Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the fifth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.
A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.
All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.
Diamondbacks Top Prospects
Other Prospects of Note
Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.
Big Power, Hit Tool ProblemsKristian Robinson, OFCaleb Roberts, CIvan Melendez, 1BRuben Santana, 3B/1BA.J. Vukovich, OF
Robinson is a former top 100 prospect whose career was derailed by an incident in which he used high-potency marijuana, began wandering along the highway on the outskirts of the Phoenix metro area, and then fought a police officer responding to his presence. He was given 18 months probation for assaulting a police officer, which complicated the Bahamian’s visa situation; combined with the pandemic, it kept him from playing in affiliated minor league games for three seasons. Kristian is now 23 and produced a very impressive 50% hard-hit rate in 2024, but he struck out in about 36% of his Double-A plate appearances, and that’s too much. He’s built in such a way that he could play pro ball forever and maybe have a viable peak in his late-20s that allows him to play in the big leagues.
Roberts has spent the last two years at Double-A, where he’s hit 37 combined homers. He’s been a developmental project as a catcher because he didn’t play there very much in college and saw time at various other positions until 2024, when Roberts really began to focus on catching. He has remarkable arm accuracy but well below-average hands and ball-blocking chops. He surrendered 21 passed balls in 2024 and doesn’t have the hit/power combo to profile at the corner positions. If he can improve his defense, he’ll be a third catcher. Melendez won the 2022 Golden Spikes Award at Texas. He has plus-plus power, but a combination of chase and issues with in-zone contact have sunk his output. Santana, soon to be 20, really struggled against full-season pitching in 2024. He looked like a power-hitting 1B/3B in the J.D. Davis mold the prior year. Vukovich has hit 41 combined homers the last two years, but he’s also fallen down the defensive spectrum and struck out around 29% of the time.
Exciting Young PitchersKelvin Rosario, LHPDaury Vasquez, RHPAnderson Cardenas, RHPJeury Espinal, RHP
Rosario is a projectable, 6-foot-2 Dominican lefty with the best looking delivery in the entire org. He only scraped 90 mph this year, and the fact that the 18-year-old headlines this chunk of players despite this should tell you how gorgeous and athletic his mechanics are. We really hope he gets stronger and starts throwing harder. Vasquez, an 18-year-old Dominican righty, has better present arm strength. He will show you 93-95 early in starts before tapering off somewhat as they draw on. He’s a lanky 6-foot-2 and will flash a good low-80s sweeper, but he’s tightly wound and has below-average control. Cardenas is an 18-year-old Venezuelan righty who pitched on the domestic complex in 2024, where he posted a 1.01 WHIP in 34.2 innings. He sits in the low 90s at present, but he should throw at least a little harder as he matures and he has a decent curveball. He’s 6-foot-2, but slight of build. Espinal is a 5-foot-11 Dominican righty who put up video game numbers across 40.1 innings in the 2024 DSL, with 58 strikeouts and just eight walks. The 17-year-old has a vertical fastball/curveball (plus spin rates) combo and executes both consistently. He’s currently sitting 89-92 and lacks physical projection.
Spot Starter TypesAdonys Perez, LHPDaniel Nunez, RHPTeofilo Mendez, RHP
Perez is an advanced, physically mature 20-year-old lefty with a low arm slot and a sinker/changeup/slurve combo. He led Visalia in innings pitched in 2024 and is a potential backend starter. Nunez is a 21-year-old Mexican righty who pitched well enough throughout 2024 to move from the bullpen into Visalia’s rotation. He generates 19 inches of vertical break on his fastball and has a great changeup. A stocky, smaller guy and below-average athlete, Nunez requires a ton of effort to throw the way he does, and we’re relatively skeptical of its sustainability. An athletic little converted infielder, the 23-year-old Mendez had success as a long reliever at Visalia in 2024 and got a late bump to Hillsboro. He has 30-grade velocity, but his fastball’s other characteristics help it play up. He’s athletic enough that he might have a velo spike in him.
