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  "description": "Brandon Tew and Matt Seese tag-team a ranking of the top pitchers in the 2026 MLB Draft Class.",
  "path": "/seese-tew-2026-draft-pitching-tier-list/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-07-11T10:30:11.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.prospectslive.com",
  "textContent": "# **TIER 1**\n\n## **1) Jackson Flora, RHP, UCSB**\n\n### ** _Arsenal_**\n\n**45% // 4-Seam: AVG 96 MPH // 17.4 iVB / 7.2 Arm-side**\n\n**Fastball R-H: 5.8-foot Release Height**\n\n**1% // CUT: AVG 88 MPH // 9.1 iVB / 5.1 Glove-side**\n\n**12% // SWP: AVG 86 MPH // 8.1 iVB / 9.1 Glove-side**\n\n**22% // SLV: AVG 82 MPH // 1.6 iVB / 17.2 Glove-side**\n\n**20% // CH: AVG 88 MPH // 3.5 iVB / 8.0 Arm-side**\n\n**11 pitches // CB: AVG 78 MPH // -8.5 iVB / 13.6 Glove-side**\n\n0:00\n\n/0:52\n\n1×\n\n**_Matt:_ **\n\nEvery draft has its pitcher. This year’s is Jackson Flora. Coming out of UC Santa Barbara, with famed alumni such as Barry Zito, Shane Bieber, and last year’s top-3 pick, Tyler Bremner, Flora took college baseball by storm in 2026. Flora is a very athletic mover on the mound with great balance, extension, and spin capabilities with consistency at his release point. Flora’s upper-90s fastball is elite, plain and simple. It generates huge ride, and he’s even able to create some cut/ride action on some of his fastballs, making for a very difficult heater to hit. Flora’s fastball, when up in the zone, is quite possibly the best of any starter in this draft.\n\nThe sweeper, as Brandon will mention the “Hand of God” sweeper, is overly verty, with big sweep makes for one of the true outlier pitches in this draft. It pushed a near-40% whiff rate this season at UCSB. The biggest development for Flora was his kick change. He badly needed something else arm-side to flesh out his repertoire, and the kick change has neutralized his splits, making life even tougher for lefty bats.\n\nI initially wasn’t as high on Flora as many, and though I still struggle to fully get on board with the ace ceiling, seeing the potential for his fastball to create two distinct shapes between a cut-ride and true 4-seamer has me dreaming on SP2.\n\n**_Brandon:_**\n\nI share Matt's sentiment. If Chase Burns is my \"this guy is a Top 20 pitcher in baseball\" type of arm, then Jackson Flora falls short of that tier but is still really good! There's ace upside here, but I think it's a tougher ceiling to reach than Burns because Burns' stuff is simply more explosive in his two best pitches. Flora fits a similar archetype, though, and he has some plus pitches here, if not better depending on development. He may not be quite the explosive mover that Burns is, but he's such a gifted athlete on the mound that it's easy to dream on what he could become. There's still so much clay left to mold, and that athleticism gives him some room to find an SP role.\n\nThe \"Hand of God\" sweeper is a ridiculous pitch. Cam Schlittler throws a similar pitch, but even his is almost Alien compared to Flora. Flora’s is at ~86 mph with roughly 7-10 inches of lift and 9 inches of sweep; it's an incredibly rare breaking ball that uses that lift to turn through the zone with less drop from his slot.\n\nHe pairs it with a low-80s slurve averaging more than 17 inches of sweep and an even shorter slider/cutter, giving him the potential to command five to seven distinct pitches. He already does a good job landing those pitches in the zone.\n\nThe kick change has become a nice addition to the arsenal, allowing him to create depth and vertical movement to both his arm and glove sides while forcing hitters to cover a wide velocity band with the bigger sweeping curve he throws. When you step back and look at the collection of outlier pitch shapes, all thrown with power, Flora is exactly the type of pitcher I'm willing to bet on. His athleticism and ability to access so many different movement profiles on a pitch plot are massive green flags for me.