Happy Bowman Draft release day to those who celebrate! Now here’s the moment I know many of you have been waiting for… the pitcher rankings!

Although many people in the hobby actively avoid pitchers those of you who have been following me for awhile know that I’m quite the opposite. I did share their disdain for pitchers some years ago until I realized that the monetary gains that can be made with pitching prospects in Bowman are often exponentially higher than those of hitting prospects. Of the 38 pitchers with 1st Bowman autographs in this product I ended up writing a scouting report for 26 of them and listing 5 more as sleepers! And it’s not that I don’t like the other 7 either, I just had to stop somewhere. There’s almost always value in holding pitchers to me and this class offers a ton of names I think we should be able to scoop at a good price once this product drops.

Top 5 – Pretty straightforward as with hitters, my 5 favorite pitchers to chase in this release. Remember while hitting prospects generate more hype and can often double our money when they’re still teenagers, the bulk of our big gains with pitchers often come when they make their MLB debut. That means that while age does still matter, their proximity to the league should be weighted more heavily in my opinion than it is with hitting prospects.

Top 5

1. Kade Anderson (SEA) LHP – 6’2” / 179 (Age: 21.5)

• Fastball: 70, Slider: 60, Curve: 60, Change: 60, Command: 45
• Bonus: $8.8 million

Leading up to the 2025 MLB Draft, there was quite a bit of noise that the Nationals would select Kade Anderson #1 overall; in fact, his betting odds to go first spiked from -250 to -700 in the hours prior to the draft. Washington went with a bit of a surprise pick in Eli Willits, but the real surprise was the Angels then passing on Anderson at No. 2 and letting him fall into the lap of the Mariners at No. 3.

This is hands down the best college pitcher in this class, in my opinion. As the grades suggest, Anderson has the possibility for four plus pitches, and I’m actually higher on his command than FG and think it’s easily a 50. He has a good, repeatable delivery, and he’s not physically maxed out yet, which could be scary for other teams because he already touched 97 from the left side with carry.

In his first season at LSU, he went heavily to the curveball to punch out hitters, but this past season, the draft-eligible sophomore went more with a slider that generates a ton of spin and a changeup that fades away from righties with sink. Last year, Anderson put up the silliest pitching line you’ll find on this list when he went 12-1 in 19 starts with a 3.18 ERA, 2.93 FIP, 13.61 K/9, and 2.65 BB/9 in 119 innings with LSU, where he led all D-I pitchers in strikeouts (180) while leading the Tigers to a National Championship victory.

He was the Most Outstanding Player at the College World Series after he went 2-0, allowing just one run and six hits in 16 innings, and finished the year with a 10-strikeout, complete-game shutout of Coastal Carolina in the finals. The Mariners have been a pitching factory of late, as they’ve drafted and developed four of their five big-league starters in Bryan Woo, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, and Bryce Miller. I’d argue that Kade Anderson had more upside coming into the draft than any of those four did when they were taken. This could be a big-time addition for Seattle.

2. Seth Hernandez (PIT) RHP – 6’4” / 190 (Age: 19.5)

• Fastball: 70, Slider: 55, Curve: 60, Change: 70, Command: 40
• Bonus: $7.25 million

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider Seth Hernandez at #1, and honestly, I’d call him more of a 1B on this list than a 2. I mentioned in my hitters article that Corona (CA) had three players selected in the first round, including Billy Carlson (CHW) and Brady Ebel (MIL), but their highest-drafted player was Hernandez at 6th overall. He is absolutely electric. Best pure stuff in this entire draft class.

As a high schooler, he sat in the mid-90s but ran it up to 97-98 often in games and even hit 100 at the Area Code Games. It didn’t matter where he pitched—Corona High School, Area Code Games, USA Baseball’s 18U camp, the National High School Invitational—it was dominance again and again. Along with the high-octane heater, he has a changeup with incredible action that might give him a second 70-grade pitch as he develops. As if he wasn’t hard enough to hit, he mixes in a true 12-6 curve with a spin rate near 3,000 and a slider, which is newer but looked great as well.

Though FanGraphs is lower on his command, MLB Pipeline has it at 55, as he finds the zone well with most of his offerings for his age. Though he’s a no-doubt pitching prospect, Hernandez was an extremely athletic two-way player in high school, batting over .300 as both a junior and senior and hitting a combined 15 HR. I won’t pretend like that is any comparison to his pitching stats, though.

Between his junior and senior years on the mound, Hernandez went 18-1 with a 0.51 ERA, only surrendering 8 earned runs over more than 100 innings pitched. In his senior campaign, his ERA was 0.39, and in 53.1 innings he struck out 105 batters while only walking 7 of them. It’s like this kid was built in a pitching lab. I give Kade Anderson the nod only because, with pitching prospects, our biggest opportunity to make money is usually the MLB debut, and Anderson’s will probably come a couple of years sooner. But if you’re someone who is chasing the ceiling and thinks they could strike gold with the next Paul Skenes, Hernandez is your best bet in this product.

3. Jamie Arnold (ATH) LHP – 6’1” / 188 (Age: 21.8)

• Fastball: 55, Slider: 60, Change: 55, Command: 45
• Bonus: $5.99 million

There are quite a few arms I like in this next tier after the top two, and I may surprise some people here, but give me Jamie Arnold from the A’s as my third pitcher. One thing you can say about the college hitters who faced Arnold over the past two seasons is that they all looked uncomfortable—almost in the same way that hitters look against Chris Sale, whose weird arm slot is similar to the one that Arnold throws from.