Relief DepthAustin Pope, RHPJose Cabrera, RHPJamison Hill, RHPAlfred Morillo, RHPZane Russell, RHPLandon Sims, RHPCarlos Rey, LHP
Pope is a big-bodied reliever with a 93-96 mph fastball (it was down late in the year), an above-average slider, and 30 command. He has reached Triple-A. Cabrera is a 22-year-old Dominican righty who made 11 starts during the back half of the 2024 season, including several seven-plus inning dandies during the final month. He sits 92-95 with sink and has a plus slider. If he has a velo spike in the bullpen, he might break out and climb quickly. Hill is a 25-year-old undrafted former starter from Fresno State. He’s an athletic, high-waisted guy with a lovely delivery that produces a hittable 92 mph fastball and two good breaking balls. A potential middle reliever, Morillo sits 93-96 and will flash an above-average slider.
One of a few Dallas Baptist pitchers Arizona took in the 2023 draft, Russell is a high-slot, fastball-heavy righty with funky pitch plane. He sits 92-95 and posted a 29.4% K% and 16.6% BB% in 2024. Once a first round prospect, Sims’ arm strength hasn’t returned since his Tommy John. At peak, he was in the 94-98 mph range; now he’s in the 92-93 range and has added a cutter to his fastball/power curveball mix. He still generated above-average whiff rates at those velocities, albeit in the lower minors. Rey was a 2023 Day Three pick from Nova Southeastern and looks like a potential low-slot lefty specialist with a really good slider. He’s sitting in the low 90s right now, and his arm swing is so long and tough to repeat that he walked 51 batters in 59 innings in 2024.
High-Variance GuysAlfredo Benzan, UTILBelfi Rivera, CFJakey Josepha, OFYerald Nin, 2B
Benzan is an uber-projectable multi-positional 17-year-old who saw time at many different positions in 2024, most often center field. He has an upright setup at the dish and shows average bat speed, with a path that features loft and aggressive intent. Benzan looks to have below-average feel for contact; he’s a high-variance type to monitor for hit tool progression. Rivera signed for $1.8 million in January 2024 and played 49 games between the D-backs’ two DSL clubs in his first taste of pro ball. He’s still really fast, but he struggled badly with contact. A super skinny, projectable 20-year-old outfielder from Curaçao, Josepha has plus speed and arm strength and will occasionally take a great swing, but he’s struggled to outmuscle (literally) the other players at Arizona’s lower levels and get actual reps. He’s a very raw prospect; if there were still short season leagues, he’d have a better chance of developing. Nin, who signed for $900,000 a few years ago, is a compact middle infielder who slid off the main section of the list due to below-average contact rates and his fringe look at short.
System Overview
While it has an average number of premium players up top, Arizona’s system is among the deepest in baseball in terms of the sheer number of interesting or relevant guys. It is especially dense with great defensive players (also a signature of the D-backs’ recent big league teams), gigantic pitching prospects who often had nomadic or injury-riddled amateur careers, and big-framed, super-projectable prospects from Latin America.
The D-backs’ draft approach has helped facilitate their depth. They often have an early comp pick or two, and they also tend to get creative with the way they distribute their pool. For instance, Arizona had six picks in the first four rounds of the 2024 Draft, and it’s in the fourth round that the slot amounts cross the $500,000 threshold. The way the D-backs distributed their bonuses in 2024 enabled them to sign eight players to bonuses of $500,000 or more, so you could say they drafted eight players who were fourth-round or better talents even though they only had six picks in that range. Not every pick of this sort pans out (there are some examples of that in the Others of Note section), but there are eight players currently on this list who were drafted via this strategy.
A new feature of this year’s Diamondbacks list: They suddenly have a bunch of random, late-round college arms popping up. Aside from the developmental home run hit with Brandon Pfaadt (who every big league team likely would have improved — he was drafted out of Bellarmine, for god’s sake), the last half decade or so of Arizona’s college pitcher draftees have either met or fallen short of expectations and rarely exceeded them. One could argue that this was a sign that aspects of player dev weren’t working. Now there are several guys throwing harder than before, or who have a new pitch, scattered around the bottom half of of their list. These types of players don’t often have huge ceiling, but they provide homegrown pitching depth that Arizona has at times lacked.
Arizona has some big time impending free agents. Christian Walker, Josh Bell, and Paul Sewald are all free agents now, while Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly, and Eugenio Suárez are all entering the final year of their deals. Though at times they’ve made buyers trades or dealt from a neutral position, it’s been a while since the Diamondbacks have been outright sellers with big name pieces to deal. If (Big Unit forbid) they fall so far behind the Dodgers and Padres early in 2025 that they’re compelled to move Gallen or others, we’ll get to learn more about the pro scouting portion of the org.
