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Ten Week Check-in with 1-1 Candidates for 2025 Draft

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Here’s our fifth check-in on the 1-1 candidates.

Important Draft related news and notes that have published since our last posting:

  • MLBPipeline staff did a mini “mock draft” on 4/10/25 talking just about top 10 picks, and there’s absolutely a shift in the discussion. Three of the top 5 college candidates we’ve been tracking aren’t even in their top 10 as they have pivoted to prep players. The time tracking the likes of LaViolette and Bremner may be done.
  • The National High School Invitational (NHSI) event happened in this cycle, and included Corona HS with its two upper 1st round prospects. Read below for a deep-dive into Seth Hernandez in particular.
  • D1Baseball reordered their ranks for just college players and now go Arnold, Arquette, Houton, LaViolette, and Kade Anderson, who we’ll start tracking.
  • BA released their Mock Draft v2.0 on 4/14/25. Following along with their scouting report of Hernandez NHSI, they’ve got Hernandez first, saying its looking like the perfect set of circumstances to have a prep RHP go 1-1.
  • The Athletic’s Keith Law released his top 50 Draft prospects on 4/15/25: Holliday, Doyle, Arnold, Arquette, Houston. Hernandez is all the way down at #21, which is way, way out of line with the rest of the industry. But, his ranks also support Doyle’s meteoric rise.
  • Law also wrote a longer form analysis of Arnold, Carlson, and Hernandez in his Draft notes article on 4/15/25. Basically said Arnold won’t get out of the top 3, while he’s not sold on Hernandez (more on that below).
  • Kiley McDaniel published his updated Draft class ranks on 4/15/25. True to form, Kiley has some prep kids way, way up there, though he leads the line with Arnold. Remember; McDaniel’s methodology is all driven around projected Future Value, so he tends to dream on prep kids and their ceiling instead of thinking about risk. He’s got Eli Willits, a prep SS in Oklahoma, #2 on his list, primarily with an age-based analysis (he’s super young), which is crazy. McDaniel does say one interesting thing: Analytics-heavy teams like Willits and Carlson, while old-school scouting/eyeball teams like Holliday. Which do you think the Nats are? More on this later.
  • McDaniel also posted a ranking of the College Aces on 4/18/25 … with rankings that do not align with the draft ranks. McDaniel explains this in the preamble; the ranking (which has Doyle top and Arnold 4th) is who is performing NOW, versus his draft class ranks (where Arnold is top and Doyle is 12th) where he’s projecting “Future Value” of the player in the majors. Confused?
  • Two of the biggest prep prospects (Holliday and Willits) played last weekend: here’s Keith Law’s scouting report. I’ll reference it below for the two players.

Aggregation Stats for College Baseball for Reference:

Link Block for the top guys under 1-1 consideration. I’ve got this whittled down a bit. Note: the MLBPipeline report rank is a bit out of date at this point, being months old. I’m sure they’ll update it soon, and when they do i’ll re-capture the updated ranks. There’s just no way, for example, that LaViolette is still #2 or Doyle is #75 right now. The BA list was updated 3/26/25 and is better.

Prep Players who are in the running for 1-1:

Prospects guys we’re removing from 1-1 discussion for now and why. I’ll be paring the above list soon enough; there’s too many names in the mix to track every couple of weeks.

Here’s some updated commentary.

