ESPN MLB Insider and MLB Draft expert Kiley McDaniel was made available to media to discuss the 2025 MLB Draft. The first round of the event will air across ESPN starting at 6 p.m. on Sunday, July 13, emanating from the Coca-Cola Roxy, adjacent to Truist Park – home of the Atlanta Braves. McDaniel will be part of ESPN’s robust coverage of the event. For McDaniel’s latest mock draft, visit ESPN.com.  

Kiley, with the Rays having so many picks, how big of an opportunity do you see this as?

KILEY McDANIEL: Yeah, a big opportunity for them. Obviously the way that they do business is continually cycling through guys. You need to have a fresh flow of guys coming into the draft or trades or whatever it might be.

I think they do a pretty uniquely good job in terms of the kind of guys they’re looking for. I oftentimes will talk about teams needing to have a point of view where we’re good at developing this kind of guy or we scout this kind of guy a little bit better, or teams don’t like this kind of player but we like this kind of player.

I think they have a lane they’ve figured out where there are some sort of first base bat-only kind of guys, going all the way back to Casey Gillaspie, we’ve seen Xavier Isaac. There’s been guys they’ve offered a lot of money to out of high school that didn’t sign.

And then I think they have a history of being a team that is not afraid of high school righties. I think they mix in a good amount of college guys. They’ve been going position player heavy the last few years. This year I’m hearing them tied to a lot of high school position players. There’s a couple teams like that like. Detroit has a couple picks; they’re also tied to a lot of those guys.

I think that’s common in the area they’re picking in, and also that’s what the draft is giving you once you get past 15 or 20, it is disproportionately high school hitters.

And if you go back two years ago, that was also the case; that once you got past that first group of Cruz and Langford and Skenes and then there was Clark and Jenkins that all went in the top five, there was a nice group of college players, Kyle Teel, handful of others, and then like 15 to 35, it was all high school hitters, and that’s what went. And those were pretty much the best guys in the draft that didn’t go in the first five picks, were almost all those high school hitters.

I think teams are learning that lesson; that that’s probably the demographic, especially in the late first comp/early second area that you need to dip into. And Tampa Bay has been tied to, I don’t know, seven, eight, ten of those guys. I would imagine they’re going to get three or four of them.

I could throw you a couple names if you want. I know I’ve mentioned them in the mock drafts.

So Steele Hall is one they’re looking at at 14, high school shortstop that I have compared to Anthony Volpe, Trea Turner, Jett Williams, that kind of guy. I think that’s one of the guys they’re looking at, along with Gavin Fien at 14.

I think later on they’ve been tied to Jaden Fauske, who’s sort of like a hit power/corner outfield combo kind of guy. Dean Moss at IMG Academy down in Bradenton, another guy they’re looking at in the comp to second round, sort of like a medium tools, big-time skills guy, long track record. Mason Ligenza, a guy they’re looking at a little bit later in the draft.

Those are the kind of guys they’re looking at. They’ve taken guys like that in the past. I think that’s what they’re going to be looking for again. I think they’ll mix in a couple of college righties. I know J.B. Middleton, Anthony Eyanson.

There’s a couple of those guys that I think they’ll mix in so they’re not just taking all high school guys. You don’t want to have the farm system be overweighted one way or another. But I think the majority of that money is going to go toward high-ceiling high school position players and then mixing in a little bit of some other stuff.

1. Just to compare 2011, is that maybe a cautionary tale when they had 10 of the first 60 picks and it really was only one player that — with two Cy Young awards, but one player that panned out of that?

KILEY McDANIEL: Yeah, that’s kind of the whole sales pitch for why you get a punch of picks, is you get so many shots, you get to take so many different kinds of guys, you’re probably going to nail one. And they just nailed exactly one and kind of missed on the rest of them.

So yeah, obviously one Cy Young is probably more than they were expecting out of that class, or two I guess.

But yeah, that is a cautionary tale. I think there are a lot of times where we see teams on the extremes of multiple high picks, where Houston had two picks in the top five and took Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman. That’s obviously an extreme outcome. You have Tampa with all those picks, and they got one guy, but he’s also really good.

