Introduction
The Dbacks farm system could be described as a top heavy system, that ranks in the middle of the pack overall out of all 30 team’s farm systems, and I wouldn’t disagree at all with that assessment. While the Diamondbacks have drafted, signed, and developed some really great hitters in recent years such as Corbin Carroll and Geraldo Perdomo, the obvious reason as to why the farm system is ranked so poorly is thanks to a complete lack of any impactful pitching prospect. On top of that, throughout the organization’s history, there’s been a failure to develop pitching in house, with very few exceptions. Today we’ll be ignoring that five ton proboscidean, bypassing that completely by focusing on just the hitters in the system. If we’re looking at just the hitting prospects in the farm system, I’d actually argue the Diamondbacks belong firmly in the upper third of MLB teams.
Originally I started writing this as a standard top prospect list, but I realized that I am actually terrible at evaluating pitching. The rankings here are a very subjective, and if there’s a player you think i have snubbed and left off the list, wait until next week and you’ll likely find them There are many valid arguments for ranking player X over player Y, who’d you’d rank higher than player Z. I could have easily gone with several different permutations of how these players are listed, so if you think that some players should be ranked differently, that’s totally okay! If you do have a strong arguement for why you think a specific player should have been ranked differently, than let me know in the comment section below the article. Today we’ll be looking at a few honorable mentions, and then going over prospect #11 through #6. Originally I did include the remaining 5 prospects, but this article has gotten a little too long so I split it into two parts.
Honorable Mentions
If Jose Fernandez didn’t have an amazing debut game, I don’t know if I would have even bothered mentioning him at all outside of maybe a ‘prospects to watch’ section. That’s not to say he wasn’t an intriguing prospect prior to his MLB debut, especially after being added to the 40-Man roster to protect him in the lead up to the Rule 5 draft. That prompted me to dig further into his statistics over the winter, and based on his first and 2nd half splits, it seems like he has made some adjustment that have unlocked his offensive potential. I’m not entirely sold on his offensive or defensive profile, but the potential is definitely there.
Kristian Robinson was a top prospect before his career was almost completely derailed after a mental health episode exacerbated by medical grade Marijuana, which then lead to legal troubles. After three years away from professional baseball, Robinson was able to eventually get his life and his career back on track. While he’s probably not the future All-Star we thought he was back when he was a top prospect, but I still think Robinson is capable of hanging in at the MLB level as a fourth outfielder capable of playing all three outfield positions.
Avery Owusu-Asiedu was acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies in exchanged for lefty reliever Kyle Backhus back in December. He’s the protypical toolsy outfielder who hadnt had much in the way if results in his first two seasons in 2023 and 2024. After putting up an anemic batting line of .192/.287/.327 and a 77 wRC+ in A ball in 2024, Owusu-Asiedu returned to A ball to start the 2025 season, and I’d say he conquered it with the .268/.382/.402 and 122 wRC+ he put up in 58 games in his second go around, though some of that improvement was just having better luck on his Batting Average on Balls In Play (BABIP) probably was a factor. The Phillies front office agreed with that assessment though and promoted him to A+. There he’d hit .247/350/.368 with a 118 wRC+ in 49 games. Owusu-Asiedu has an intriguing combo of being a plus plus runner with a plus plus arm, while having some eye catching (112MPH+) exit velocities. Unfortunately, there are some real questions about his ability to consistently make contact, so the bat could be what holds him back in the long run. That said, his numbers are trending in the right direction, and I wouldnt be shocked to see him breakout further in 2026, especially if he’s assigned to a hitter friendly enviroment like the Dbacks AA affiliate in the Texas League.
11) Druw Jones, CF
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The son of Hall of Fame Centerfielder Andruw Jones, the right handed hitting Druw Jones was selected by the Diamondbacks with the second overall pick in the 2022 draft. Sadly he has so far failed to live up to the expectations that were set for him being taken that high in the draft and just the expectations that comes with being the son of a Hall of Fame player. A lot of the decline in his prospect status is a result of injuries that have derailed him since the minute the ink dried on his pro contract. Most noteably Jones suffered a season ending shoulder injury before he could even get his first pro at bat, that also gave him the distinction of being the third Dback #1 draft pick to suffer a season ending shoulder injury almost immediately after signing.
