2025 MLB Draft

https://www.perfectgame.org/players/playerprofile.aspx?ID=1013390

Another guy who is not that highly rated. Would be dope if Houston was able to sell them all on getting started. McLaughlin isn’t much of a prospect best I can tell. Limited defensively.

 

Didn't know that he's having a bad year.

It's his 1st bad year.

 

A big part of his struggles this year are batted ball related bad luck but even if that normalized he wouldn’t be more than an average AAA hitter who is limited to LF. I was surprised because I really thought he’d make somebody a decent 5th OF.

 

Hebert was the #1 prospect out of ALASKA coming from HS. You’re the man. Thanks for doing this. A little disappointed Houston didn’t get a chance to select Weeheema Alloy.

 

You like Alloy over Neyens?

 

That's gotta be as a pitcher right? He only has 77 PAs across 4 seasons for Portland, slashing .238/.279/.429 this season. I suppose he had a decent summer league performance 2 years ago, but that's quite the project if he's being drafted at SS.

If I'm Dana, all my scouts are calling up their favorite undrafted pitchers and telling them I've got $150K and a lot of innings available in one of the best professional pitching development systems around and seeing who bites.

 

Last year, they leaned into their pitching development system and took a lot of small school pitchers. They took 11 pitchers in 18 total players they signed including 6 of their 9 picks in the top 10 round picks. Injuries have diluted the initial returns from the draft, with Bryce Mayer, Ryan Smith, and Ramsey David the only pitchers that have been healthy this season. For pitchers getting less than 200K, 1/3 is pretty good.

This year they swung in the opposite direction, going even heavier on hitters than they did on pitchers last year. 6/9 of their top 10 round picks were hitters, and 12-14 of their 19 picks were hitters, depending on how the two-way players end up. I was a bit surprised that they went so heavy on hitters, but if they drafted Jackson Wells in the 14th instead of Wakefield and Charlie Weber in the 18th instead of Arroyos, I wouldn't have batted an eye and the draft would look more balanced.

All the picks up until 9th round seem pretty exciting to me. I hope that they manage to sign the high schoolers. It's always fun to have young higher upside players in the system, even if they haven't been very successful with those types.

 

17th rounder Grayson Saunier was a good prospect coming out of high school.

https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/2022/draft/grayson-saunier-802450

I believe his FB is up to 95 now.

 

At what round in the draft does the pick become just an educated guess?

 

Pretty good article on the day 2 picks:

https://www.mlb.com/astros/news/astros-2025-draft-day-2?t=mlb-draft-coverage

Seems like several of the bats are high contact guys (Monistere, Walker, Daudet, Wakefield, Newman) which I think this system needed more of. Thomas seems like more of a balanced bat whereas Call and McLaughlin are power over hit guys like Neyens and Frey.

They seem to view Newman as a hitter.

Pitchers almost all throw 94+ (Potter, Pentecost, Oakes, Saunier). They think they can help Aubrey Smith and Curtis Hebert add velo.

Farley and Arroyos are likely going to have a very long development timelines. Farley is just a raw athlete and Arroyos is a defense first SS who needs to add a lot of strength to be viable.

Newman was the only player the article mentioned as possibly not signing.

So to group the picks:

4 power over hit bats (2 college, 2 HS)
5 contact oriented bats
1 all-around low ceiling/high floor bat
1 very good HS catching prospect
1 raw athlete HS OF
1 skinny defensive wiz HS SS
4 power arms
2 arms with untapped velo

 

Round #1

 

In baseball , you can be a tip 10 pick , never make it to the majors and not really be a bust.

Sure a bust , but not a huge bust like a top 10 NBA or NFL pick not being a good player is a huge bust

 

doesn't he mean 2nd day not 2nd round.
We didn't even have a 2nd round pick.

 

"We like Xavier. We think he can be really special! A player like Xavier only comes along once in a good while! His fielding is sound and he's got a good bat from the left side! We really think he can develop quickly and be a major contributor!"

 

Did Frey have high strikeout rates?

 

69 k in 257 ab for lsu career, so >25% which is high for a college player imho. 47 k in 210 pa (22.3%) this season. So not terrible but definitely a risk factor as he moves into higher levels of competition.