I think in those extreme circumstances you tend to get extreme outcomes. But obviously there’s a lot of different things that can be considered an extreme outcome. Like three superstars or one superstar or zero are all considered kind of extreme in a way.

But yeah, I think I have more faith in their — I think they probably have more faith in their process making those adjustments. They’re one of the teams where I think what happens to them, both on the big league field and player development and scouting, they proactively make adjustments and I think are always looking for the next thing.

I think a lot of other teams, especially places where GMs have been fired in the last five years, tend to just do the same thing over and over again, where the whole league is moving and they don’t move anymore, and that’s why guys get fired. And I don’t think Tampa does that, which is evidenced by nobody really getting fired over there and everyone getting poached away.

1. Kiley, got to ask you about the Rockies. Is Ethan Holliday the best-case scenario for them, not only in terms of storyline but for what you feel they need right now?

KILEY McDANIEL: Yes. I would say what they need is stars and standout players, and a lot of them. My rankings came out today. I have him No. 2, but I have him and Anderson as essentially co-No. 1s. Anderson I think will either go first or second. So if you’re sitting at 4, the best you can do is get the second guy.

So yeah, I think that’s the best they can do. I would say it’s a little over 50 percent likely that they will get him at 4 because I think he either goes 1 or 4.

I think if they get him at 4, it might be for the highest bonus in the draft. I think it might be one of those situations where Charlie Condon got overpaid relative to some of the other players a little bit later.

I think that’s how this one is lining up. If he doesn’t become the first pick, that will be what happens as a result. I think that’s why 2 and 3 aren’t looking at him as much because they would then have to jump that price. Because when the family has enough money to say no to that much money, then you have to take them seriously, as we saw with Daz Cameron.

There’s been some examples in the past where if somebody has a demand, people take them seriously when the family is wealthy. Or they really want to go to college. Whatever the reason is. He’s one of those guys that has that leverage. Not every guy does.

But yeah, I would say what they need are stars. He’s the best chance for them to get a star in this draft. I think there’s a decent shot they get him.

I think the real question will be what do they do with some of their later picks. I think they’ve slowly evolved a little bit. They were sinker only in terms of pitchers that they would take in the draft until a couple years ago when they took Dollander and Sean Sullivan, who are the opposite kind of pitcher. I think they found some success. Obviously Dollander hasn’t been fantastic at the big league level but I think was a good pick there.

So now they’ve opened themselves up to more sorts of pitchers, and I think we’ve seen them go high school hitter, high school pitcher. We’ve seen them do all the different sorts of things. So I’m sort of intrigued to see what they do at the later rounds because especially the buzz in the industry is not very much about the Rockies.

It’s just, oh, they get Holliday anyway, we’ll talk about guys appear, whereas some of those teams, like Tampa or Detroit that have so many picks, Baltimore, Kansas City, the conversation is about who they’re going to get, and Colorado is just not getting that conversation in the industry.

So I’m curious who the second and third pick will be and what that reveals, if they’re shifting strategies at all about a better way to find impact talent or leader picks. They haven’t been quite as good at that. They’ve been better at that internationally in the draft. I don’t think they’ve had an above-average rate of hits after the first round, but they’ve done pretty good in the first round.

I’ll be interested to see if they get guys that I find interesting later on and then a year or two from now if they end up being good.

Kiley, I had a question with the Nats’ front office moving around and shifting around, how you think that impacts them going No. 1. Are they going to be a little less — try to get the safe pick or try to get the best pick, maybe a little bit more risky at this point?

KILEY McDANIEL: I’ve had a couple conversations about this. It’s obviously hard to do sourcing because this is one or two people’s decisions, and they’re probably not going to talk to me in an honest fashion right now.

So the perception around the league is that they are a little more likely to go safer. So I think if it was — I’ll say that I saw it as a virtual coin flip, maybe 60/40, maybe 50/50, between Holliday and Anderson before the news. I think after the news it’s now a little bit more likely that it goes to Anderson. But that might be from 50/50 to 60/40, like almost imperceptible.

But I think Anderson is a little bit more likely because there was a perception that Rizzo was one of the voices that was behind Holliday because that is also the kind of player he has taken in the past when he picks high. And obviously he is now not part of the process, and it is sort of unknown what the scouting group wanted.

