Cody Snavely
With the upcoming 2025 Major League Baseball season right around the corner, Baseball Prospectus has released its annual preseason prospect rankings. Their latest list shows a significant shakeup in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ top player rankings, with a new number-one overall prospect.
Overall, the list includes, in order, Zyhir Hope, Jose De Paula, Dalton Rushing, Jackson Ferris, Alex Freeland, Emil Morales, Joendry Vargas, Eriq Swan, River Ryan, and Kyle Hurt.
Interestingly enough, Hope is ranked above Dalton Rushing, who, according to MLB.com and Baseball America, is the current Dodgers and, of the top five players listed, is the most likely to make his Major League debut this upcoming season.
Hope, 19, the Dodgers acquired last winter from the Cubs for Michael Busch, for whom Los Angeles did not have a position, and reliever Yency Almonte. Pitcher Jackson Ferris also came in that trade, and he’s rated as the Dodgers’ fourth-best prospect according to Baseball Prospectus.
Hope had a .287/.415/.490 slash line along with a 144 wRC+, nine home runs, and fourteen doubles in fifty-four games for Low-A Rancho Cucamonga last season. But his season was a setback from a shoulder injury suffered on defense when the 19-year-old crashed into the center field wall on April 28th.
Rushing, who is ranked third on the list, had a breakout season in the minor last year between Double-A Tulsa and Triple-A OKC, which almost prompted a major league call-up.
Rushing, 23, was the 40th overall pick in the 2022 Major League Baseball Player Draft taken by the Los Angeles Dodgers out of the University of Louisville, where current Dodgers catcher Will Smith attended from 2014 to 2016.
During his time at the collegiate level, the backstop had a career slash line of .298/.442/.630, which was capped off by hitting .310/.470/.686 with sixteen doubles, twenty-three home runs, and sixty-two RBIs in his junior year before the draft.
Overall, Rushing hit .271/.384/.512 with a .896 OPS (.907 OPS in Triple-A), twenty-one doubles, and twenty-six home runs, which was the second most by a minor league catcher. Rushing’s success did not go unnoticed by his peers being voted to the 2024 All Prospect Second Team at catcher. Rushing in September also won the Branch Rickey Award as the Dodgers minor league player of the year.
Leaping over rushing in these rankings is Jose De Paula, who had an excellent 2024 campaign, slashing .268/.404/.405 split between Low-A Rancho Cucamonga and High-A Great Lakes. At 19 years old, he was the youngest player on the Loons and one of the youngest in the Midwest League. De Paula, in 52 games with High-A, had a 136 wRC+, his highest since moving to a full-season affiliate.
One of the more surprising rankings was the inclusion of right-handed pitcher Eriq Swan, who was the Dodgers’ 137th selection in the 2023 Major League Player Draft.
Despite struggling in college, he’s 6’6 “and has a fastball that touches 102 mph. He impressed many around baseball with a great Arizona Fall League. Many prospect gurus suggest that it won’t be long until Swan cracks the top one hundred.
Rounding out the bottom of the list are two players who have already made their Major League debuts: right-handed pitchers River Ryan and Kyle Hurt.
Seeing Ryan and Hurt at the bottom of the top ten list is a bit surprising, but when you factor in that both players are likely to miss the entire 2025 season due to their arm/elbow injuries and rehab from surgery, it makes sense that their stock dipped.
Ryan, 26, was elite in his brief stint with the Dodgers, posting a 1.33 ERA in 20.1 innings pitched, and Hurt was projected to be a top arm in the Dodgers bullpen before an arm injury derailed his 2025 season.
What is noticeable about this prospect list is just how young the top five Dodgers prospects are, with Dalton Rushing being the oldest at 25 years old. This could explain why the Dodgers have been aggressive in free agency and trades in this current window, but rest assured, this window is far from over.
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