I remember the first time I ever watched Elly De La Cruz in person. It was June 2022, and Elly plus his High-A Dayton Dragons teammates were in Cedar Rapids, Iowa which is the closest minor league affiliate near me. The hype around Elly had been building and building over the past year, and I knew that this was a player I would not have wanted to miss. I was right. It was clear just watching him that he was simply better than everyone else on the field. Faster, bigger, stronger, and simply more exciting than anybody else I had ever seen with my own eyes.

Elly is one of my favorite prospects I've ever followed, and my goal in the past 3 years has been to continue to try and find players that are similarly exciting. Whether you're a fantasy baseball player and want to know who could have an outlier skillset, or if you're a prospect junkie who wants to know what the next big thing could be, trying to find unicorns like Elly is something that we should all strive for. So that's what we are going to try and do today.

So what is the criteria? I'm not going to try and find comps to EDLC simply because I don't believe there to really be any. I want to try and find prospects that are relative to Elly in an excitement sense, from my point of view. There is no shortage of prospects that anyone could get excited about, but I want to give it my perspective.

We're going to be sticking with hitters for today, as that's where I find my wheelhouse to be. I want to try and go deeper than just top prospects, as I hope that it will be more valuable to you if you're looking for deeper prospects to add in fantasy leagues or give you insight on a prospect you don't know much about. However, there will be two guys who were in the Prospects Live Top 100 that we posted back in January, and how about that's where we start.

Konnor Griffin - Pittsburgh Pirates SS/OF

Coming in at #41 in our Top 100, the Pirates 2024 1st round pick Konnor Griffin is an absolute electric factory. Always known for his speed and insane raw power, Griffin was always the top prep hitter in the 2025 fantasy baseball FYPD class. Bryce Rainer is very enticing, don't worry Tigers fans, but Griffin has the sort of potential we see very few prospects have.

While it feels almost irresponsible to say, Griffin reminds me a lot of Bobby Witt Jr when he was coming out of the draft in 2019. Bobby has whispers of strikeout issues coming out of the Texas prep ranks, and Griffin's strikeout issues seem to be a bit louder. While he's overhauled the swing over the offseason, Griffin still has an arm bar in his load that still makes his swing a little long. While it's only a 12 game sample(as of writing), Griffin hasn't shown that the strikeout worries weren't a mistake to have. It's still early, and Griffin is so young. He wasn't supposed to be eligible for the 2024 draft until he reclassified, so I'm going to preach caution here.

On the defensive side, Griffin is starting out his minor league career at shortstop but might be better suited for a move to centerfield. He's a solid 6'4" with blazing speed, and I have no doubt he'd be an above-average defensive centerfielder with the potential for more. As with the strikeout concerns, it simply will just take a little time as he goes thru the minor leagues to clarify where his defensive home will be.

Griffin will more than likely be a bit of a slower burn, spending most if not all of his first season in Single-A Bradenton. If the strikeouts are a huge concern this year, I'm not likely to tank his future potential just based off the age and the swing changes that he's already shown an ability to make. On the flip side, if Griffin can keep the strikeouts at bay and improve his K rate as the season goes on, look for him to easily be a top 10 prospect this time next year with the hype to be even higher.