PHOENIX – Grand Canyon University product Jacob Wilson only needed 72 minor league games to prove he was a major league talent. Drafted sixth overall on July 9, 2023, Wilson debuted for the Athletics just over a calendar year later on July 19, 2024.
This rapid ascension was unheard of decades ago. Now it’s commonplace for top prospects. According to Baseball America, 84 players debuted in the major leagues within two years of being drafted from 2023-2025. The decade prior, 2013-2022, 126 players reached the major leagues within two seasons.
Nine of the top 15 picks in Wilson’s coveted 2023 MLB Draft class fall into this category, including first overall selection Paul Skenes of the Pirates, who instantly became one of the game’s best pitchers. Other notables include No. 4 pick Wyatt Langford, who made the Rangers’ Opening Day roster in 2024 after playing just 44 minor league games, and No. 11 pick Nolan Schanuel, who debuted for the Angels in his same draft year just 40 days after being selected.
Young players taking over the game is nothing new. Baseball’s storied history gives us many examples, from Joe DiMaggio to Alex Rodriguez to Bryce Harper, but MLB’s current youth movement stands out in many respects.
Technological breakthroughs
Former players agree one of the main differences between them and players now is how far technology has advanced, not just in the depth of information it provides but also in its accessibility and ability to influence development.
“You can go on YouTube and learn about a swing, learn how to throw a pitch, there’s just so much more that they have at their fingertips that we didn’t have,” three-time All-Star pitcher Dan Plesac said.
Plesac’s career started in the late ’80s and extended into the early 2000s, before YouTube, StatCast or any other modern analytics resources were created. While these technologies might seem mundane now, they are not overlooked by former players.
“We were always trying to hit the ball hard, but we had no way to objectively measure it,” 2018 All-Star infielder Jed Lowrie said. “Now, we have objective ways to measure that.”
Today’s players have access to these technologies from a young age. Hitters can examine their bat speed or launch angle to determine how to improve their swing. Pitchers can adjust their arm angle or stride length to make a certain pitch harder to hit. They can even increase velocity.
These technologies not only benefit the players, but the organizations for which they play. Teams use these advancements to evaluate future talent and make more informed personnel decisions within the organization.
“It’s more teams specifically drafting the guy they like to put in their system,” said Jacob Wilson’s father Jack, who played a 12-year MLB career. “Not just the best player, but the best player for them to be successful in how they like to play baseball.”
Such was the case for Jacob Wilson.
“The A’s wanted more of a contact approach, so they get a guy like Jacob who’s a contact guy,” his father said.
Every team has a different profile for players they want, but what they share is an enhanced ability to evaluate players successfully. New technology offers teams a deeper understanding of performance and allows them to project forward.
“Better information leads to better selection of players who are likely to succeed,” MLB.com analytics expert Mike Petriello said.
“You can look at a guy’s bat path and say, ‘Well, this guy might be crushing low-level pitching but he’s going to get eaten alive by a major league fastball.’ Maybe that guy doesn’t get the chance now that he might have because you can say, ‘Well, it’s a lower probability he’s going to succeed.’”
New technologies have also led to deeper understanding of analytics, which has transformed development for pitchers.
“It’s a lot more things now that are measurable that they can compare to a major league player,” said former pitcher Adam Ottavino, who played for five teams across his 15-year MLB career. “It’s a lot easier and more convincing to say, ‘Yeah, this guy’s ready, and this is the X, Y, Z reasons why.’”
Petriello agreed.
“Back in the day, you would say, ‘Well, this guy throws 95 (mph), that’s pretty good.’ Now you’ll know it’s a straight 95, or it’s 92 but it’s got great rising action, or great arm angle or whatever things that are going to correlate better to success,” he said.
Metrics have also changed what is prioritized in the minor leagues when it comes to pitcher development.
“People didn’t think you could teach philosophy and now it’s become extremely clear that you can,” Petriello said. “For years and years and years it was, ‘Find the guy who throws really hard.’ Maybe you can teach him to pitch, maybe you could teach him a curveball, maybe you could teach him to throw strikes.”
