Ethan Holliday and Biggest Winners and Losers from Day 1 of 2025 MLB Draft
The first three rounds of the 2025 MLB Draft have come and gone. A total of 105 players heard their names called on Sunday, and each ought to feel like a winner just on that account.
Otherwise, it will be years before we know who truly won and lost on Day 1 of the 2025 draft. But since waiting patiently is no fun, let's jump to conclusions now.
Ahead are picks for the biggest winners and losers from the first day of the draft. There are technically four of each, but a couple two-for-one bonuses. In any case, under the microscope are both players and teams, plus whole dang positions and even a specific high school.
Let's get into it.
Winner: Seattle Mariners
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Here's the deal with LSU left-hander Kade Anderson: He was supposed to go No. 1 overall to the Washington Nationals.
Basically all the final mocks had this as the case, including the last one from B/R's Joel Reuter. He wasn't necessarily the No. 1 talent in the draft, but he was in the discussion and pitching is a department the Nationals badly need to address.
And yet, they passed on Anderson to take prep shortstop Eli Willits. And then, in an even bigger shocker, the Los Angeles Angels also passed to take UC Santa Barbara right-hander Tyler Bremner.
This left Anderson there for the Seattle Mariners' taking at No. 3, and it was a no-brainer.
"There were a couple surprises already, and I think we were prepared for all of them,” vice president of amateur scouting Scott Hunter told MLB.com's Daniel Kramer, “because we had interest in a lot of the players that went ahead of us and that went right behind us. But to say this worked out as the best-case scenario would be an understatement, since Kade was ranked pretty much No. 1 on our board.”
There had been ample buzz leading before Sunday that Anderson was the guy the Mariners really wanted. And now they have him, and he brings with him four plus pitches and plus control after dominating (180 K in 119 IP) in the Tigers' run to the NCAA championship this season.
As for the Mariners' track record with college pitchers, here are four names that amount to four mic drops: Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Bryan Woo and Bryce Miller.
Loser: Los Angeles Angels
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Speaking of the Angels taking Bremner at No. 2, to say that nobody saw it coming would be understating it.
Though it was always likely that Bremner would go somewhere in the first round, anyone who mocked him at No. 2 overall would have been at risk of being, well, mocked. He only entered Sunday as MLB Pipeline's No. 18 draft prospect.
To be clear, Bremner is absolutely worth rooting for. He is also undeniably talented, and the Angels think there's more to him than meets the eye.
“We’ve been following Tyler for years,” said scouting director Tim McIlvaine to MLB.com's Rhett Bollinger. “We really like Tyler's changeup. We think it's a pitch that, whenever he's in trouble, he can go to that changeup. He can get outs with that. We like his fastball a lot at 98 mph, and he's six-foot-[two] and he's going to put on more weight. There’s a lot you can dream on."
The catch is that Bremner is going to be a two-pitch pitcher until he develops a breaking ball that he can count on. Some starters can pull that off, but it generally takes three solid pitches to avoid ending up in a bullpen.
This was a reach, in other words, and one that cost the Angels a shot at the best pitcher in the draft class. And they didn't exactly make up for it with their next three picks, none of which was a major steal.
Winners: Ethan Holliday and the Colorado Rockies
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Ethan Holliday was generally seen as this draft's No. 1 prospect, so him falling to the Colorado Rockies at No. 4 always seemed a bit too good to be true.
But then it actually happened, and this was about more than just the Rockies following the Mariners' steal with one of their own.
Feel-good stories indeed don't come much more obvious than this. Holliday is the son of Matt Holliday, a former seventh-round draft pick who became a three-time All-Star and National League pennant winner for the Rockies.
If any franchise needed a win of this magnitude on Sunday, it was surely the Rockies. This has been (and will surely continue to be) a miserable year for them, as they're on track for a record 125 losses after closing the first half at 22-74.
That this is also a win for the young Holliday shouldn't be overlooked either. He can now look into his future and see regular at-bats at Coors Field, where his 65-grade power could make him an annual 30- or even 40-home run threat.
That would bode well for the Holliday family legacy, which is impressive enough as is. Though Ethan's older brother, Jackson, is still finding his footing for the Baltimore Orioles, that mission is generally on track three years after they selected him No. 1 overall in the 2022 draft.
Losers: New York Mets and New York Yankees
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Perhaps it's unfair to throw both New York teams under the bus, as it's not like either ever had a chance to clean up on Sunday.
Both the Mets and the Yankees were shut out of the first round, with the former not picking until No. 38 and the latter until No. 39. What's more, they entered the draft with the smallest bonus pools.
Still, Mets fans and Yankees fans alike might have been hoping for better picks than these:
- Mets at No. 38: TWP Mitch Voit, Michigan
- Yankees at No. 39: SS Dax Kilby, Newnan High School (GA)
Voit at least sounds interesting, but his status as a two-way player comes with a handful of asterisks.
