A CRUCIAL benchmark for college hitters

As data and analytics have become more and more available to teams in the MLB Draft, analysts have tried to build parameters and complex models to determine future projection for college hitters in any way they can. Teams seek high-reliabiliy corrolation scores between college production and future impact in professional baseball.

If there are two benchmarks pro organizations should consider when deciding if and when to select a college hitter, it’s overall contact rate plus balls put in play north of 95 mph. At least early in the draft.

The modern game requires two things. It requires bat speed and it requires bat-to-ball skills. But it’s always been that way, really. But teams seem to throw more caution to the wind with players who lack bat-to-ball skills and don’t hit the ball hard.

So let’s take a look at history.

The following are the players who had whiff rates north of 25 percent during their draft year, but also had an exit velocity under 95 mph on more than half of their batted-balls. For the sake of wise bonus pool spending, we’ll limit the list of players to guys drafted inside of the top-five rounds.

That bucket of players isn’t inspiring thus far. Christian Encarnacion-Strand has added some value, and Denzel Clarke might end up making it too. But as a whole, there’s a lot of players who at this point should be considered concerns to miss. It’s important to note player development is not linear and all of these guys may end up blossoming in their mid-20s. But going off most of their production up to this point, it’s fair to be a tad skeptical.

There’s a lot of strong defensive prospects in this basket too. Guys like Maui Ahuna, Ryan Ritter, Jordan Sprinkle and, to a less extent, Peyton Graham, were all drafted with intrigue on the glove, projection and/or the athlete. Unfortunately they just haven’t hit enough to let those other tools show out.

Also worth noting there’s only three second round picks on this list. It’s not like teams have been blowing up their bonus pools to acquire these players in the draft. But cash is king, bonus pools are finite and lessons can be learned.

Looking at the 2025 Draft, these are the player currently ranked inside the Top 150 overall prospects (top-five round range) in my most recent update who fall under these same benchmarks.

Mason White, SS, Arizona — 27% (Whiff)/47% (EV under 95)

Chris Arroyo, OF, Virginia — 26%/47%

Nick Dumesnil, OF, Cal Baptist — 27%/47%

Max Belyeu, OF, Texas — 27%/44%

Tre Phelps, OF, Georgia — 27%/40%

Trent Caraway, 3B, Oregon State — 27%/35%

All six of these players are immensly talented with athletic traits that could, and likely will, still get them selected inside the top five rounds. Besides, there is still half of the college baseball season ahead. Conference play and the college baseball playoffs are where guys get paid.

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Joe Doyle

Joe Doyle is a senior analyst at FSS PLUS, leading coverage efforts in scouting, player development, and the MLB Draft. He previously was Director of Scouting at Prospects Live. Joe is the host of Over-Slot, a podcast centered on scouting and analytics.

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