"The Next?" - Theo Gillen

Back in the Substack days I used to do offseason articles called “The Next” where I would pick a prospect coming off a meteoric rise, look at his batted ball data, and try to find similarities in other players who could replicate that success next year. As we start to look ahead to 2027 I figured what better prospect to kick off this segment than Theo Gillen, a player I praised all winter and spring, making him a 5/5 perfect rated buy on my Tampa Bay Rays team sheet back when his base autograph was selling for $27 on average. There were a ton of things to like about Theo heading into this year with only a couple of pieces missing from him becoming an elite prospect. So let’s look at other players who will end the 2026 season in the same boat that Gillen was in this time last year, and see if we can’t figure out which ones could make a similar jump.