  • LaViolette: continues to improve his slash line, now hitting .307/.468/.693 (two weeks ago he was at .294/.451/.633). He destroyed Arkansas pitching on the road last weekend, going 5-12 with 4 homers and 3 walks and now has 15 dongs for the year. Is it too little too late for him to go 1-1? I think so; the narrative has already been written for him this year, but man someone’s going to get a huge bat in the first 10 picks or so. Can you imagine this guy in Colorado?
  • Arnold: We got a little bit of context for Arnold’s dip in performance; his missed start was due to a flu or illness, and he was weak for the next couple of weeks, which led to those iffy starts. He bounced back with a solid beatdown of Va Tech on 4/12 (7ip 4hits 1r 9/2 K/BB), and then his start last weekend was cancelled in the wake of the Florida State shootings. Season line: 8 starts, 4-1, 2.40 ERA, 0.97 whip, .177 BAA. 57/15 K/BB in 41 innings. I’d like to see him going deeper in games; he’s averaging just 5IP a start.
  • Bremner: gave up 4 in 6ip to UC Riverside while striking out 10 and throwing 107 pitches, then 3 in 7IP against Cal Poly while striking out 13 … and throwing 119 pitches! 119 pitches. In April. Not good. I just don’t like the hittability of Bremner, and he’s not dominating good but not the SEC teams.
  • Arquette blew up in the last two weeks, raising his slash line from .321/.439/.604 to .383/.497/.780. Unfortunately, he did this on the back of a 3-game sweep of one of the worst teams in D1 Cal State Northridge, against whom he had a 9-13 series with 4 homers and another 4 walks. That’s one way to jack up your seasonal batting average 60 points in three days. To be fair, the weekend before OSU visited Cal State Fullerton and he blasted 2 dongs there as well; he now has 15 for the season. He’s clearly a top 5 pick; but is he 1-1?
  • Doyle continues to pile on stats against top teams. He took the ball against #11 Ole Miss two weeks ago and put up a heck of a line: 8 1/3rd, 3 hits, 2 walks, 14 Ks and got lifted when he walked a guy with a one run lead in the 9th. He was at 111 pitches at that point … and probably saved his arm in the process. A week later against the solid but not top 10 Kentucky he had a more typical ace line: 7ip, 4hits, 2Runs, 9/1 K/BB, pulled at 101 pitches. For the season: 7-1 with 2.48 ERA, 0.83 whip, 104/17 K/BB in 58IP. That’s a 16 K/9 rate for an SEC pitcher.
  • Houston: first time on this list, lets take a look. For the season he’s slashing .335/.449/.589. He’s got more walks than strikeouts, has 10 homers. He has cooled significantly from earlier in the season, when he was maintaining .400 BA well into the college season, and just finished up a series against Boston College where he went just 2-10. Scouts are watching every move now. We’ll see how long Houston stays in the rarified air of possible 1-1.
  • Anderson: first time on this list, so we’ll catch up with his full season. He’s another lefty starter; apparently 2025 is going to include three front-line left handed starters in the top 10-15 picks. Anderson as of this writing has a 3.92 ERA for the year but is getting attention for 91Ks in 57 ip, Doyle-like numbers. He’s LSU’s Friday night starter, so he gets the ball against the toughest opponents. Last two weeks; he gave up 6 runs in 4 2/3rds in a loss at #9 Auburn, then he gave up 5 in 5 2/3rds hosting #10 Alabama in a no-decision. My first time looking at his stuff and while I see lots of whiffs, I also see lots of runs. He may not be long for this analysis.
  • Holliday wasn’t as impressive in his big OK prep school showdown as he may have wanted: Law reports that his BP wasn’t impressive and he waved at a couple of curves in the games that call into question his approach. His defense was improved though and Law threw out a Corey Seager comp, and Law thinks he could go “anywhere from 1st to 6th overall.” My thinking right now is this: If you want a bit of a project who could have a superstar SS/cleanup hitter ceiling, and if you trust your player development camp on the hitting side, you draft Holliday. If you’re the Nats, you let someone else assume that much risk.
  • Hernandez threw a CG in the NHSI quarter finals with this line: 7ip, 3H 1R, 0ER, 11/1 K/BB. Baseball America wrote it up and he sounds amazing: sitting mid 90s, hitting 99 in the 7th inning, showed a 70-grade changeup. There’s a ton of video showing dozens of pitches at the BA link; he has a slow, deliberate motion, hides the ball well, throws 4 pitches, got 10 swing and misses off the change. Could he go 1-1? Law’s analysis was a little less rosy, noting that Hernandez is generating velocity more with his arm than body (a huge red flag for future arm/shoulder injuries)
  • Carlson: in the same NHSI event, he… did not show up at the plate. He played SS and batted 5th behind cleanup-hitter Hernandez and went a combined 2-12 with 2 singles, a walk, and a sac fly. Their team Corona (which headed into the event the #1 ranked team in the country by every major rankings shop MaxPreps, PBR, PG, BA, SI) lost in the semis. Law’s analysis was more focused on defense, where he described Carlson as a “wizard on defense,” which bodes well and continues to support Carlson for at least the 1st round.
  • Cunningham: no news.
  • Willits is super young (he reclassified from 2206 class), which makes him a darling of some scouting projections (you’re drafting a top talent at 17yrs 7months). He’s a 6’1″ baseball rat from a baseball family who switch hits and has a 60 hit tool and 55s across the board otherwise. Law liked him all around, but the lack of power projection will keep him lower than his fellow prep hitters. But, he projects very highly with bat-to-ball skills. I don’t think he’s anywhere in the conversation for 1-1 but he is worth mentioning b/c analytical models like McDaniel’s loves him for his already high floor.