It was sort of believed that that was who Rizzo was on. I know the scouting group was interested in Seth Hernandez. That is another perception in the industry. But oftentimes GMs, I think there’s a couple spots where the GMs are saying we can’t take a high school righty at that pick, and I would imagine that’s probably where Rizzo landed and probably because he preferred Holliday.

So all that to say that’s what everyone sort of thinks is the consensus view in the industry of how things stood. So I think Kade Anderson is a little more likely now, which then makes Holliday a little more likely at 4.

But it’s still small moves. It’s not perfectly sourced. At this point no one is going to tell us something that can be correctly sourced. It’s more reading the tea leaves, trying to see the direction things are moving slightly as opposed to big swings. I don’t think there’s going to be a giant swing.

When it comes to the Miami Marlins and where they’ve been mocked for certain players, it seems like they’re favoring towards middle infielders like Billy Carlson and Eli Willits, even JoJo Parker. Besides those three middle infielders, who are some other options you think the Marlins could use with their seventh pick?

KILEY McDANIEL: I think given the way people think the first six picks ahead of them are going to go, I think people think that there will be high school infielders left over. So I think Willits and Parker will be the two main ones. Carlson would also be involved. People think that will be who they pick.

There are also some I guess less likely outcomes where maybe that’s not who’s on the board because guys go in a slightly different order. I think they would be interested in some of the college players.

So I think Jamie Arnold would definitely be someone that they would have interest in given the kind of players they like and who they’ve taken in the past, who Frankie and Peter have drafted at other places they’ve been.

But I think everyone thinks Jamie Arnold will go 2 or 3 or 5. So probably won’t get to their pick, but I think he’s someone who would be an option if he gets there.

Beyond that, I think Ike Irish at Auburn might be the other college guy that they would consider there in a certain scenario.

But I would still say Willits and then JoJo Parker I think are their priorities. I think one of those two will almost certainly get there. There’s a chance both of them get there. And maybe it comes down to price if there’s not a huge preference.

That’s another one that’s a widely held perception within the industry. That’s why you’ve seen those same names there over and over, is they’re sort of perceived to go 5, 6, 7, and it seems to be who they prefer.

But also at that point I feel like most of those players are going to be signing for roughly slot. So it’s more like a football or basketball draft where it’s just like does your player get here, then take him, you pay him a fixed amount of money, et cetera.

So there’s a reason that that is what everyone thinks, and I think it’s because that’s what is likely to happen. But yeah, there’s a shuffle up top, I think Jamie Arnold will probably be the guy that, if he slides through, that would be attractive to them that isn’t one of those high school position players.

So the Marlins last year went under slot with their first pick in PJ Morlando. If they decide to go under slot again, what are some potential options for the Marlins with their first pick if they decide to go under slot?

KILEY McDANIEL: Like I said, the fact that I think they’re going to get the guys that they like that will be around slot, there hasn’t been as much conversation about that.

Some names that have come up, Daniel Pierce is one that came up early in the process. I think Irish might be a little bit under slot as a college guy, if he goes there. I think Brendan Summerhill at Arizona is someone they would consider.

Again, if they have seven guys they like and the six go right in front of them, then all of a sudden they open up the board again. But I don’t think they’re at a spot — I would say, for instance, the White Sox at 10 or the A’s at 11 are much more likely to — essentially that first-year player goes right in front of them; therefore, then, they don’t like what they’re looking at, and then they’ll dip down.

I think the Marlins are securely in that area where they’re going to get somebody they like that will be somewhere close to slot. So I think it’s pretty unlikely that they’ll do like a 75 percent of slot or a similar to Morlando thing.

I think that was more situational and based on players they wanted that went right in front of them last year and so they then went with another option. I don’t think that was the primary plan. And this year I think their primary plans have a very good chance of working out for them.

For Rutgers outfielder Trevor Cohen, he’s kind of a unique player where he’s really just a bat-first guy, doesn’t really hit for much power but hits at a very high level, strikes out very low, and walks at a pretty high rate. What range round do you think he’s going to be selected if you think he does get drafted at all?

KILEY McDANIEL: He’s one of a number of college guys that I think are in that third to fifth round area. It kind of depends how things play out.

