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It’s not often that I take a pause from the prospect lists to write about individual call-ups, but we have three big league debuts on the docket for today, and I wanted to update readers on those pitchers, as well one other prospect-related bycatch that’s come up during the course of me working on the Reds, Guardians, and Brewers org lists.
First, let’s talk about the starting pitchers making their big league debuts today: Chase Petty of the Reds, AJ Blubaugh of the Astros, and Noah Cameron of the Royals. All of them have updated player profiles over on The Board.
Chase Petty, RHP, Cincinnati Reds (50 FV)
Petty, who touched 102 in high school, came to the Reds from Minnesota during the spring of 2022 in a trade for Sonny Gray. After missing time with an elbow issue in 2023, he had a healthy and complete 2024 season in which he worked 137 innings spent mostly at Double-A Chattanooga, many more frames than he had thrown in any year prior. Proving he could sustain big stuff across that load of innings was instrumental to his inclusion among the 2025 Top 100 Prospects. His fastball was still sitting 94-97 mph after Petty had been promoted to Louisville at the very end of last season, and he has carried that into 2025. As of his call-up, he has 27 strikeouts, nine walks, and a 1.30 WHIP in 23 innings (five starts).
Petty is an incredible on-mound athlete whose body whips around like a tornado throughout his delivery, which looks like a more consistent version of Abner Uribe’s. He has never had issues throwing strikes, and now he’s proven he can sustain plus arm strength under the stress of a starter’s load of innings. Another big development for Petty is that he’s altered his approach with his heater. He formerly used it as a low-in-the-zone sinker, but starting last year, he began peppering the top of the strike zone with a bigger ratio of four-seamers, a shift that has occurred against both lefties and righties. When Petty does throw a two-seamer, it’s generating grounders at a 60% clip so far in 2025.
Petty’s nastiest pitch is a well-located two-planed slider, though he has struggled some with commanding that pitch early this year; it bends in at 84-88 mph most of the time. His cutter (often 88-92 mph) and changeup (87-90) are more about inducing weak contact from lefties. If Petty can continue on this mid-rotation path, he’ll stand apart from the routine failures that most of the hardest throwing high school pitchers in the draft endure. He’s a special athlete with special arm strength, and he seemed to make relevant tweaks in 2024 while simultaneously increasing confidence that he can actually start by holding his stuff all year.
Noah Cameron, LHP, Kansas City Royals (50 FV)
Cameron was drafted in the seventh round of the 2021 draft out of Central Arkansas not long after he had a Tommy John surgery. He had an encouraging 2023, his first full season, despite a 5.28 ERA, as he posted strong peripherals across 107.1 innings (28.3% K%, 7.5% BB%) and reached Double-A. His 2024 and early-2025 performance have been practically identical. Cameron worked 128.2 innings in 2024, and during the second half of the season was stretched out to six or seven innings per outing. His delivery is effortless and repeatable, and Cameron commands all four of his pitches, giving him an incredibly high floor as a prospect because he has basically no relief risk.
His best pitch is a changeup in the 80-84 mph range. It’s uncommon for pitchers with Cameron’s nearly perfect vertical arm slot to be able to turn over a changeup from this position, let alone a plus one, but even as he has climbed into the upper levels of the minors, this pitch has been generating plus miss. It succeeds more because of Cameron’s ability to locate it rather than its pure movement, and it’s also aided by how long Cameron hides the baseball, and how loose and free his arm action is. The vertical nature of Cameron’s arm stroke creates backspinning ride on his fastball. It isn’t a speedy offering — it sits about 92 mph and will peak around 96 — but, again, deception and command season its effectiveness as a bat-misser. The combination of his below-average velo and a top-of-the-zone approach to fastball location has made Cameron homer-prone for stretches in the minors, especially in 2023 when he allowed 19 bombs in 107.1 innings, and again so far this year. Seemingly in response to this, he’s upped his cutter usage in 2025, more as a way to stay off barrels than to miss bats.
Cameron also has an 80-84 mph 12-to-6 curveball with shape that mirrors that of his fastball. He will manipulate its direction somewhat against lefties to give it a little more of a slider look. The depth of his curveball and the quality of his changeup gives Cameron two ways to tilt with righties and generate whiffs. Against lefties, he becomes heavily reliant on his fastball. This guy is a very stable rotation piece with two plus attributes and two other average ones. Though it’s his worst pitch, the cutter is an integral part of why Cameron’s FV grade is getting bumped on this update, because the vulnerability of his fastball was a source of worry last list cycle. Lefties with plus command of plus changeups tend to pan out, and that’s exactly what we’re talking about here. Though he lacks star-level stuff, Cameron is a stable, polished no. 4 starter prospect.
AJ Blubaugh, RHP, Houston Astros (40+ FV)
Blubaugh’s mom was a two-sport athlete at Akron and AJ was a three-sport conference champ in high school before matriculating to UW-Milwaukee, where he later become a seventh round pick. He is being pressed into spot start duty due to the Astros’ litany of pitcher injuries; long-term, he projects as more of a good long reliever. His below-average command and painful looking delivery are primary drivers for this projection. Blubaugh has a starter’s repertoire. He’ll touch 97 (his velo has been pretty erratic start to start, and was down a little bit in his last outing) and pepper the top of the zone (and often way above) with fastballs, then bend in low-80s sliders and mid-80s power-sink changeups. Blubaugh can benefit from being effectively wild, and he’ll throw either of those two secondary pitches to hitters of either handedness; they both finish all over the place, especially the changeup. A slow, mid-70s curveball acts as a show-me pitch to complete his repertoire. Again, Blubaugh should eventually settle into a meaningful role in Houston’s bullpen, though while he has options left, he should be deployed as a five-and-dive spot starter in the hope that the extended reps will help him sharpen his command. That’s a great outcome for a seventh rounder.
Didier Fuentes, RHP, Atlanta Braves (50 FV)
One other thing to tack on here is an update to Braves righty Didier Fuentes, who enters the 50 FV tier. Fuentes was originally written up on this cycle’s Braves list as a 40+ FV prospect with a traits-heavy fastball who could break out if improvements to his conditioning facilitated a boost in arm strength. Well, that has happened. He carved in three High-A starts and was given a quick hook up to Double-A.
There were times last year when Fuentes was paving over A-ball lineups even though he was using his fastball at a 70-80% clip. On the season, he used it 70% of the time and still struck out 32.1% of opponents. For further context, the average big league fastball generated a 23% miss rate in 2024, while Fuentes’ was well above 30% even though he was sitting only 93.
This season, his fastball has routinely been in the 94-96 range and touched 97-98 several times in his first Double-A start. Fuentes’ fastball was already dominating because of its shape and angle, and now it also has plus velocity. This guy explodes down the mound and generates nearly seven feet of extension, even though the 19-year-old righty is only listed at six feet tall. His drive off the rubber is so explosive that, in his most recent start, the umpires stopped the game multiple times to talk to him about how far he was coming off the mound.
Fuentes is still a two-pitch guy and his slider isn’t consistently good yet, but his fastball is going to carry him to a meaningful big league role as a starter, much like Bryce Miller or Joe Ryan. Given the Braves’ penchant for pushing their good prospects, there’s a chance Fuentes keeps climbing and gets moved to Triple-A if he pitches well at Columbus in May. He’s officially a Top 100 prospect and a potential mid-rotation weapon.
