How likely is a prospect to go from an unknown non-prospect to a top prospect in one season? Rainiel Rodriguez went from unranked by Fangraphs to hitting the Top 100 prospect list last year. That’s a little unfair though because Rodriguez was a relatively unheralded international signing that only had one professional season under his belt. Quinn Mathews is a better recent example. He went from the 31st ranked prospect in the system to the 58th in all of baseball between 2023 and 2024. Looking outside the Cardinals organization, James Wood went from the 10th ranked prospect in the Padres organization to the 9th ranked in all of baseball between 2021 and 2022.
Prospect Volatility: Measuring Year-Over-Year Breakouts
