Since the implementation of the 2022 collective bargaining agreement, the middle of August has been a common time for top prospects to make their debuts. That CBA introduced the Prospect Promotion Incentive, which can provide teams an extra draft pick if they carry a rookie-eligible top prospect on their MLB roster for an entire season and the player fares well in award voting (i.e. wins Rookie of the Year or finishes top three in Cy Young or MVP balloting within their first three seasons). Only prospects who made at least two Top 100 lists from Baseball America, MLB Pipeline or ESPN in the preceding offseason are eligible.
Players are rookie eligible so long as they have no more than 130 at-bats or 50 innings pitched in the majors and have spent 45 or fewer days on an MLB roster or injured list. The latter criterion is why the mid-August promotion has become popular. Promote a player who has no MLB service time with 45 or fewer days remaining in the regular season, and they’ll remain rookie eligible for the following year. It’s unlikely anyone called up this late will have time to reach 131 at-bats or 50 1/3 innings — and the team can mix in load management days if the player gets close.
August presents a nice balance. The player can get some MLB experience while the team doesn’t burn the chance at a PPI selection the following year. Today marks this year’s 45-day cutoff, so we may see a few promotions as soon as this weekend.
The date is just one of various considerations for teams deciding when to bring up a player. Sometimes it’s not a factor in the club’s decision-making at all. The Tigers decided not to wait the extra two weeks to promote center fielder Max Clark, for instance, valuing the short-term impact that Clark could make on their playoff chase more than preserving eligibility for a 2028 draft pick. After all, most PPI-eligible prospects simply aren’t going to play well enough to earn the pick.
There are often countervailing roster considerations at play. Most of these players are not currently on their teams’ 40-man rosters. For clubs who have a full 40-man and no obvious candidates for a 60-day IL transfer, that means someone else needs to be designated for assignment. They’ll need to keep the prospect on their roster over the offseason. Some of these players would need to be added to keep them out of the Rule 5 draft regardless, making them likelier to get the call. Others who wouldn’t be eligible for the Rule 5 until 2027 or ’28 force a tougher decision for their teams.
The 40-man caveat is a particularly important one this year. There’s going to be an offseason lockout. Teams cannot have any contact with players on their 40-man roster during the lockout and they’d be subject to the work stoppage if MLB games are canceled. There will be a minor league season in 2027, in which everyone who’s not on the 40-man can play. If teams don’t need to keep the player out of this year’s Rule 5 draft, they could be more inclined to keep them off the roster to preserve their eligibility for minor league play as a hedge.
With the lengthy preamble finished, let’s run through some players who could be nearing their first promotion. We’re looking only at players who appear on at least one of BA’s or MLB Pipeline’s current Top 100 list. There’ll be substantial overlap between those outlets’ current lists and the offseason ones that’ll determine PPI eligibility.
Franklin Arias, Red Sox (Rule 5 eligible after ’27)
Arias, a 20-year-old shortstop, is one of the three best prospects in the sport. He pounded Double-A pitching at a .318/.407/.587 clip with 19 homers and earned a promotion to Triple-A shortly before the trade deadline. Arias is hitting .288/.362/.492 with three homers and a solid strikeout and walk profile in his first 14 Triple-A contests.
Boston came up empty in its deadline swings for a starting shortstop. The Red Sox are relying on Andruw Monasterio and Nick Sogard in the middle infield while awaiting returns from Trevor Story and hopefully Curtis Mead. Monasterio has held up alright with the bat, to his credit, but his defense has been sub-par. He’s certainly not standing in the way of a prospect of Arias’ caliber. This comes down to whether the Sox feel Arias has anything to gain from facing bad Triple-A pitching for another six weeks — and potentially whether they want to risk putting him on the roster before the lockout when he wouldn’t be Rule 5-eligible.
Gage Wood, Phillies RHP (Rule 5 eligible after ’28)
Wood is Philadelphia’s top pitching prospect and arguably their best minor league talent overall. He’s currently just inside the top 50 prospects at BA and Pipeline. The 2025 first-rounder has split this season between Low-A and Double-A. He’s technically working as a starter but is rarely going beyond four innings. Wood has tossed 71 frames of 4.31 ERA ball. He’s striking out a massive 35.5% of opponents against an 8% walk rate.