The other aspect that has further tarnished Jones’ prospect luster, are the offensive struggles. In 41 games in 2023 split between the two Arizona Complex League Dbacks teams and the A ball level Visalia Rawhide,Jones hit a paltry 238/.353/.327 with a 93 wRC+. It’s worth nothing that those numbers are propped up by the 29 games in Visalia where he hit .252/.366/.351 with a 105 wRC+. His best season was back in 2024, when he hit .275/.409/.405 with a 126 wRC+ in 109 games for the A ball level Visalia Rawhide. However, in 2025 his hitting regressed, with his number falling down to .255/.335/.360 triple slash with a 96 wRC+. It wasn’t all bad though as he did progress in some areas; he reduced his strikeout percentage from 28.0% down to 23.3%, while keeping his walk percentage above 10%. He was much more successful on the basepaths, stealing 28 bases while getting caught only 4 times, compared to how he did in 2024 when he played in 24 fewer games, while stealing seven fewer bases while also getting caught stealing an additional two times.
Jones is one of the best, if not THE best defensive outfielder in the Diamondbacks farm system. While the bat has some question marks surrounding it, there’s zero question about his defensive ability; even if the bat doesn’t come around, his defense is probably good enough that he could provide positive value even with a slightly below average bat. The biggest thing that Jones can accomplish in 2026 is reducing the percentage of strikeouts down to an acceptable level while increasing the frequency of contact and his batting average. He has typically struck out in at least 26% of his at bats, and that won’t cut it. If Jones doesn’t have a breakout season in 2026, he’s likely to fall off all the major top prospect lists for good. If he has an outright bad season, then he’ll likely be stuck with the label of being one of the most notable busts in Dbacks draft history. While he’s still only 22 years old, Druw Jones has little time left before he’s no longer a prospect. I’m pretty optimistic generally, but in this case I have only just enough confidence in Jones to place him just outside the top 10.
10) Carlos Virahonda C
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Signed out of the Dominican Republic in January of 2023, Virahonda is a switch hitting catcher who only turned 20 in the middle of December.
Virahonda had an impressive debut that year in the Dominican Summer League. In 38 games split between the two DSL Dback affiliates he hit .304/.401/.482 with a 133 wRC+. You could call Virahonda’s 2024 season a disaster as he returned to the DSL but struggled offensively, hitting just .156/.279/.231, which works out to a 44 wRC+ (for reference a 100 wRC+ is average, >100 = good, <100 = bad ). However, I wouldn’t call it all bad, as the adjustments he made afterwards helped his 2025 season go much better. In 37 games in the rookie level Arizona Complex League, he’d hit 347/.464/.455 with a 153 wRC+, which earned him a promotion to the A ball level Visalia Rawhide. In his 33 games for Visalia, Virahonda didn’t hit quite that well, but he held his own hitting .256/.362/.357 with a 108 wRC+. His combined stat line for 2025 was .300/ 413/.404 with a 130 wRC+. Virahonda projects to be an above average defender behind the plate, with a very good chance at becoming elite defender. If Virahonda builds upon his 2025 offensive perform ace, he is likely to leap ahead of several players on this list. He’s easily the top catching prospect in the Dbacks system, though to be fair the Dbacks don’t have a ton of average or above catching prospects, so he doesn’t have much competition as far as that goes.
9) Cristofer Torin, SS/2B
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Torin is a polarizing prospect and I wouldn’t be surprised if his rank here ends up being the most controversial. In 2026, he has been ranked as high as #10 (by Baseball-America) or as low as #27 (by Fangraphs), and unlike me, they’re not ranking hitters and pitchers separately. Torin got on my radar after he displayed a very advanced approach to the plate in 2023 as a 17 year old. He began the year in the Dominican Summer League, earned a promotion to the Arizona Complex League, before finally ending the year in A ball. In 2024 Torin would return to A ball and spend the entire season there. While the results weren’t quite as impressive, they were still above average, which earned him a promotion in 2025 to the A+ Level Hillsboro Hops. There he’d .287/.381/.385 with a 115 wRC+ in 122 games. Torin was then promoted to AA Amarillo, where he’d appear in 5 games and hit .381/.440/.571 with 159 wRC+.