Petriello points to Toronto’s Shane Bieber as a relevant example.
“(He) was the first guy I can remember where it was, ‘We’re going to find a guy who we know can pitch, he can throw strikes, he’s got good breaking stuff, but he doesn’t throw as hard. We’re gonna teach him to throw hard, whether that’s strength training, nutrition, mechanics, whatever.’”
Not only are the quality of pitches being altered, but also the quantity.
“I think there’s a lot more caution with workloads as opposed to weeding guys out based off of durability and a larger sample size,” Ottavino said. “Especially on the pitching side, I pitched (a) full season at every level, was encouraged to go deep in the games, and take on a big workload and now you just don’t see it as much.”
Major investment
Teams traditionally were hesitant to call up their top prospects, whether it was not wanting to rush a player or intentionally keeping them in the minor leagues to manipulate their service time for an extra year of contract control. Now top players are not only being called up faster but are also getting extended earlier.
Many players in the past few years have earned multi-year extensions within their first couple years of service, with some deals eclipsing $100 million. This year alone, three prospects – Seattle’s Colt Emerson, and Milwaukee’s Cooper Pratt and Luis Lara – signed multi-year extensions with zero days of MLB service time.
“There’s so much more opportunities for young players coming up the big league level,” Plesac said. “Particularly now if you’re 19, 20, 21 years old, teams aren’t afraid to lock those guys up to multi-year deals. There’s a risk in doing that, but more and more, the data shows that teams are more than likely right in the guys that they lock up long term.”
Because players must reach six full years of MLB service time before becoming eligible for free agency, signing early extensions gives them security for those pre-free agency years while allowing them to hit the open market at a favorable age. Players get paid more than they normally would before reaching six years of service while the team gets a discount on those first couple peak performance seasons.
It is for this reason that players generally do not sign these lucrative contracts until their age 25-30 season block, when they reach six years of service. San Diego’s Fernando Tatis Jr. and Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr. are notable exceptions, both signing for more than $25 million per year at age 22 and 23, respectively.
“If you look at most of the position players who’ve gotten these big contracts, I can’t think of that many who totally busted,” Petriello said. “Scott Kingery maybe, but (Ronald) Acuña, that’s been phenomenal, Ozzie Albies has worked out really well.”
Albies signed a seven-year, $35 million contract with the Braves in 2019. The average annual value looks shockingly low now, but that is what makes these contracts mutually beneficial.
“If your computations are right and you like the physical tools of the player, you like the mental makeup, you like the intangibles that he brings, if that player turns out to be the player you hope that he is, it’s a great deal for a young player and teams also reap the benefit,” Plesac said regarding Albies’ extension. “It’s a very team-friendly contract now, but (Albies) also has security and independence for the rest of his life by locking him up.”
Albies is far from the only player whose early extension has aged well for his team. Corbin Carroll’s eight-year, $111 million deal with the Diamondbacks is another example along with Jacob Wilson’s seven-year, $70 million extension. There’s a reason Wilson and players like him are seeing these offers now.
“A lot of it comes with our player agreement coming up that has to do with spending your revenue money, so that’s part of why you see a lot of contracts on the back end of a CBA,” Jack Wilson said.
The potential future
The current collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, and some language in one of MLB’s newest proposals could support why more younger players are getting extended. On June 25, the league accepted the MLB Players Association’s request to reduce the service time mandate from six years to five, allowing players to become eligible for free-agent contracts a year earlier.
The league also suggested implementing a cap on contract length that would max out free agent agreements at five years, a sharp decline from the 10-, 12-, 15-year mega-contracts to which fans have become accustomed. Teams traditionally have lengthened free-agent contracts to lower yearly payments, but in doing so they end up spending a premium for players past their prime.
This proposal would not only cap the years a player can sign for, but also the amount. Players signing for a new organization would be allowed a first-year salary of 15% of the proposed salary cap, 16% for players resigning with the same organization. This means a contract starting in 2027 would pay a maximum of $202 million guaranteed over five years, or $265 million over six years for a player resigning with the same team.