The Race for 1-1 status: I think the Nats have four names in the mix: Arnold, Doyle, Holliday, and Hernandez. If I had to guess today, i’d say they go Doyle.

Written by Todd Boss

April 21st, 2025 at 9:55 am

Posted in Draft,Prospects

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12 Responses to 'Ten Week Check-in with 1-1 Candidates for 2025 Draft'

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  1. This is a dilemma for the Nats. After striking out on so many first rounders in recent years, it would be tough to take a chance on a prep star. They have to hit on this one. On the other hand, the Nats went with Seaver King in 2024, a guy who hit .307 with an OPS of under 1.0 at Wake Forest Those are not necessarily numbers you would associate with the number 10 pick in the first round. The Nats played it safe, but maybe not safe enough. Safest bet this year seems to be Jamie Arnold, but is his ceiling high enough?

    EdDC

    21 Apr 25 at 12:21 pm

  2. Arnold is certainly presenting as one of the higher “floors” in the draft this year (aka, safest). But Doyle is impressing me more; better numbers against better competition.

    The real “safest” bet may be Arquette; power hitting infielder. No dings, only helium.

    Todd Boss

    21 Apr 25 at 1:03 pm

  3. Marek Houston hurt his back in March. The decline in his numbers coincided with his return. When he’s healthy he’s solid, but don’t think he merits #1-#1.

    Pilchard

    21 Apr 25 at 2:40 pm

  4. Agreed that Doyle increasingly looks like the guy I’d pick if I were Rizzo. But I’d feel out these guys’ signing demands too, before settling on someone.

    While there’s no elite top end talent, this is a surprisingly deep draft, which is kind of the next best thing we could hope for. The Nats’ value here is not having 1-1, it’s having the $10.6m of slot value that comes with 1-1.

    Since it’s clear now there will never be a consensus 1-1, the Nats job is to figure out how to get the best player for the cheapest signing bonus, so they can shovel the savings back into their 2-5th rounders, and hopefully come away with several first round talents.

    There’s a way to still get the guy they think is the best player in a weird draft year, but they need to convince him to take something like 1-10 money. Since there’s so many wildly varied ideas of whether a guy is 1-1 or 1-21, my measurement of success will likely be how much they can save on their pick (granted it be someone not completely out of left field), rather than whom they actually pick (but I’d still strongly, strongly prefer we don’t take a HS player).

    Will

    21 Apr 25 at 3:05 pm

  5. Wild guesses spitballing the 1/1 candidates —

    Highest ceiling: Hernandez

    Lowest floor: also Hernandez

    Highest floor: Arquette, probably followed by Arnold

    Lowest ceiling: Willits, probably followed by Arnold

    Safest pick: Arquette or Houston

    Highest risk/reward: Hernandez or Holliday

    Most established power: Arquette

    Most established defense: Houston

    Highest potential power ceiling: Holliday

    Overall “Best Player Available” (TM): maybe Doyle?

    Most willing to sign for $8M or less: Arquette or Houston (and maybe Doyle)

    Highest injury risk: Anderson, who has already had a TJ and recently got pushed to 135 pitches. (No thanks.)

    Might take a real underslot deal ($6M to $7M): Kilen

    Most “famous” high schooler (a Rizzo weakness): Holliday

    Pitcher who fills out the uni best (a Rizzo love): Doyle

    KW

    21 Apr 25 at 5:15 pm

  6. Just looked closer at the lists (with the exception of BA, who I don’t subscribe to), and I count 19 unique players in the top 10 of MLB, Athletic and ESPN’s list!

    As MLB only did a top 10, it’s hard to compare them. For example, both the Athletic and ESPN have Willits (another nepo baby, SMS, son of former Angel, Reggie Willits) at 7 and 2 (!), but MLB doesn’t comment on him (is he 11th? 111th?). Kruz Schoolcraft, however, may just be the epitome of this draft. MLB has him at 9, while Law and McDaniel have him at 46(!) and 62(!!!), illustrating what a shit show this draft is.

