Arizona Diamondbacks Pitching Prospects: The Unrankable Honorable Mentions

Patrick Forbes #31 of the Arizona Diamondbacks throws a pitch during the second inning of a spring training Spring Breakout game against the Colorado Rockies at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick on March 21, 2026 in Scottsdale, Arizona. (Photo by Chris Bernacchi/Diamond Images via Getty Images) | Diamond Images/Getty Images Introductio n Over the last few weeks, we’ve gone over the D-Backs top prospects, focusing exclusively on the hitters in the farm system. This week we turn our focus to the pitchers in the Arizona farm system, beginning with a few honorable mentions that didn’t make it into the top 15 for whatever reason.

Pitching Development Isn’t an Organizational Strength The D-backs have had a decent amount of success as far as developing position players goes, but when it comes to developing starting pitching, they have had very few successes in the team’s 30 years. If you’re excluding pitchers who didn’t begin their professional career, or those that broke out only after being traded away, there are even fewer. As much as it pains me to say, the D-Backs are one of the worst teams at developing pitching, and there really aren’t many pitchers in the system that look elite starting pitchers, at least as far as I can tell.

Ranking the Diamondbacks pitching prospects feels like a futile endeavor that borders on masochism, especially since there’s essentially no consensus in ranking. In addition to looking at the rankings of various publications, I reached out to some of my fellow SnakePit writers and alumni who know prospects, and there were very few rankings in common, though there are definitely some pitchers more highly regarded than others. As far as my process for rankings goes, if I am presented with two players that are similar in terms of tools and stuff, I’m going to favor the player who is actually having success over the player who only has the potential for success.

Starting pitchers will always be ranked more favorably than relief pitchers, especially single inning relief pitchers. The level of confidence in a prospect’s ability to stick as a starting pitcher is one major source of the discrepancy between rankings, so if you’re wondering why I might favor a pitcher more than someone else does, that’s probably why. The Players Who Could Have Made The Cut You’ll find Patrick Forbes on nearly every major publication’s top prospect list for the Diamondbacks, but you won’t find him with a ranking on mine.