He can hit 97 from that flat angle, and not unlike Sale, his slider sweeps all the way across the zone—a pitch that registered a 43% whiff rate combined over the last two seasons. He’s also got good feel for his changeup as a third offering, which he uses less frequently than the other two, but it’s still probably somewhere in the range of average to above average.

For the third time here, I disagree with FG’s assessment that his command will be below average, and I think it’s probably above average. Though the slider can get out of the zone due to its massive break, he really works well in the zone, posting a BB/9 under 3 in both of his last two seasons. It was really his 2024 season that put him on the radar, as he went 11-3 in 18 starts with a 2.98 ERA, 2.19 FIP, 13.54 K/9, and 2.21 BB/9 over 105.2 innings. He had a 35.4% K rate and 5.8% BB rate, and that 29.6% K-BB% is a hobby dream if all goes right.

That season, the only D-I pitchers in the country who struck out more batters than Arnold were Chase Burns and Hagen Smith, who both went in the top five picks of the MLB Draft that year. Though his K/9 (12.65) and BB/9 (2.87) dropped slightly in 2025, they were still really good, and he matched his 2.98 ERA while also lowering his batting average against from .220 to .204. I’m pretty surprised he fell to 11th overall in the draft, and I think the A’s, who drafted well last year, have done it again.

4. Liam Doyle (STL) LHP – 6’2” / 220 (Age: 21.6)

• Fastball: 70, Slider: 60, Change: 55, Command: 45
• Bonus: $7.25 million

Doyle had an interesting college career, as he started at Coastal Carolina as a freshman before transferring to Ole Miss as a sophomore, and again to Tennessee before his junior year. Though he had success at all three stops, it was the leap he made in his final season that really cemented his spot as a lottery pick in the MLB Draft.

While at Tennessee, Doyle appeared in 19 games (17 starts), going 10-4 with a 3.20 ERA, 15.43 K/9, and 3.01 BB/9. He struck out an absurd 42.6% of the batters he faced while only walking 8.3% of them, and that 15.43 K/9 was the highest among all qualified D-I starting pitchers in the country. His 3.20 ERA also becomes more impressive when you consider that his FIP was 2.45, suggesting that, even with those impressive stats, he perhaps should have given up even fewer runs.

The pitch we’re after here is no doubt the fastball, which touches triple digits and was one of the hardest pitches to hit last year in all of college baseball. Along with that, he has mixed in a handful of secondary offerings in the last couple of years, including a slider, cutter, and splitter/changeup, all of which have the stuff to become above average—but it could take some development on the Cardinals’ end. That’s because Doyle’s electric fastball was the pitch that came out of his hand nearly 65% of the time in 2025.

Though his secondary pitches are good and have potential, he almost operates in a reliever-ish way, trying to blow the fastball by you and then leaving the off-speed stuff in the zone on occasion to freeze you. His delivery is also the opposite of “low-effort,” as he looks like he’s trying to throw as hard as he can every time he comes towards home. I do still love Doyle as a prospect, and his upside for us is tremendous since these exciting guys throwing 100 mph often make the hobby go nuts, but I think he needs some fine-tuning. If the Cardinals can improve his pitchability and get him to utilize those secondary pitches more effectively, he could have some big up arrows in 2026 thanks to his stuff.

5. Tyler Bremner (LAA) RHP – 6’2” / 190 (Age: 21.7)

• Fastball: 55, Slider: 55, Change: 70, Command: 55
• Bonus: $7.69 million

I mentioned a minute ago that it was a bit of a surprise when the Angels passed on Kade Anderson with the second pick, and with that selection, they took Tyler Bremner out of UC Santa Barbara. It’s not the first time the Angels have made a move like this; in fact, it’s the sixth time in the last seven years that they’ve used their first pick on a player who signed under the slot value, and Bremner’s was the biggest disparity at more than $2.5 million under.

There could be a number of reasons why they do what they do, but what we do know about the Angels is that they tend to draft the players that they think are the most MLB-ready, with their three first-rounders prior to 2025 being used on Christian Moore, Nolan Schanuel, and Zach Neto, all of whom were fast-tracked to the majors. I think there’s a chance they felt that this was true of Bremner as well. He spent time as a starter and reliever in 2024, where he impressed, going 11-1 with a 2.54 ERA over 88.2 innings.

When he took over as a starter full-time last year, the stats on paper weren’t as impressive at 5-4 with a 3.49 ERA, but his 2.14 FIP suggests he pitched almost a run and a half better than that, and his 12.92 K/9 and 2.21 BB/9 were both great. Bremner’s delivery looks effortless, and his fastball averaged over 95 mph while topping out at 98 with movement. While that’s a potentially plus pitch, it’s his changeup which is most devastating with crazy late fade. It’s a true 70-grade pitch for him, and last year hitters had a 48% whiff rate against it.

His third pitch is a slider which is average to above average; he didn’t throw it nearly as much as his two main pitches, but the spin rate is encouraging on it. His biggest strength on the mound in college was keeping runners off the bases, which he did in two ways: they couldn’t hit him (.178 AVG against in 2024) and he didn’t offer free passes (6.1% BB rate in ‘24 & ‘25). With his good stuff and advanced command, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s yet another Angels prospect who debuts quickly, and the fact that GM Perry Minasian already announced that Bremner will be with the team for Spring Training feels like a strong indicator.

To see my full rankings of my top 26 pitchers to chase including Stash ‘Em, Next Best and Deep Sleepers subscribe to my Substack here.