Kade Anderson, Joseph Dzierwa and Anthony Eyanson spent 2025 carving up hitters in different uniforms, but their paths keep crossing in the same conversation: MiLB Pitching Prospect of the Year.
Anderson and Eyanson were the headline arms for Louisiana State’s championship run, finishing first and third in NCAA Division I strikeouts with 180 and 152, respectively, while each won 12 games. In the College World Series finals, they helped hold Coastal Carolina to three runs across two games as LSU captured its eighth national title. After the Draft sent them in separate directions, they’re back together as two of the three finalists for the 2026 award, joined by Dzierwa, another 2025 draftee.
Anderson, the Mariners’ left-hander and the No. 1 pitching prospect in baseball, put together a pro debut that matched the billing. In Double-A, he went 10-1 with a 1.06 ERA over 18 games and 93.1 innings, allowing just 47 hits and four homers while striking out 135 and walking 13.
He also posted a .147 opponent average and a 0.64 WHIP. By the time of his final Double-A start in mid-August, he led the Minors in ERA, strikeouts, opponent average, WHIP, strikeout rate at 41 percent, strikeout minus walk rate at 37 percent and K/BB ratio at 10.4.
A big-league promotion kept him from qualifying for the Minor League lead in innings, but his 1.06 ERA was the lowest by any pitcher with at least 93 1/3 innings since 1971.
His stuff isn’t built on pure velocity. Anderson’s fastball sits at 94 mph, but he pairs that with quality carry, command and deception from a high-three-quarters slot. He also works with a mid-80s slider and changeup, plus a low-80s curveball, and every pitch shows good horizontal action.
Dzierwa, the Orioles’ lefty and the No. 3 prospect in this group, didn’t have LSU’s title banner behind him, but he brought plenty of production to the table. At Michigan State, he won Big Ten Conference Pitcher of the Year honors and became the highest-drafted Spartan pitcher since Mark Mulder went No. 2 overall in 1998.
Then he jumped into pro ball and kept rolling. In High-A, he went 5-1 with a 2.21 ERA in eight outings, and in Double-A he added a 4-1 mark with a 2.29 ERA in 18 games.
Combined, he finished 9-2 with a 2.27 ERA, 149 strikeouts and only 30 walks over 131 innings. Among Minor Leaguers with at least that workload, he led the minors in opponent average and WHIP and ranked second in ERA.
He also had eight scoreless starts, twice as many as the four outings in which he allowed more than two earned runs.
Dzierwa’s fastball sits in the 91-94 mph range and reaches 96, but the pitch plays up because of its run and sink and his unusual release point as a 6-foot-8 southpaw. His low-80s changeup with fade and depth is the best companion to that heater, while his low-80s slider and upper-70s curveball remain less consistent.
Eyanson, the No. 2 prospect here, was every bit as sharp once he got rolling. The right-hander opened his pro career by allowing just five earned runs in his first 11 starts and gave up more than two runs only once in 22 outings.
His season line was a dominant one: 6-1 with a 1.54 ERA over 22 games and 99.1 innings, with 141 strikeouts against 35 walks. In High-A, he allowed one earned run in 20.1 innings, then moved to Double-A and posted a 1.82 ERA across 17 appearances.
The Red Sox sent him to the Orioles at the Trade Deadline as the headliner in the Adley Rutschman deal, and he later joined Dzierwa at Double-A Chesapeake. Among Minor Leaguers with at least 99 1/3 innings, Eyanson ranked first in ERA and strikeout rate at 37 percent.
Eyanson’s slider is the pitch that drives the whole operation. It’s a tight mid-80s breaker, and it became even nastier when his fastball was sitting in the mid-90s and touching 100 mph early in the spring.
Even after the heater settled in at 92-95 mph late in the year, his results held. He also mixes in an upper-70s curveball, a mid-80s splitter and an upper-80s cutter.
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