Torin is an excellent contact hitter with fantastic plate discipline, who consistently walks at above average rate while rarely striking out, who is a competent defender with a good enough arm to stick at shortstop. However, the real problem here and what makes him such a divisive prospect is that he doesn’t hit the ball very hard, he’s not a fast runner, and besides the aforementioned above average contact and plate discipline ability, he really lacks a standout tool. As far as the hitting side of things goes, I am reminded a lot of Geraldo Perdomo, who while being a better defender than Torin, similarly had only above average plate discipline and contact skills as his standout tools. In my opinion, those are the most important tools for a hitter in the first place. You can have all the homerun power in the world, while being an elite speed threat on the basepaths, but if you can’t take a walk or even make contact in the first place, you’ll never even have that opportunity to steal a base or hit out of the park.
In all likelihood, Torin is a future utility player or middle infield depth, but if he starts developing power and hitting the ball with more authority, he will surprise a lot of the prospect evaluators who were unimpressed.
8) Kayson Cunningham, 2B/SS
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Cunningham is yet another player who fits the mold of the undersized position players that the Dbacks that the Dbacks are quickly becoming known for. I haven’t seen Cunningham play at all, and there’s really not much new that I can say about Kayson Cunningham, whom the D’Backs drafted in the first round of last year’s draft with the 18th overall pick since he’s only appeared in a grand total of 11* professional games. (*he did play in the Complex as well, but we don’t have access to that data. We can infer he did fairly well based on the fact that they had him debut in A ball, which is unusual for a highschooler).
In cases like these, where I haven’t seen a player at all, and there’s basically no worthwhile data available, differing my opinions to the experts is seems like the way to go. In this case, I’ll just quote his blurb on MLB Pipeline:
Standing 5-foot-10, Cunningham rarely whiffed on his swings as an amateur and showed the ability to manipulate the barrel to all areas of the strike zone. He impressed Arizona officials enough at the complex after the Draft to the point where they pushed him out to Single-A Visalia for 11 games, and his contact rate was solid for a recent prepster pushed into the deep end. Cunningham doesn’t have a projectable frame, however, and he’ll really need to maintain good bat speed to get to even average power in the bigs.
Cunningham is an energetic player on the basepaths, but one who makes for an interesting evaluation on defense. He lost some of his twitchiness at shortstop before the Draft, and in the California League, he looked rushed on some of his actions and throws, including getting charged with three errors in his debut. Arizona still plans to keep him at shortstop, believing that last year’s experience could be eye-opening because of the speed of the game, but even entering the Draft, some scouts saw Cunningham as a future bat-first second baseman.
7) LuJames Groover, 3B/1B
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After hitting .349 combined in his three seasons playing in college, LuJames Groover was drafted by the Dbacks in the 2nd round of the 2023 draft with the 48th overall pick. He’d have an impressive debut season in 2023, but his 2024 was shortened by injury. 2025 would see Groover back in AA and fully healthy; in 123 games he’d hit .309/399/.434 with 12 HRS, though in the hitter friendly Texas League that works out to a 120 wRC+, or just 20% above average. While Groover’s bat and offensive tools have never really been in question though, but his defense was absolutely in question. The Dbacks believed in him enough to give him a chance to continue playing third, which has paid off as he’s become a capable defender over time. 2026 has Groover promoted to the AAA level Reno Aces in the hitter friendly Pacific Coast League. As of April 2nd, the Aces have only played 5 games, so there’s not much to write about other than Groover going 4-5 with a pair of runs batted in on opening day.
6) JD Dix, 2B
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The most notable fact about JD Dix’s background is that he went to the same highschool as 2001 postseason Dbacks legend Craig Counsell. The switch hitting Dix was drafted back in 2024, but didn’t make his pro debut until the 2025 season. He absolutely raked in his 39 games in the Arizona Complex League, hitting .342/.421/.493 with a 142 wRC+. That would earn him a promotion to A ball, where he’d play in 50 games and hit .261/.391/.335 with a 114 wRC+. Across the two levels in 89 games, Dix hit a combined .297/.404/.406 with a 126 wRC+.
I would imagine that Dix will be promoted to the A+ Level Hillsboro Hops for the 2026 season, considering his solid numbers in 2025 leave him with little left to prove in A ball
Conclusion
That wraps up the back half of my top prospect list for hitters, next week we’ll go over the five position players remaining that would be glaring omissions to excluse. Well informed readers will be able to guess who they are, but can they guess the order after the team’s consensus top prospect? Let me know what you think in the comments below!
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