Every year there’s a prospect who doesn’t make our top 40 list and makes that omission look foolish almost immediately. This year, its Nolan Perry, who did make Matt’s pref list but who I have to admit to whiffing on entirely. Perry got $200k in the 12th round back in 2022 out of Carlsbad, New Mexico. He looked promising in the 2023 complex league and in his full season debut in 2024, striking out about 28% of batters he faced but walking too many. As Matt noted in his write-up, he had a tendency
to lose his delivery and have meltdown innings, but tended to overpower A ball hitters when things were working. Then he went down with elbow troubles in mid-August which ultimately lead to a Tommy John surgery that caused him to miss 2025 entirely.
Command is usually the last thing to come back after TJ, but having had a full 19 months to recover before returning to game action, Perry appears to have not just gotten back to where he was but taken a step forward. So far in 2026 he’s both landing more pitches in the zone overall (45% vs 41%), but when he works out of the zone placing pitches more deliberately, drawing chases and some called strikes on fastballs up and sliders and curves low. It’s still below average command, probably, but he’s improved the quality and consistency of his location enough to increase the odds that he ultimately sticks as a starter.
Perry’s stuff has also improved. In 2024 he sat 90-93 and occasionally approached 95 with his fastball. Now he’s sitting 93-95 and occasionally cresting 96. He’s further defined the shape of the heater, which in 2024 StatCast classified as a sinker about a third of the time (though the movement profile was similar enough to his four seamer that I think he was just sometimes getting on the side of the latter pitch and sailing it a little). The pitch has above average vertical carry and plus arm side run, which should allow it to play as solid average.
Two distinct breaking balls make up most of the rest of Perry’s pitches. His slider, used just under 30% of the time, varies from 82-87mph. It looks like an average pitch, with pretty typical movement although it could use a little more depth. That’s too much for A ball hitters, who’ve missed a little more than half the time when they swing. He’s located it pretty well, missing down and away when he does miss and mostly avoiding hanging anything out over the heart of the plate. The curve, used 20% of the time, comes in just under 80mph and gets big two-plane break. It’s big enough that batters tend to read it out of his hand and have swung under 30% of the time he throws it (compared to 43% for the slider and 57% for the fastball). They can’t hit it when they do, with 9 whiffs on 16 tries, but he’ll want to get better at dropping it into the bottom third of the zone for strikes to really maximize its effectiveness.
His change-up is rarely used, and only to lefties. It comes in at 86mph with good vertical drop compared to the fastball, and at least as a rare ambush weapon it’s been too much for A ball hitters, who’ve whiffed on three of four swings so far. We’ll have to see whether it remains deceptive against better hitters with a bit more of a book on Perry’s arsenal, but to my eye it has considerably more bite than in 2024 and now flashes some potential.
It’s a pretty smooth looking delivery, with a high leg kick and an average stride, and he looks like he repeats it pretty well. Perry’s listed at 6’2” and 195lbs and still looks fairly lanky, although at 22 there isn’t likely to be a ton more development physically. The steps he’s taken with his command point to continued development as a starter for the forseeable future. He has the repertoire depth to make that work, assuming continued progress on the change-up, with no monster plus pitch but at least three that look like they could be above average consistently with development.
A ball is clearly beneath Perry’s level. His 47% strikeout rate and 2.07 xFIP are both second among pitchers at the level with at least a dozen innings. At 22, even with missed development time, he’s also old for the level. I would expect a move up to Vancouver sometime soon, possibly once the weather improves in the pacific northwest. From there, if he continues to outclass hitters in the Northwest league, a cameo at New Hampshire probably isn’t out of the question. That’s the track that last year’s Dunedin breakout arm, Gage Stanifer, took, although Stanifer had a base of 60 innings in 2024 to build off of and Perry might be under a tighter usage limit.
