Deal Sniper

High-A prospects

The level where the pitching starts throwing something other than a fastball for a strike, and contact skills get their first real test.

What High-A is

High-A is the second full-season level. The clearest difference from Low-A is pitching quality: more arms with a usable second and third pitch, and more of them able to throw those pitches in the strike zone when behind in the count.

What it means for a card

A hitter's strikeout and walk rates here are worth far more than the same rates one level down, because they are being produced against pitchers who can actually punish a hole in a swing. This is often where the first real doubts appear about a player the market has already priced.

We track 1,103 players at High-A. 342 have enough behind them — a real stat line or market evidence — for a page of their own. The rest are followed and will appear here as data lands.

Top of the level

Best-rated first, by the same prospect score the board uses.

A cross-section of the rest

Sampled at even intervals down the rest of the level, so this shows the middle and the tail rather than only the peak — and so every player we track has a way in from here.

The other levels