You might be wondering why our Tuesday newsletter, which usually focuses on either College Baseball or Minor League Baseball, has an MLB headline topic. Yeah, you probably do not care at all, but alas.

Thursday’s newsletter will be solely focused on our Updated Top 100 MLB Prospects! Aram Leighton’s biggest project of the year is being updated this week with a ton of new top prospects, big risers, and the best scouting reports you’ll find.

With that on deck, this newsletter will be a combination of everything, with our updated MLB Power Rankings and Intriguing Prospects to Watch headlining this edition.

June MLB Power Rankings

Our updated MLB Power Rankings heading into June are here!

The editorial staff here at Just Baseball has ranked all 30 teams for the third time this season. We’re over two months into the season, and we’ll start to see true contenders pull away from the pack in coming month and beyond.

Detroit Tigers Claim Top Spot. The best record in MLB belongs to none other than the Gritty Tigers. They have been excellent this season with Tarik Skubal, on track to win his second straight Cy Young, leading an excellent pitching staff and Spencer Torkelson’s breakout paired with Riley Greene’s excellence leading the offense. They now have the third-highest odds to win the World Series at +900 on BetMGM.

New York Teams Round Out Top Three. Despite their fair share of ups and downs, the Yankees and Mets are still legit contenders. The Yankees are in clear control of the AL East while the Mets are in a tight battle with the Phillies for the NL East. Both teams are coming off a strong week which cemented them in the top tier of our rankings.

Twins and Cardinals Rise While Diamondbacks and Red Sox Fall. The middle section of our power rankings includes some huge movers with Minnesota and St. Louis rising 11 and 12 spots, respectively. Meanwhile, Arizona dropped eight spots and Boston dropped nine spots from a month ago.

Just Baseball Trivia of the Week

Our newsletter will have a trivia question every week to test and expand the baseball knowledge of our subscribers! The answer to the weekly trivia question will be at the bottom of the newsletter each week.

Which team leads MLB in pitcher strikeouts? _{^{*As of 6/3}}

A) Houston Astros

B) New York Yankees

C) New York Mets

D) Philadelphia Phillies

🚨 Want to become famous(er), grab more customers, and 100X your reach?

Stop burning budget on ads and hoping for clicks. Podcast listeners lean in, hang on every word, and buy from guests who deliver real value. But appearing on dozens of incredible podcasts overnight as a guest has been impossible to all but the most famous.

PodPitch.com is the NEW software that books you as a guest (over and over!) on the exact kind of podcasts you want to appear on – automatically.

⚡ Drop your LinkedIn URL into PodPitch.
🤖 Scans 4 Million Podcasts: PodPitch.com's engine crawls every active show to surface your perfect podcast matches in seconds.
🔄 Listens to them For You: PodPitch literally listens to podcasts for you to think about how to best get the host's attention for your targets.
📈 Writes Emails, Sends, And Follows Up Until Booked: PodPitch.com writes hyper-personalized pitches, sends them from your email address, and will keep following up until you're booked.

👉 Want to go on 7+ podcasts every month? Book a demo now and we'll show you what podcasts YOU can guest on ASAP:

Book Your Incredible Demo Now

Most Intriguing Prospects to Watch

Last week on The Call Up, we dove into the most intriguing prospects in baseball!

Whether it be top prospects excelling, a unique tool, or any other reason, these prospects are ones we’re keeping an eye on right now.

Konnor Griffin has the tools of a superstar and has shown it. The Pirates top hitting prospect has excelled early at 19 years old during his first full season. Through 45 games in Single-A, Griffin is slashing .310/.371/.511 with 19 extra-base hits and 25 stolen bases. Could he slot into the Pirates lineup today? Maybe. Regardless, he’s one of the most exciting hitting prospects in baseball with a chance to blossom into a star.

Jonah Tong has gone from being a steal in the draft to being slightly forgotten when talking about the best pitching prospects in the game. To this point, Tong has 72 punch outs in only 44 innings pitched. One of the most impressive, and talked about, performances was his 6.2 innings of perfect baseball before being pulled for the final out of the game. The Mets staff has been solid this year, and Tong is still a ways away, but don’t be surprised to see his name mentioned in big trade rumors near the deadline.

