Bryce Rainer, SS, Tigers: When the Tigers promoted Rainer to High-A Western Michigan in April, it raised some eyebrows because he was hitting .167/.265/.310 with a 40.8% strikeout rate. It took Rainer a few weeks to get acclimated to High-A, but since then, he has been on fire. In June, he hit .352/.478/.662, and on Wednesday, he had his best game of the season, going 5-for-5 with two doubles, a home run, and five runs batted in. 

Rainer’s exit velocities have been elite all season, and in this game, all five of his hits had an exit velocity of at least 109 mph. His first hit was a 110 mph line drive single to right-center. His second was a 109 mph line drive double to left field. His third was a 111 mph home run off the scoreboard in left-center. His fourth was a line-drive double to right-center at 109 mph, and finally, he had a groundball single to right field at 113 mph. After this performance, Rainer is now hitting .360/.429/.640 in July and has raised his season line to .272/.378/.472.

Mike Sirota, OF, Dodgers: Sirota reached another milestone in his push to set a new minor league record, tripling in his second at-bat with Double-A Tulsa on Wednesday to extend his on-base streak to 70 games. He’s now only two games away from tying Andrew Velasquez’s minor league record, which he set in 2014, and three games away from breaking it. If he stays in the lineup every day, he could tie the record on Friday and break the record on Saturday. Sirota also singled and scored two runs. He’s now hitting .325/.481/.575 for the season and moved up to the No. 12 prospect in baseball in our latest Top 100 update.

Eric Bitonti, 3B, Brewers: Bitonti’s development has been somewhat slow since he was drafted in the third round of the 2023 draft. In his first season in High-A, the 20-year-old has put together a solid season so far, hitting .269/.397/.496. After a strong June, however, he had struggled in July, going 2-for-22 in his first six games. He broke out of that slump in a big way on Wednesday, going 3-for-4 with two home runs and a walk. Those two home runs give him 14 for the season to go along with 16 steals. Strikeouts remain a problem, as he has 103 in 296 plate appearances this season, but his combination of size, power, and speed remains intriguing in an extremely deep Brewers farm system.

Owen Ayers, C, Cubs: The Cubs’ 2024 19th-round pick has been one of the biggest pop-up prospects in baseball and now finds himself on the verge of joining the Top 100. He continued his impressive run since moving to Double-A, going 2-for-5 with a home run on Wednesday. The home run was his 22nd of the season and 16th in 61 games in Double-A. He’s now hitting .322/.435/.659 for the season and has firmly established himself as one of the more intriguing catching prospects in all of baseball.

Zyhir Hope, OF, Dodgers: Even though Hope ranks among the top 50 prospects in all of baseball, he sometimes gets overlooked as he’s the lowest-ranked member of the Double-A Tulsa outfield. Hope is trying to change that narrative as he’s been on a tear in July after a quiet June. He homered twice on Wednesday, giving him five for the month, which is more than he had all of June. Hope is now hitting .500/.529/1.100 for the month and has raised his season line to .289/.364/.519 with 18 home runs.

Editor’s Picks

Baseball America Helium Pick Of The Day

Each day, we’ll pick a prospect that has our attention.

Jack Radel, RHP, Notre Dame

Over three seasons, Radel has been a primary part of the Fighting Irish’s rotation, making 10 starts as a freshman, 13 as a sophomore and 15 in his draft-eligible junior season. After seeing a steady progression over his first two seasons with Notre Dame, Radel took a nice step forward in 2026, pitching to a 3.29 ERA over 87.2 innings with 116 strikeouts to 22 walks. While Radel was edged out by Wes Mendes for ACC pitcher of the year, he did earn first-team all-ACC honors. 

Physical Profile & Delivery

Standing at 6-foot-5, Radel has good size and physicality, and he already looks the part of major league starter. He has easy mechanical movement, as his lower half and arms work in unison for a very repeatable operation. He delivers the ball from a higher three-quarters arm slot, but due to seven feet of extension on average, he lowers his release height to 6-foot-1. This allows his fastball to have a flatter plane of approach to the plate than expected. It’s not necessarily a flat plane, but it’s particularly effective when located high due to his arm angle at release creating some unexpected ride.

Pitching Arsenal

Radel mixes a four-seam fastball, slider, cutter, changeup and curveball.

The fastball averages about 93-95 mph and can get up to 98 while showing between 19-20 inches of induced vertical break and 7-8 inches of armside run. The slider is Radel’s primary secondary, sitting 82-84 mph with cut-gyro shape. It’s a good bat-missing pitch with a 43.3% whiff rate this season and a 44.8% chase rate.

He’ll mix in his cutter at 89-91 mph with cut-fastball shape. It gets around 10 inches of ride and true cut, moving both armside and gloveside from pitch to pitch. His changeup has very good vertical separation off his fastball and shows the traits of an effective offspeed pitch in pro ball. He’ll also show a curveball at 80-82 mph with slurvy shape that was an effective bat-misser.

Overall, Radel offers good command of his pitch mix, but improved feel for his changeup could see him take another step forward in his professional debut in 2027. Mocked outside the first round at the moment, Radel is a sleeper pick at the back of the first round with traits that stack up against any college pitcher in this draft. Here are four other data dives on potential first-round arms this weekend.

Quick Hits

Prospect news and notes from around baseball…

• Twins 20-year-old outfielder Jayson Bass popped a pair of homers for Low-A Fort Myers on Wednesday. The switch-hitting native of Argentina is enjoying a power surge in his first extended stretch of full-season ball with a career-high 12 homers after previously never homering more than once in a season. He has also stolen 12 bases. Under the hood, Bass has punished fastballs this year with solid exit velocities for his age, though he’ll need to tighten up his swing decisions and perform better against lefties.

• Low-A Ontario and Inland Empire played a doozy on Wednesday. Ontario won 22-21, jumping out to a 16-0 lead through three innings only to hold on for dear life, as Inland Empire rallied for 18 runs over the final three innings. The game featured five homers, 20 walks and 14 different pitchers.

• Red Sox prospect Enddy Azocar hasn’t quite had the breakout season we predicted with High-A Greenville, but he took Pirates RHP Seth Hernandez deep on Wednesday.

• Yankees RHP Luis Serna punched out 10 batters over seven innings for High-A Hudson Valley, though he did allow a homer to Braves Top 100 shortstop Tate Southisene.

• Rays outfielder Connor Hujsak has crossed the 20-homer threshold and went deep twice on Wednesday for High-A Bowling Green. A 2024 13th-rounder out of Mississippi State, he slashed .315/.341/.618 through 63 games. Hujsak certainly likes to get his money’s worth out of every at-bat, as he has walked less than 4% of the time.

• Remember when Eduardo Quintero was off to a slow start? That didn’t last very long. The 20-year-old Dodgers outfielder is on a tear. He went 2-for-3 with a homer Wednesday for High-A Great Lakes and is now hitting .297 with a .882 OPS.

• Braves righty Lucas Braun punched out 12 batters over seven innings for Double-A Columbus to lead all Top 30 pitching prospects.

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