I’ve talked to a couple agents about their players where they’re like, oh, this guy might go in the third, but then if it’s this team and they get their pocket picked and maybe they’re running out of money, then they’ll take him in the third; otherwise, they’ll take him in the fourth. That’s why those ranges can be very big.

He’s a guy where I think there might need to be a little bit of a swing rework to get more power into his swing because I think there is power in there and it’s not coming out. So it’s going to be a team that feels confident they can make those kinds of adjustments.

I can tell you in the past I’ve worked for teams that don’t feel confident about that. You might think every team thinks they can do everything. Teams, when they’re honest with themselves, know they can’t do everything. And he’s a guy similar to Max Williams at Florida State. He’s probably a swing rework guy. Not a complete overhaul, but you have to change it a bit.

So it’ll be a team that’s open to that kind of guy that takes more of a developmental college guy as a center fielder that can run that might be able to hit for power but can probably put the bat on the ball. So he’s in that kind of range, in that third to fifth round.

If I could get your thoughts on Tyler Bremner, the right-handed pitcher from Santa Barbara, and why he has kind of fallen from top of the first round to the middle and lower.

KILEY McDANIEL: Yeah, he’s an interesting guy that I went from having him in the top three to five picks going into the spring. He’s been a little disappointing this spring. I dropped him way down into the later 20s or 30s. I think I moved him back up, I want to say, 18 or 20.

I think 18 or 20 is probably right in the range where he’s going to go. I would say somewhere between 17 and 25. The sort of conversation was around over the summer it looked like his slider would be good enough to be an average, maybe even a little bit above average, pitch. In part because he was in shorter stints and then was throwing harder, so therefore his slider looked a little bit better because he was throwing harder.

In the spring the command ability to avoid hard contact wasn’t quite as good because it was longer stints he wasn’t throwing as hard and the slider metrically wasn’t quite as good, like it might be a little bit below average.

So then when he’s at a lesser level of competition, I think he missed a start or two with some soreness, I think teams sort of got off him thinking, oh, this isn’t a top 10 of the draft kind of guy, and then the teams picking later were a little slower to then jump in.

But I think that’s now kind of equalized where he’s seen as that back half of the first round. If you can get the slider or the arm speed or the delivery a little bit better, it’s a guy that could be one of those top 10 in the draft kind of talents that you can then get a little bit later.

There’s also not that many pitchers. Once you get past pick 10 or 12, there’s only like one or two. It’s probably Gage Wood and Bremner, the two guys that will go between picks 13 and 30. And so if you have a certain kind of pitcher you like or you want to take a college pitcher or someone that you think could move quickly, he’s one of your only options.

So I think there’s some teams especially in the 20s that are contending teams that are good at pitching development that will see him as a worthy project. Because he’s not really a project. You have to tweak one or two things. There’s guys in the Big Leagues where you have to tweak one or two things.

So I think everyone is coming back around to seeing him for his good and sort of getting past the bad a little bit, as well.

There’s a high school player, Angel Laya – I don’t know if you’re familiar with him – and Angel was kind of highly touted, had kind of a mediocre season and has fallen maybe into the three to five rounds.

KILEY McDANIEL: Yeah, projectable likely corner outfielder, sweet swing, a little more in the future as opposed to being a polished guy now.

I think, yeah, he’s in that might get second- or third-round money, might be in the fourth or fifth round, might be a guy that goes to school. He’s in that sort of tough mush of players that’s on my rankings, but it’s a little hard to describe exactly how it’s going to go because there are scenarios — I’m not saying this is him, but there are scenarios where the agent will tell me the kid wants a million dollars and then he signs for 650, and you’re like, what’s going on, and there’s scenarios where they say the guy is signable for 650, and then it turns out he got offered a million and turned it down. Like oftentimes the kids and the families and the agents and the teams, they can all change their tune immediately in ways that are hard to predict.

So he’s in that group where he could go late second or third round, he could get slot money, there he could be an overpaid guy later, or he might not get drafted at all because the prices weren’t met or the price could go up or down. He’s in that group of 50 or 60 players where that’s the way you would describe them, so I’m not going to try to guess exactly how that plays out, but that’s the range of possibilities.

