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50 MLB breakout prospect candidates to watch in 2023

Matt Thomas/San Diego Padres/Getty Images

With the start of the 2023 MLB season approaching, we've ranked the top 100 prospects in the game. Now it's time to take a look at the players who didn't make my list this year but could earn a spot on the top 100 going into next season.

This is an opportunity to look past just the scouting grade to find my personal picks to click going into the new season. The aim here is to sort through the 1,296 ranked prospects from my American League and National League team lists and project who will take the biggest steps forward onto next year's top 100.

The parameters for this list are that the 129 prospects with a 50 future value or better on my scouting scale are not eligible, and for players in the 130-150 area of my rankings, I have to think they can land in the middle of my next top 100 rather than just sneak into the end of it.

I'm trying to predict which players will make the top 100 for 2024 -- not 2025 -- because prospects are eligible for a picks-to-click list only once, so I need to time it right. For this reason, many recent international signees who I do think can make my list eventually will be saved for when they're closer to a full-season debut.

The players who fit my pick-to-click breakout criteria tend to fit into specific groupings, so here are the 50 candidates broken out by prospect type.