Andrew Salas is coming off an international signing period where he netted one of the bigger signing bonuses of the class. The 17-year-old has been putting a stamp on the profile dating back to the impressions he was making in Spring Training. He solidified it by being the youngest player in the Spring Breakout games. His above-average plate recognition, inate ability to make hard contact, and defensive acumen behind the plate are going to make for a very fun follow as he develops in the minor leagues.

Since coming off of the injured list, Kevin McGonigle has reminded everyone just how advanced of a hitter he is. Coming into today’s off day in the Minor Leagues, he is riding a seven game hit streak. In just 10 games played in High-A West Michigan, he has 18 hits, eight of them doubles, and a 3:11 K:BB ratio. Max Clark has gotten his well-deserved recognition, but that shouldn’t bury the 1.141 OPS that McGonigle has been able to string up.

What if I told you that Luis Morales put together six no-hit innings in his Triple-A debut? Well, I hope you believed it because that is exactly what the 22-year-old right hander did for his team. Prior to the call up, Morales had a 2.98 ERA with 53 strikeouts in 42.1 innings pitched. The 2023 international signee credits the process the A’s have taken with him throughout his development so far, and we would be doing him a disservice if we weren’t paying more attention to him going forward.

Chase Burns is one of the best pitchers in all of Minor League Baseball. Yes, he was a early-first-round selection in last years draft, so the expectations were likely high coming in. However, he has a 1.93 ERA in 46.2 innings where he is sporting a 13.3% K/9 and has just nine walks in his 10 starts. He has three pitches that all grade above-average and his development needs to be monitored a lot more closely solely due to the fact that we may see him debut earlier than many expected.

Jonny Farmelo’s torn ACL last year left a lot of prospect fans sad knowing that we were robbed of what was going to be a huge breakout season. Now, in his first year back from the injury, Farmelo is proving the believers right. His .278/.328/.552 slashline through 14 games played might not stand out immediately, but the 125 wRC+ just goes to show where he stands compared to league average.

Tommy Hawke is speed. The 2023 sixth-round pick is teleporting from base to base down in Single-A Lynchburg where he already has 47 stolen bases in 47 games. The game is definitely more than just speed, and you have to get on base a lot to be able to steal that many bases. He’s walking just about as often as he is striking out (38:37 K:BB) and is hitting .301 entering June 2nd. We have seen that type of game-changing speed make a big impact in the Major Leagues multiple times, so if Hawke continues to soar through the Minors, there is no doubt he’ll be able to create the same havoc in Cleveland.

Brewers Farm System Update with Brenton Del Chiaro

We were joined last week on The Call Up by Brewers Assistant Director of Player Development Brenton Del Chiaro, who gave us an excellent update on the Milwaukee farm system!

He gave an update on top prospects including Jesus Made, Luis Peña, Cooper Pratt, and many others. Made and Peña will be ranked quite high on our Updated Top 100 MLB Prospects dropping this week👀

Furthermore, he provided intel on the entire Brewers organizational philosophy and hitting development system. Listen to the full interview for excellent info.

Other Headlines

• NCAA Regionals wrapped up this yesterday with 16 teams advancing to Super Regionals, where eight will then claim their spot in the College World Series. Read our full Regionals Recap here!

• Our May Players of the Month came out yesterday! Check out the AL Players of the Month and NL Players of the Month to see who dominated the most in May.

Just Baseball Discord

We launched a Just Baseball community on Discord!

Our Discord channel is the ultimate baseball group chat while also providing exclusive access to Peter’s MLB best bets, Aram’s prospect content, giveaways, and direct connection to the entire Just Baseball staff.

Read all the details about our Discord community here.

Trivia Answer: D) Philadelphia Phillies

Philly leads baseball in strikeouts with 571 this season so far. Zack Wheeler leads the charge with 94, while Jesús Luzardo has an impressive 81 through his first 12 starts with the team.

Just Baseball Merch

Our newest line of merchandise features Adidas performance gear!

We have also restocked on all your favorites including our vintage World Series line, hats, hoodies, City Series line, spring line, and much more.

Check out the full collection of Just Baseball swag here!