I was just wondering what is the possibility that a couple of high schoolers from Michigan, Uli Fernsler of Novi and Blake Ilitch of Birmingham Brother Rice, where they might end up?

KILEY McDANIEL: They’re both likely to get to school, and given the shorter draft, that often means that they won’t get drafted at all, even though they are talented enough to be drafted.

Fernsler had a knee issue recently. I think he was seen as a guy that could go as high as the second round, had the knee issue, and so now I think his price, I think, is still in the second round. I think he is seen maybe as a third- or fourth-round talent, so he’s seen as likely to get to TCU.

Ilitch, I believe, is Ole Miss, and I think he’s another guy that in a longer draft or a bigger Minor Leagues would be a guy that would have some opportunities to go pro for a six-figure bonus. I think given the way the draft is and where his talent is, he feels like a guy that will probably not get a number that is attractive to him to turn pro and will go to school and then have a chance to obviously improve his stock and go higher and get more money as a result.

But I would expect both of them to not sign — there’s a chance they get drafted later, but there’s also a chance they both don’t get drafted, which is not an indictment on their talent; it’s just sort of the way the draft works now that it’s shorter.

Obviously the Phillies as of late kind of have a reputation for taking high school players. Is that a function of where they’re picking in the draft, or what kind of scenario do you think would lead to the Phillies taking a — do you think there is a scenario that would lead to the Phillies taking a college player in the first round this year, and who’s on your board at that spot?

KILEY McDANIEL: Yes, so they have I would describe it as a higher risk tolerance than most teams where they will look at players for what is their upside and then what’s the chance they get to it, whereas a lot of other teams that are more analytical or model based will be like, can this guy go straight to Double-A, will he have universal trade value, will his data look good immediately.

The Phillies have a little bit more of I would say an old school approach that was prevalent 15, 20 years ago where you look at the tools and assume that if you like the kid and think he can make adjustments that he’ll get there even, if you can’t necessarily measure it right now. That is very common with high school pitchers.

Obviously they took Abel and Painter, what was it, three and four years, and then took a number of toolsy but not that polished high school center fielders at high picks and then some shortstops and third basemen, Walton, Saltiban, guys like that, at later picks.

So there are college players that fit that type. I would say Marcus Phillips, Tennessee, Riley Quick at Alabama are both sort of risky, high-upside college guys that are seen as potential relievers.

The Phillies have taken guys like that in the later rounds, Griff McGarry, an example of that, Alex McFarlane, another one. So they’ll take that kind of guy. They typically take those guys later and then even higher upside high school guys early, and I think that’s probably what they’ll do.

Matthew Fisher, a pitcher out of Indiana, high school pitcher, I think he is in play at 26. I think they would certainly take him in the second round for an above slot bonus the way they did with Burkholder last year if he can get there. I think he probably goes between those picks if I had to guess.

Sean Gamble out of IMG, Tate Southisene out of Nevada are two high school infielders that I think will be available around their picks. One that I think is particularly interesting is Quentin Young. He might have the highest upside in the entire draft but also have the lowest contact rate in the entire draft, last year out of high school players in the summer. He is the nephew of Delmon and Dmitri Young, had an incredible showing at the combine, but he could be a guy that doesn’t get out of A-Ball. It’s like such a question about how much contact he’ll make. The Phillies tend to take guys like that.

Another guy that I think could be a candidate for an overpay in the second round if they go under in the first round would be Alec Blair, who’s committed to Oklahoma to play basketball and baseball. His price is perceived to be high because he’s perceived to be getting a lot of money at NIL to play basketball at Oklahoma because he’s a top 100 recruit in the country. I don’t know if that’s true, but that’s what everyone is talking about. He’s another guy that sort of fits their history, and I know there’s some interest there, and the question will be can they meet the price, do they have him as high as his price demands.

But if you look at my rankings anywhere in the 25 to 35 or 40 area, almost any of those high school players, especially the position players, generally fit the kind of stuff they’re looking for, and I would say it’s much higher than 50 percent but definitely not like 90 or 100 percent that they’re going to take a high school player at that first pick because that seems to be who they’re mostly tied to and obviously historically is who they’ve taken.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you all for joining us today.