He got crushed for a 5.49 ERA as a weekend starter for the Wolverines in 2024, and he didn't pitch at all in 2025 after having internal brace surgery. He's likely a hitter only in the future, which is part of why MLB Pipeline only has him as the No. 63 prospect in the draft.
Kilby is ranked as the draft's No. 62 prospect in his own right, and there are questions as to whether he'll stick at shortstop or move to second base or the outfield. As a Clemson commit, he'll have the option to go to college to try to improve his stock if the Yankees don't give him a hefty enough bonus.
To that end, they have only $5,383,600 to work with and Kilby's slot value is almost half that at $2.51 million.
Winners: High School Shortstops
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From an overall perspective, this year's draft is already going much better for high schoolers than the 2024 draft did.
Prep players accounted for only 10 of the 30 picks in last year's first round, and it wasn't until the No. 10 pick that the first one came off the board. It was the first time that had happened since 1985.
So, go figure that it was a high schooler who was first off the board on Sunday when the Nationals chose Willits out of Fort Cobb-Broxton High School in Oklahoma. He was one of six prep players to go in the top 10, and one of 15 for the first round overall.
And here's the really wild thing: Out of those, 11 were announced as shortstops.
This blows away the previous record for high school shortstops chosen in the first round of the draft, which had been nine back in the 2021 draft. A couple of those guys have since broken through, including Marcelo Mayer and Jackson Merrill as a converted center fielder for the San Diego Padres.
The lesson here is that 2024 was not a sign of the times when it comes to high school talent. These things are cyclical, and you can rest assured that teams will never stop looking for the next Alex Rodriguez or Chipper Jones.
Loser: Outfielders
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It isn't surprising that high school shortstops were a big deal on Sunday. That was always an area of strength for this year's draft, with the other big one being college arms.
What this draft lacked was position player depth at other spots, including in the outfield. And goodness, did that reality show its face on Sunday.
A total of three outfielders went in the first round, with Wake Forest's Ethan Conrad going the highest at No. 17 to the Chicago Cubs. It's the worst showing for outfielders in the first round since 2004, when Greg Golson was the highest of three picked at No. 21 overall.
Granted, not counted in this sample is Ike Irish. Though he was announced as a catcher when the Baltimore Orioles picked him 11th overall, he grades as a 45 defender for MLB Pipeline. His future is likely as a slugging right fielder, not an everyday catcher.
Indeed, a lot of position players who had their names called on Sunday are likely to change positions in the long run. Part of the reason shortstops in particular are so popular is because anyone who can play there can play anywhere. We've seen more and more examples of this in recent years, with the Padres proving the point with both Merrill and Fernando Tatis Jr.
All the same, it was a rough day for the outfielder family tree. As a result, you can't help but wonder how many talented high school junior outfielders will be asking coach if they can play shortstop next year.
Winner: Corona High School
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As much as Sunday was a good day for high schoolers in general, it was an especially good day for one high school in particular.
This would be Corona High School in Corona, California, which was name-checked twice within the first 10 picks: when right-hander Seth Hernandez went No. 6 to the Pittsburgh Pirates and when shortstop Billy Carlson went No. 10 to the Chicago White Sox.
Not bad for a high school that had previously had only one player chosen in the top 10 of the draft. That was all the way back in 2000, when left-hander Mike Stodolka went fourth overall to the Kansas City Royals.
Hernandez to the Bucs is an especially fascinating pick, as he can now look ahead and see Bubba Chandler still in the pipeline and Paul Skenes in the big club's rotation. Assuming the Pirates don't trade Skenes in the near future—a big "if," to be fair—all three could be teammates within a few years.
For his part, Carlson is joining a White Sox system that already ranked as one of the 10 best in MLB heading into the draft. Even if he'll have to wait a couple of years for his shot, he's now part of the next wave that will hopefully reinvigorate baseball on the South Side of Chicago.
Loser: Mason Neville
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Whenever the first day of any MLB draft is in the books, there's always that one guy who should have been picked...but just wasn't.
This year, it's Mason Neville.
He would be a prospect of some acclaim even if he didn't rank at No. 35 on MLB Pipeline's big board. He co-led the collegiate ranks in home runs this past season, blasting 26 in 57 games for the Oregon Ducks.
Neville also gets above average grades for his speed and arm strength, and he potentially has enough pure athleticism to play center field in the pro ranks.
Alas, the catch is that scouts are generally down on the 21-year-old's hit tool. This is perhaps unfair, as he notably cut his strikeout percentage from 33.5 down to 23.6 between 2024 and 2025.
The question now is not whether Neville will be chosen at all, but when and how much it will cost him. Because unless he's going to return to Oregon for his senior season, he'll be short on leverage in negotiating for the highest possible bonus.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.
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