\n\n## **2) Cameron Flukey, RHP, Coastal Carolina**\n\n### ** _Arsenal_**\n\n**55% // 4-Seam: AVG 96 MPH // 19.5 iVB / 7.8 Arm-side**\n\n**Fastball R-H: 6.1-foot Release Height**\n\n**13% // SL: AVG 83 MPH // 0.2 iVB / 2.3 Glove-side**\n\n**28% // CB: AVG 78 MPH // -12.1 iVB / 9.6 Glove-side**\n\n**4% // CH: AVG 88 MPH // 5.4 iVB / 2.7 Arm-side**\n\n0:00\n\n/0:28\n\n1×\n\n**_Matt:_**\n\nA stress fracture in his ribs cut Flukey’s breakout draft-year season short, but either way, he remains one of the more intriguing arms in this class. He was poised to be one of the first names off the board, and though that stock has tumbled a bit (mid R1-35 range), his outlook remains the same for me. Flukey put on some muscle between ‘25 and ‘26, and his mechanics saw more consistency, leading to less spray with his fastball.\n\nThe repertoire is very North-South, as his upper-90s heater and upper-70s curveball are his two best pitches, creating a distinct, steep velo-and-shape gap. I believe his versatility with his curve and his ability to both hunt swing-and-miss and also land it for strikes has helped his slider come along, as hitters have to look for a big bender, even if he doesn’t quite have the same feel for the slide piece as he does his curve.\n\nFlukey made just one start before the injury, and post-injury, he never threw his changeup. He didn’t have great feel for it last season, but we also just didn’t see many of them this season. When he’s fully healthy, the changeup has strong potential to be very good as his arm action remains similar to his fastball, only for the bottom to drop out of a 97 mph, very vertical heater and turn into a mid-80’s changeup.\n\nI fully buy the upside here to the point where Flukey doesn't feel out of place alongside Flora as the only other arm in Tier 1. Our friend Will Dodge has compared Flukey to Tyler Glasnow in both build and how he uses his delivery to create a lower release height despite his size and higher slot, and that’s really the ceiling you’re chasing here. Flukey is only going to continue to fill out his 6-foot-6 frame, and with it will come a repertoire that he continues to discover. His slider shape indicates a cutter could be a strong offering here, and the changeup is already in progress. I buy the ultra-aggressive ceiling for Flukey.\n\n**_Brandon:_ **\n\nDue to injury, Flukey threw just over 400 pitches this season, but I can't get out of my head how dominant he looked in Omaha in 2025. He went head-to-head with Kade Anderson, who—hand up—I was probably a little lower on than I should have been during last year's draft cycle. Flukey has a big-time fastball, and his long, lean 6-foot-6 frame allows him to create exceptional positions down the mound. As Matt pointed out, there's still room for him to add strength, and look at his body at foot strike.\n\nHe creates so much external rotation of the shoulder that his lengthy yet whippy arm swing can leverage tremendous energy into the baseball. The fastball is plus, if not better, exploding out of his hand as an upper-zone buzzsaw. The breaking balls, mainly the slider, need tweaking, but they're within grasp. As Matt mentioned, there's a path to leaning into a cutter by adding velocity and a little more lift to the shape.\n\nYou could also go the opposite direction and emphasize the slider's depth and bite, turning it into a harder death ball shape. Think of a death ball like the gyro, or bullet, spin of a football, where the spin axis allows gravity to pull the pitch more directly toward the ground. Most end up living in the neighborhood of five inches of sweep with five to six inches of drop, creating a depth-heavy slider.\n\nFlukey feels like the type of arm whose loose, whippy action can support another tick or two of velocity while also allowing him to rip 85-mph death balls. No matter which direction you take with the breaking balls, this profile offers multiple pathways to success, and the curveball is plus, if not better, especially given his feel for it. The key will be deciding whether to build a predominantly north-south attack around the fastball or pair it with a bigger glove-side breaking ball that can better neutralize right-handed hitters. It’s a No. 4/No. 3 all over him if he’s healthy and showing what he’s shown in the past, and the upside is a little bigger too.