Jason DeCaro

Draft Prospects

• Ranked #24 prospect in 2026 draft
  School: North Carolina. Drafted: Never Drafted
  
  Age At Draft: 20.2
  
  Still only 17 years old, DeCaro has more than held his own in the Tar Heels’ rotation. Through the first month and change of the season, the 6-foot-5 righthander has pitched his way to a 3.63 ERA with 31 strikeouts to 17 walks across 34.2 innings. DeCaro has a slender, high-waisted build and attacks hitters from a low–three quarter slot with above-average arm speed. He features a true four-pitch mix that includes a fastball—which has been up to 95—that flashes run and ride through the zone, two distinct breaking balls and a changeup. Both his low-to-mid-80s slider and high-70s curveball flash above average, and each could eventually grade out as a 55. DeCaro’s slider will flash tight sweeping action at times, while his curveball will flash two-plane break with some bite. While he doesn’t throw his mid-80s changeup a lot, it has the look of a potential plus pitch and could be a real weapon against lefthanded hitters. It has late tumbling life with a bit of fade to the arm side. DeCaro seems like an arm who could be sitting in the mid-to-upper-90s before long and he is a slam-dunk starter professionally. Expect him to be one of the headliners of North Carolina’s rotation both in 2025 and beyond.
• Ranked #236 prospect in 2023 draft
  School: St. Anthony’s HS, South Huntington, N.Y. Source: HS
  
  Commit/Drafted: North Carolina
  Age At Draft: 17.2
  DeCaro is the youngest player on the BA 500. He’s a 2023 player in his fourth year of high school, but he skipped kindergarten, so he just turned 17 in April. A North Carolina commit, DeCaro mostly played travel ball with 2024s and had planned to take a year after graduating before joining the Tar Heels in the fall of 2024. Instead, after he pitched well at the WWBA World Wood Bat Championship in Jupiter, Fla. in October last year, DeCaro decided he would enroll at North Carolina this fall, pending the outcome of the draft. DeCaro’s present stuff isn’t quite as loud as other prep pitchers in his class who are a year or two older than him, but there are good projection indicators in place. At 6-foot-5, 225 pounds, DeCaro has more physical upside to add to a fastball that’s mostly 88-92 mph and has scraped 94, a few ticks up from the 91 mph he reached last year. He has a sound delivery, is a solid strike thrower for his age and has feel to spin two breaking balls, the best of which is a 78-81 mph slider with tight rotation that’s an effective chase pitch darting away from righthanded hitters. He throws a 73-78 mph curveball that has good depth at times, though less swing-and-miss than his slider, and the two can blend into each other at times. DeCaro’s changeup has good fading action, though he leans more heavily on his breaking stuff and hasn’t used his changeup much.