    Only 5 players appear in all 3 publications’ top 10: Holliday (averaging 2), Arnold (averaging 2.3), Arquette (averaging 4.3), and Houston and Carlson (both averaging 6.3). Normally, that should be a good rule of thumb of who is in consideration for a 1-1 pick, but even that is flawed, because it ignores Law’s #2 (Doyle) and McDaniel’s #2 (Willits).

    If prospect watchers can come away with such wildly different talent assessments, then there’s no doubt wildly different assessments among the 30 MLB teams, and wildly different assessments within even the Nats’ draft team. I would really expect that they’re looking at like 5+ different guys at this point without a clear favorite. If after another 2 months, they’re still don’t think one player is significantly better than the rest, then it needs to come down to money.

    If BA is saying Hernandez is 1-1, while the Athletic is saying he’s 1-21, well, then these agents are going to have a hell of a time working out bonus demands and sticking to them. If, for example, Hernandez and Holliday end up in the Nats’ final list, and Hernandez is content with 1-8 bonus money, while, for example, Holliday is insisting on 1-1 or 1-2 money, then the choice should be Hernandez, as the bonus savings to be used to get better later picks will far, far outweigh any razor thin margins between Hernandez and Holliday in this scenario.

    McDaniel assessed there to be 30 45FV prospects in 2023’s top heavy draft. This year, he’s listed 37, so it’s a pretty deep year. There’ll no doubt be at least of dozen of those players available in round 2, and likely a handful more in round 3. They’ll almost exclusively be HSers, since college picks don’t have the same walk-away leverage (and thus high bonus demands), which is perhaps another reason to take a college player with 1-1, as our 2-6 and 3-5 will likely be HS picks.

    Anyway, interesting to see how this plays out, but it’s entertaining to see such wild variations between players. I can’t remember there ever being so little consensus on either 1-1, the top 5 or top 10. It’ll be an interesting draft day, for sure.

    Will

    22 Apr 25 at 4:08 am

  7. Thanks for doing that survey, Will. You’ve confirmed that I’m not the only one scratching my head every time I see a new list. And yes, in normal years there is almost a herd mentality (aka “consensus”) that I’ve never completely understood since there always significant risk/reward with so many of these guys, particularly the high schoolers. Scouts and teams SHOULD have differing assessments of them if they’re being honest in their evaluations.

    The herd also is slow to embrace guys who are making a significant step forward. We saw that recently with Skenes, who took a few weeks to crawl into top-5 consideration, and still as of draft day there was skepticism of him being 1/1. I don’t think Doyle is the equal of Skenes at all, but his strong draft season does seem to be treated with similar skepticism. McDaniel typifies the disconnect by naming him the top college pitcher but only the #12 draft prospect. Doyle is pitching in the SEC against draft prospects every night, and in an extreme hitter’s park at home.

    Houston seems to be another fast riser with a slow embrace. He’s certainly a safer bet than any of the high school “shortstops” (most of whom won’t end up as shortstops), and he and Arquette have shown actual power, versus projected power of the high schoolers. Law’s in-person report on Holliday is that his swing is a mess right now, stepping in the bucket and not covering outside pitches well. And as Todd said (and Will has said earlier), there is NO track record of the Nats’ system fixing swing-and-miss issues.

    I don’t have anyone who I particularly love or particularly hate, although I don’t understand the fascination with Willits at all, who right now is a light-hitting shortstop. I think the college guys would be both safer picks and also available for more underslot, so my thought would be to take one from Doyle, Arquette, Houston, or Arnold at 1/1 for $8M or so and then throw a lot of money at a high schooler in the second or third round. (I actually get the sense that there’s going to be a number of quality college arms available in the second.) Could Schoolcraft fall to the Nats in the second? With some lists having him so high, his asking price is going to be high, which may keep him available.

    That said, as I’ve mentioned before, there is a significant fly in the ointment for that strategy for the Nats because several of the teams that pick soon after them, and presumably have the opportunity for just as much slot savings, have another pick or two before the Nats pick again at #49. The Angels, Mariners, Rockies, and Marlins (twice) pick before the Nats at #49.