\n\n# **TIER 2**\n\n## **3) Cade Townsend, RHP, Ole Miss**\n\n### ** _Arsenal_**\n\n**26% // 4-Seam: AVG 95 MPH // 19.4 iVB / 7.4 Arm-side**\n\n**5 Pitches // 2-Seam: AVG 94 MPH // 14.2 iVB / 14.0 Arm-side**\n\n**Fastball R-H: 6-foot Release Height**\n\n**13% // CUT: AVG 90 MPH // 7.4 iVB / 2.7 Glove-side**\n\n**12% // SL: AVG 87 MPH // 5.2 iVB / 5.9 Glove-side**\n\n**22% // SWP: AVG 85 MPH // 2.0 iVB / 10.0 Glove-side**\n\n**15% // CB: AVG 83 MPH // -14.3 iVB / 3.6 Glove-side**\n\n**10% // CH: AVG 88 MPH // 8.1 iVB / 12.1 Arm-side**\n\n0:00\n\n/0:52\n\n1×\n\n**_Matt:_ **\n\nWe’ll get to my biggest draft crush here in just a minute, but Cade Townsend is certainly another ‘Guy’ with a Capital G for me. Everything about Townsend screams multi-year vet except his frame (6’1”), which is really just a negligible difference from the average MLB starter height to begin with, so I just see it as advantageous for a flatter fastball. Townsend has a real toolshed of an arsenal with a real ability to manipulate the ball, getting to 6, possibly 7 pitches he can comfortably throw. The two I want to really focus on here, however, are his fastball and cutter.\n\nOn a pure results basis, Townsend’s fastball got hit pretty hard. The command with the heater is above-average but not always consistent, and when it bled over the middle, college hitters sitting gas didn’t miss those. That being said, I really like the fastball shape. The ride it generates with his release creates a flatter heater, and the velocity sustains around 92-94 deeper into outings. Townsend’s cutter sits 89-91, and it may be his best offering presently. He’s able to consistently get it under the hands to lefties, making for uncomfortable swings, and with how heavily hitters sat on his fastball, the cutter to righties created a lot of lunging swings, garnering whiffs and weak contact. Townsend’s cutter ran a 39.5% whiff rate and 28.2% in-zone whiff rate. Usage between the two offerings is pretty evenly split, and his entire arsenal is well-balanced overall.\n\nMy main question revolving Townsend comes down to usage: pro batters don’t sit dead red heater anywhere close to the rate college hitters do. Can he find an uptick in swing-and-miss with his heater while throwing it more? He was still getting an 18% in-zone whiff rate on the offering this season, but when he has to throw it more to help alleviate his secondaries to help their effectiveness, will he be able to?\n\n**_Brandon:_ **\n\nCade Townsend is the type of pitcher I gravitate toward: multiple pitch shapes, good velocity with a possibility for even more, and the ability to manipulate the baseball. Pitchers who can create that many distinct looks usually have an understanding of their arsenal and the shapes they produce. Townsend already has seven pitches at his disposal, making his success heavily dependent on pitchability and the ability to mix them.\n\nHis fastball and cutter do enough to set up the rest of the arsenal. Both were in the zone at a healthy rate, but as Matt pointed out, can those pitches consistently win in the zone? If they don't, Townsend has the flexibility to lean more heavily on his sliders, sweepers, and curveballs instead, and some orgs could push him in that direction.\n\nWhat stands out most is how he works into favorable counts and gains count-leverage on hitters. Townsend consistently gets to leverage counts because he throws strikes, and once he's ahead, hitters have to account for a deep mix of offerings. When a pitcher fills the zone and forces hitters to think about six or seven different pitches, he becomes an incredibly difficult matchup.\n\nThe evaluation comes down to whether you believe the strike-throwing (check) and arsenal depth (check) will ultimately carry the profile. Matt and I both love the pitch feel and ability to fill the zone, and to me, that gives Townsend a higher floor than many of the other pitchers on this list. He still has some good shapes you can buy into, mainly the curveball, which is a low-80s pitch with 14 inches of drop. His changeup is thrown with a split-change grip, 3 fingers on the side of the ball, and yet he can throw it incredibly hard and with drop. I don’t see many pitchers able to throw that pitch with that grip and that much velocity. Think of Foster Griffin or Shota Imanaga and their split-changes and the velocity difference deploying a similar grip.