For baseball fans, there’s nothing quite like the allure of prospects. As every franchise hopes to stockpile young, cheap talent, fans buy into the idea of homegrown players emerging to become the next once-in-a-generation stars.
Over the past few years, emerging talents like Washington’s Bryce Harper and Los Angeles’ Mike Trout have become the gold standard for minor league standouts with the ability to make a difference at the big league level.
With the 2014 season reaching the second week of June, teams will soon be less reluctant to promote stars too soon, alleviating the fear of rising arbitration costs and lost free-agent years. When the Houston Astros called up George Springer in April and the St. Louis Cardinals summoned Oscar Taveras one month later, the first big prospects of the season arrived.
Now that the door has been broken down, expect at least a handful of big names to arrive at the big league level over the next few months. By the time September rolls around, more than a dozen of baseball’s future stars could be impacting the pennant races.
Here are the next top prospects who will arrive in the major leagues.