    KW

    22 Apr 25 at 6:10 am

  8. MLB and BA are the most “conventional” scouting outlets. I have a hard time taking McDaniel’s “FV” driven analysis because it makes huge assumptions on the prep kids and puts drastic overvalue on floor vs ceiling. Have you read Willits’ scouting reports? He’s a defense-first slap hitter with almost no current or projected power. MLBpipeline comps him to Volpe, who has a career 83 OPS+ so far in the majors. Willits’ FV seems to be driven by three things: his age at draft (young), his hitting tool/lack of strikeouts, and his defensive capbilities. All those things are great, and make him a great candidate to move fast and get to the majors … but if his ceiling is middle infielder bench guy because has no power and is a slap hitter … he’s not going to be a 1-1 star.

    Its like rating a funky middle reliever higher than a risky starter just because you think the reliever will be guaranteed to get to the majors. I suppose its like betting on someone who is guaranteed to have an 8bWAR career versus betting on someone who could have a 0 bWAR career but who could also have a 40 bWAR career. Sometimes, you have to roll the dice on the guy who will blow up instead of building an entire team of near replaceable players.

    Todd Boss

    22 Apr 25 at 9:20 am

  9. Elijah Green was a roll the dice on the 0 floor/40 ceiling player, FWIW. Although if one looks at that 2022 draft, pretty much the whole first round was underwhelming. Counting the supplemental (etc.) picks, 39 players were taken in the first round. Of those 39, one (1) has a positive bWAR so far (Zach Neto, #13 to the Angels, with 6.9 bWAR as of this morning). Six guys are in various shades of negative bWAR. Some of those guys will eventually at least get to MLB and some may even be decent, but the early returns are not great.

    Which is in part why I don’t really follow the draft scuttlebutt so much. The Nats will take who they take, and whoever they take we will hate it. That’s kind of the way things work.

    John C.

    22 Apr 25 at 1:24 pm

  10. https://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/index.fcgi?team_ID=WSN&draft_type=junreg&query_type=franch_round

    When you look at the nats 1st picks in this format … it looks awful. Crews already has more career bWAR than the SEVEN first round picks combined taken before him (Green, House, Cavalli, Rutledge, Denaburg, Romero, and Kieboom).

    The only HS 1st round on this entire list with any sort of career was Giolito … who did it for other teams. Unless you count Harper as a prep kid instead of his JuCo gambit.

    This of course is evidence of what we already knew; drafting HS kids high (or at all) is risky business. But what are you gonna do if you’re looking at Arnold & Doyle and going “meh” while you’re looking at Hernandez or Holliday and dreaming on a future star?

    Todd Boss

    22 Apr 25 at 1:37 pm

  11. I find this draft quite fascinating, for a handful of reasons. One is exactly because there’s no “consensus of opinion.” There’s this much risk with every draft class, but for once everyone seems to be acknowledging it. Related, it’s refreshing to see warts-and-all assessments of the top guys. Several predicted that Green could be a 40-40 center fielder which, even if he actually clicked, seemed like quite a reach. Do you know how many 40-40 seasons Mike Trout has? The same number as Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle. (Zero.)

    Also, the Nats have the 1/1 pick. No, there’s probably not a generational talent. But it’s a significant opportunity for the franchise if they get it right, even if it’s for “just” a career 20-WAR player. Do you know how many 20-WAR players there were among the absurd 49 “first round” picks in 2009? Four: Trout, Stras, Zach Wheeler, and AJ Pollock. Only nine from that group have broken 10 WAR, and one of those (Paxton) didn’t sign that year.

    As for Todd’s “meh” comment, I agree with thinking of Arnold that way, although I also think he may be the safest pick. But I think he is what he is, WYSIWYG. Doyle appears to be on the rise to me.

    As for “hating” whoever the Nats pick, I don’t see anyone on the likely horizon whose addition I would truly “hate” in the way I disdained the Green and Romero picks in particular, with Denaburg close to it. I don’t fear Holliday’s contact issues nearly as much as I did Green’s, although it would still be a risky proposition. I wouldn’t understand using a high pick on Willits, but I wouldn’t “hate” it. I could see a decent case for taking Doyle, Arnold, Arquette, or Houston. If I were going to swing big on a high schooler, it likely would be on Hernandez.

    KW

    22 Apr 25 at 7:55 pm

  12. @kw and @johnc: you guys raise a fun point: i’m going to put together a quick post where i reference back to my snap-judgements on our 1st rounders at the time, to see how much I “hated” picks 🙂

    I don’t want to trust my memory necessarily. I remember being absolutely ecstatic when Rendon fell to us. I *think* i criticized the Romero pick. but we’ll go see.

    Todd Boss

    23 Apr 25 at 8:35 am

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