The 22-year-old righty clearly isn’t ready for a major league rotation job. If the Phils bring Wood up this summer, it’d be to lean on his plus fastball-curveball combination in short relief. Philadelphia lost top setup man Brad Keller for the season and promptly placed deadline pickup Caleb Kilian on the injured list with a left oblique strain. Kilian should be back before season’s end, but they’re running out of ways to find a reliable bridge to Jhoan Duran.
Walker Jenkins, Twins OF (Rule 5 eligible after ’27)
Jenkins is one of the likelier players on this list to be called up, perhaps as soon as this weekend. The fifth overall pick in the 2023 draft, Jenkins is the only player in the top seven selections who hasn’t played in the majors. That’s not any indictment on his performance, as he’s been slowed by a handful of injuries along the way. Jenkins missed some time earlier this year as well but has played 59 games and tallied 260 plate appearances at the Triple-A level, where he’s hitting .284/.381/.467 with excellent strike zone judgment.
Minnesota is playing Jenkins mostly in center field in the minors. He’ll be a corner outfielder on a team with Byron Buxton. Jenkins could take some left field starts from Trevor Larnach, who hasn’t hit much since the All-Star Break. Josh Bell, Luke Keaschall and Royce Lewis are all playing well, which clouds the path to playing time beyond left field, yet Jenkins could also cut into Bell’s reps if the Twins drop out of the playoff picture.
Charlie Condon, Rockies 1B/OF (Rule 5 eligible after ’27)
Condon is on the back of the Top 100 at Pipeline and BA. The third overall pick in 2024, he missed time last year with a broken wrist. Condon has had a rebound showing this season, batting .279/.395/.538 with 22 home runs across 453 Triple-A plate appearances. He’s striking out a quarter of the time while drawing walks at a robust 13% clip and averaging 90 mph off the bat.
There’s not much more to learn from Condon’s minor league performance. The whiffs are always going to be part of the package for a 6’6″ power bat. Colorado has gotten good work from rookie first baseman TJ Rumfield, but they can slot Condon into an everyday right field spot. There’s no real reason for him not to get a late-season look unless the Rox are worried about the lockout.
Joshua Báez, Cardinals OF (already on 40-man roster)
Báez was added to the 40-man last winter, so there aren’t any roster implications at play. St. Louis opened the left field job by trading Lars Nootbaar to Arizona at the deadline. Báez leads Triple-A hitters with 33 home runs while hitting .254/.326/.567 across 457 plate appearances. He’s striking out at a 30% clip, but as with Condon, whiffs are part of the package for a player whose game is built on immense raw power.
The Cardinals are still hanging around the playoff picture, sitting three games back of a Wild Card spot. Their deadline confirmed they’re focused mostly on 2027 and beyond, though, so the main consideration is simply when they want to expose Báez to big league competition.
Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Jeff Jones of The Belleville News-Democrat each reported that Báez is not expected to be called up today. Still, it’d be a surprise if he doesn’t get a look before year’s end, and the promotion could come any time now that the rookie date has arrived.
Ralphy Velazquez, Guardians 1B/LF (Rule 5 eligible after ’27)
The Guardians have dropped seven of 10 this month and fallen to fourth place in the AL Central. They’re still only a game and a half off the Wild Card pace. Even though their recent struggles aren’t the fault of the offense, a lack of production from first base and the outfield has been an issue all year.
Velazquez, a first-round pick in the 2023 draft, has split the season between the top two minor league levels. He destroyed Double-A for six weeks. Velazquez’s production has been more good than exceptional since he was bumped up to Triple-A in the middle of May: a .258/.338/.485 line with 13 homers in 60 games. Nine of those longballs have come within the last three weeks, though, as Velazquez has gone on a recent power barrage. He’s hit six homers in his past six games.
Cleveland is running a Nathaniel Lowe and Rhys Hoskins platoon at first base. They’re impending free agents. Kyle Manzardo struggled badly enough to be optioned after the deadline.