These numbers are a fraction of what veterans have been making over the past decade. The 20 richest free agent contracts based on total value all exceed $200 million total, with just one of them, Kyle Tucker’s $240 million deal with the Dodgers, being under the five-year threshold for future deals.
Another aspect of these negotiations that could have major implications on the league’s youth movement would end one of baseball’s longest traditions: allowing high school prospects to enter the draft.
“I’m a player that was drafted out of high school, so the first thing I see is to eliminate that opportunity for high school kids,” said 13-year MLB veteran Jeremy Guthrie, who was originally drafted in 1997 out of Ashland High School in Oregon. “That would be a big change that would be hard for me to accept.”
If passed, the minimum draft age would rise from 18 to 20, requiring the top prospects to spend two years in college before entering the MLB Draft and beginning their pro careers.
“We all love Konnor Griffin and Kevin McGonigle and Colt Emerson,” Jack Wilson said. “Those were high school guys just a couple drafts ago, and that would be gone, those guys would not be in the big leagues right now.
“I think that is what makes baseball great, is to have these phenoms go out and play with men, and they’re 21, 22 years old.”
The proposal would also have serious financial repercussions for players, who would no longer reach free agency at an optimal age.
“Instead of signing a high school kid that’s 18, say he makes the big leagues at 20, 21 years old, he’ll be a free agent at 26, 27,” Plesac said. “You eliminate the high school phase of the draft, and now you’re drafting a college kid that’s 21. Let’s say two years in the minor leagues, all of a sudden that player is 23, 24 when he makes it to the big leagues, isn’t a free age until he’s 30 or 31. When you start getting that age 30 and 31, that’s getting old in today’s baseball age.”
Former players were split on whether the proposal would help or hurt MLB.
“I hope it doesn’t happen, I don’t think it should, I don’t think it will,” Jack Wilson said.
Lowrie’s answer was more nuanced.
“If we were to create baseball today, you’re probably following what the NFL and the NBA do, but there’s a lot of history, there’s a lot of precedent of having high school kids get drafted,” he said. “I would love to hear some of the logic and maybe some of their projections of (how) Major League Baseball thinks it affects the game long term, but in a vacuum, if you were gonna start the game today, I think that proposal makes sense.”
MLB cites college baseball’s advancement as the root of the potential change.
“Expanded scholarships, NIL opportunities, revenue sharing and significant investments in facilities and player development have made college baseball an increasingly important pathway that is producing Major League-ready talent at an accelerated rate,” the league said in a June 18 statement. “Today’s top programs provide players with resources, competition and national exposure that were unimaginable a decade ago. By creating a Draft system centered around college-aged players and making most college players eligible one year earlier, more players will benefit from both a college education and an elite development environment while reaching professional baseball – and ultimately the Major Leagues – more quickly.”
Wilson, who has held various amateur coaching roles at USA Baseball and was an assistant at Grand Canyon University for one season, disagreed.
“I think the development would be better (going straight into a MLB organization) for a high school kid,” he said. “College coaches are great and there’s a lot of great college coaches, but you go into a system, you have eight, nine pitching coaches because you have a coach for every level. You have a rover, you have your head of infield guy, you have your big league infield guy, there’s so many people that can help you develop in an organization.”
The latest No. 1 overall pick, Roch Cholowsky, said playing in college made him the player he is today.
“It’s different for everybody. I thought the best thing for me was to go to college,” he said at the 2026 MLB Draft Combine. “College baseball is an unbelievable sport. Schools are starting to put a lot more money and time into it. I got to play three years of unbelievable baseball at UCLA. I got to learn a lot and still grow up.”
Cholowsky is excited to learn from the White Sox’ specialized coaches to which Wilson made reference.
“I’m excited to learn around new hitting coaches,” he said. “I love dissecting swings and learning how to hit even more. The guys that are doing it at the highest level are the best, obviously, so we just pick their brains and learn from them.”
Cholowsky and the White Sox are hopeful that he will add his name to the growing list of fast-tracked prospects.
“That’s the goal,” he said. “I haven’t played pro ball, never played pro ball, never been in it, so that’s a new game for me. I’m just excited to get in there, learn and see how fast I get (to the major leagues).”
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