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.
The final member of the 2025 draft class is... Round 20, Pick 606: Curtis Hebert, SS, Portland Draft pick tracker thread coming later tonight...
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.
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.
We finished with 4 different spellings of Wehiwa, including the correct one. Congratulations to all who took the under
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.