Michael Arroyo, Mariners LF/2B (Rule 5 eligible after ’26)
Kade Anderson, Mariners LHP (Rule 5 eligible after ’28)
There’s a decent chance both of these Seattle prospects will be up before season’s end. Adam Jude of The Seattle Times reported in late July that the Mariners were mulling a promotion for Arroyo as a potential option to address their offensive woes against left-handed pitching. It’s possible he’d have already come up if the M’s hadn’t pulled off the Taylor Ward trade a few days later. The righty-hitting Arroyo warrants a look in his own right, as he’s batting .296/.371/.489 with 16 homers and 15 stolen bases between the top two levels.
Arroyo will need to go on the 40-man this offseason either way. The Mariners don’t really have an everyday lineup spot to offer, but most of the offense has continued to underperform. They could bring Arroyo up as a multi-positional bat to play the role that Weston Wilson has for the MLB club.
Anderson, the third overall pick in 2025, is widely viewed as the game’s best pitching prospect. The LSU product is carving up Double-A, where he has a 1.13 ERA with an outrageous 41% strikeout rate in 17 starts. Seattle is seemingly keeping him away from Triple-A to avoid pitching in the more extreme Pacific Coast League parks on road trips.
President of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto has already suggested that Anderson is likely to come up this season, though it might take an injury in the rotation. “We’re not going to put Kade in the bullpen. He’s the best starting pitcher in the minor leagues,” Dipoto said in early August (link via Daniel Kramer of MLB.com). He went on to call Anderson “the next starter up” after the M’s traded Luis Castillo. Dipoto left open the possibility of going to a six-man rotation at some point.
The M’s might need to weigh that against the roster consideration, as Anderson doesn’t need to go on the 40-man this year. A promotion would make sense if it helps them get into the playoffs, but the team has lost six of seven since Dipoto’s comments. They’re eight games under .500, and while no one’s running away with the division or final Wild Card spot, this Mariners team just hasn’t shown any signs of playing to its potential.
Jamie Arnold, Athletics LHP (Rule 5 eligible after ’28)
The A’s selected Arnold with the 11th overall pick in 2025, a nice get after he’d spent most of his draft year viewed as a top 5-10 talent. Like Anderson, Arnold has spent the entire season in Double-A as the team tries to avoid the PCL affiliate. He has made 21 starts and worked to a 3.88 ERA while striking out a quarter of opponents against a 9.9% walk rate.
Arnold certainly isn’t dominating the way that Anderson has, but he has pitched well since an ugly May. The southpaw has run a 16:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio in his last two appearances, working 11 2/3 frames of three-run ball. The A’s started their other top pitching prospect, Gage Jump, in Triple-A this year. Perhaps they want Arnold to conquer that level before he’s on the radar for an MLB call, but he’s going to be in the rotation by the middle of next season. There’s a case for calling him up now to see if he should be in the mix for an Opening Day spot.
Josue De Paula, Dodgers OF (Rule 5 eligible after ’26)
It’d be surprising if the Dodgers call upon De Paula as early as this weekend. He recently turned 21 and has zero Triple-A experience. De Paula has destroyed Double-A competition, walking nearly as often as he strikes out while hitting .314/.415/.552 across 484 plate appearances. De Paula has a 20-20 season and is probably the best offensive prospect in the game.
There’s a decent chance De Paula would immediately be an above-average MLB hitter even if he skips Triple-A. The bigger concern might be finding him a defensive home. He’s a corner outfielder who isn’t going to get any DH at-bats or play right field for the Dodgers. Would they be willing to bench Teoscar Hernández to call up De Paula for a left field audition? That feels unlikely, but he’s a lock to go on the 40-man roster this offseason and the L.A. offense has been average since the All-Star Break.
Sebastian Walcott, Rangers SS (Rule 5 eligible after ’27)
Walcott would be the boldest promotion of anyone on this list. He’s 20 years old and has been limited to 14 Double-A games this year by elbow surgery (and a recent two-week absence for a concussion). He doesn’t need to go on the 40-man until the 2027-28 offseason. This probably isn’t happening, but Walcott has smoked minor league pitching whenever he’s been healthy.
Texas is two games back in the division and playing Nicky Lopez on an everyday basis, at least until Josh Jung is healthy. Jacob deGrom is 38 and most of the starting lineup is on the wrong side of 30. Maybe they consider rushing Walcott to the big leagues if they’re still a game or two out in September.
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