some of the players and their positions may differ from list to list, it’s pretty clear that the Guardians have an exciting future ahead of them, or some interesting prospects who could be dangled in trade discussions if Cleveland opts to go that route. 

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