\n\n## **4) Tegan Kuhns, RHP, Tennessee**\n\n### ** _Arsenal_**\n\n**56% // 4-Seam: AVG 94 MPH // 19.3 iVB / 10.6 Arm-side**\n\n**Fastball R-H: 5.5-foot Release Height**\n\n**11% // SL: AVG 83 MPH // -1.6 iVB / 1.7 Glove-side**\n\n**23% // CB: AVG 77 MPH // -10.4 iVB / 9.2 Glove-side**\n\n**10% // CH: AVG 83 MPH // 8.2 iVB / 14.7 Arm-side**\n\n0:00\n\n/0:36\n\n1×\n\n**_Matt:_**\n\nKuhns is my draft crush in terms of arms, and I’ll explain why: His size and potential to fill out his long-limbed frame leave me to believe there’s still another tick in there. Also, from the day he got to Knoxville until the day he left, Kuhns saw his fastball make steady gains, but his changeup and especially his curveball hardly progressed at all.\n\nWe’ll start with the curveball. Kuhns’ curve needs a pretty large overhaul. The -10/9 shape is both inconsistent and doesn’t have enough separation off of the slider to be seen as anything other than something he can land for a strike at the pro level. It generated above-average whiff rates at the college level, but it must improve to aid his handedness splits. Kuhns got great returns with his high-80s changeup, a potentially very good future offering, but from his freshman season to this past season, he never showed consistency in landing it where he wanted. Against lefties, this led to him falling behind in counts and having to rely on his fastball, and though that’s a pretty good pitch to fall back on, when a hitter knows what’s coming, they’ll hit it.\n\nNow, to the slider. Kuhns saw a slider shape that, as the season progressed, developed more and more into a death ball. That’s where that needs to stay, but he needs to find a way to get it to sit in the 85-86 mph range. It has real potential to be a good offering; he just needs to find some extra juice.\n\nThe big thing with Kuhns is there was just never consistency with his breakers across the season. When they were on, he was nearly unhittable, but when he couldn’t find them, he became incredibly one-dimensional. That being said, this is where a pro org steps in and offers some solutions right away. He’s very athletic with an optimal release height and quality extension. Everything is already present except that feel for breakers and some shoring up of the changeup, and I think the present traits make him as tantalizing an arm in this class.\n\n**_Brandon:_**\n\nFor Kuhns, I don't want to oversimplify the evaluation, but it really starts with the four-seam fastball. It's already a really good pitch, and I think it takes another step if he consistently throws it as a buzzing mid-90s heater through the top rail with a little more intent. From a low 5.5- to 5.6-foot release height with above-average extension, it has the traits to become a true top-of-the-zone weapon.\n\nThere's also plenty of low-hanging fruit with the breaking balls. He was beginning to work toward more of a death ball shape, and if a development staff can get him throwing an 83-85 mph breaker with 3-4 inches of depth (ahem Flukey too) while filling the glaring hole in the pitch mix with an upper-80s cutter, now we're cooking with his glove-side shapes!\n\nGiven his roughly 30ish-degree arm angle, I also wouldn't rule out a bigger sweeper. To me, though, the foundation is already there: a very good fastball and enough spin capacity to develop multiple glove-side shapes. I wasn't fully in the Liam Doyle camp “just because of the fastball” last draft cycle. Still, I do believe these Tennessee arms often arrive in pro ball with more untapped pitch-shape development than other college arms, and that’s usually a bonus when evaluating an arsenal like Kuhns'.",
  "title": "Under the Hood 2026 Draft Pitching Tier List: Tiers 1 & 2",
  "updatedAt": "2026-07-16T23:59:39.683Z"
}