A night 63 years in the making: Inside the celebration as the Texas Rangers — finally — became World Series champions
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Jeff Passan, ESPN
PHOENIX — AROUND 1 A.M., just hours after he managed the Texas Rangers to their first World Series championship in 63 years of existence, Bruce Bochy hoisted himself from a chair and ambled toward the door at the back entrance of the Arizona Biltmore hotel. Bochy moves in slow motion these days, lurching more than walking, but before heading to his room for the night, he wanted to bid farewell to the men he’d spent the previous 8½ months preparing for this very moment.
When Bochy poked his head into McArthur’s restaurant, he saw the spoils of his work: drinks being downed and laughs being had and success being rewarded. Almost every Rangers player was present, the room packed to the gills with family and friends, and once they noticed who had come to pay homage to this moment decades in the making, they cut off their conversations and started to chant themselves hoarse.
“Boch! Boch! Boch!” they yelled in unison.
About 30 minutes earlier, Bochy sat outside, nursing a beer and talking about Game 5 of the 119th World Series, a 5-0 victory against the Arizona Diamondbacks that ended with a swarm of Rangers moshing around the mound. Less than a year ago, he was spending his retirement in Nashville, Tennessee, coaching his grandson’s T-ball team, and now he was the owner of a fourth championship, only the sixth manager with as many.
“The whole thing just doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Bochy said.
On one hand, Bochy is correct. This year, this October in particular, the Rangers drove through a thunderstorm and emerged dry. They finished the regular season with 90 wins. One fewer and they’d have spent the postseason at home. They beat a 99-win team and two division champions to get to the World Series, where they faced an 84-win Arizona team whose own kismet came with an expiration date. They went 11-0 on the road in the playoffs, a record unlikely ever to be matched.
On the other, it makes all sorts of sense. The Rangers were no accident. They were a master plan executed to a gilded end. They played exceptionally clean baseball. They hit for average and power. They pitched enough not to drag down their strengths. They let neither the gravity of October nor that of their past subsume them. They won because they played better than everyone else for a month, something they’d nearly done once before — something that haunted them for the past dozen years until a called third strike Wednesday finally delivered the peace they’d long sought.
THE MASTER PLAN began on Dec. 4, 2020, when the Rangers, “sick of losing,” hired Chris Young as their general manager. Young, a Dallas-area native, had spent 13 years pitching in the major leagues, including his first two for the Rangers. He had worked as an executive at Major League Baseball, where he was beloved, and now would work alongside Jon Daniels, the Rangers’ president and architect of their World Series teams in 2010 and ’11.
Over the next year, Daniels and Young carried out an audacious objective. They were going to spend their way back to relevancy. Despite three last-place finishes over the previous four seasons, they believed the heart of the organization — drafting, signing international free agents and developing players — was strong. Free agency done right could accelerate the process.
In a 24-hour period from Nov. 28-29, 2021, the Rangers signed second baseman Marcus Semien, right-hander Jon Gray and shortstop Corey Seager for a combined $556 million. Never before, nor since, has a team committed so much money in such a short timespan. For Seager (10 years, $325 million) and Semien (seven years, $175 million) in particular, the choice to sign with a Texas team that looked to the industry like it was going nowhere fast registered as puzzling.
“We told them, ‘This is an immense challenge. Are you up for this? You don’t have to be. You can go anywhere you want. Are you up for this? It’s going to be hard,’ ” Young said. “They each sat up in their chair and looked at me with this competitive edge and said, ‘I’m not afraid of that.’ And you could just see it in their eyes.”
Their first season with Texas last year left those eyes bloodshot. The Rangers went 68-94. On Aug. 15, they fired manager Chris Woodward, and two days later, owner Ray Davis let go of Daniels, too, leaving Young in charge. The Rangers understood that as seminal as the 2021-22 offseason was, the next winter would prove every bit as important. Because after shoring up their offense, the second part of the plan included finding someone who could lead Texas where it intended to go.
That process started one year and two weeks ago, when, for seven hours, over crustless egg salad and chicken salad sandwiches cut into triangles, Chris Young and Bruce Bochy talked baseball. Young had flown to Nashville to convince Bochy to return to what he did better than anyone in his generation: manage a big league team. Young had played for a year under Bochy with the San Diego Padres, and the experience stuck with him. Nobody amalgamated baseball knowledge with human touch quite like Bochy. He’d won three World Series with the San Francisco Giants and already etched his eventual Hall of Fame plaque. Young’s only hope was that the competitive fire in Bochy still glowed.
“We laughed, we shared stories, our vision for what the game should look like, the balance of people versus front office influence,” Young said. “And it was a great conversation. I left there thinking there may be a chance. He had studied. He knew our organization. He was asking about prospects. He asked me about our R&D department. He said, ‘I need information. I need to know, are you guys good in this area?’ I could tell just like everything, and now I see it on a daily basis, he just listens and processes and synthesizes and then makes great decisions.”
Bochy agreed to a three-year deal on Oct. 21, 2022, a week before the World Series began, and got to work immediately. His presence alone didn’t lead to a roomful of people chanting his name. Leadership change is all well and good. But going from 68-94 to contender would take a bevy of arms and another boatload of money.
WHEN HE TOOK the GM job with the Rangers, Chris Young warned his wife, Liz, and their three kids that life was going to get a little weird. Running a team takes a special sort of freneticism, a working-at-all-hours motor.
Even though he had signed the best pitcher on the free agent market, Jacob deGrom, to a five-year, $185 million contract and added left-hander Andrew Heaney for $27 million over two years, Young lived by the credo that a team can never have too much pitching. And it just so happened that Nathan Eovaldi, the veteran right-hander whose postseason excellence earned him a reputation as one of the game’s great warriors, remained unsigned in late December, even as the rest of the industry had lavished more than $3 billion on free agents.
Hearing Young talk invigorated Eovaldi. It wasn’t just their shared experience as pitchers and the shared language they spoke. Young spoke about the Rangers with the certitude of someone who ran a team that had gone 94-68 the previous season, not 68-94.
“Our talks in the offseason, it was all about winning the World Series championship,” Eovaldi said. “The offense was there. CY was really adamant about adding pitching, and when they signed deGrom and Heaney, I thought I was done. And then Christmas, we were able to make it happen.”
Eovaldi was Davis’ two-year, $34 million Christmas gift to the Rangers. The team had already spent half a billion dollars on a pair of middle infielders. Not chasing it with more money, more talent, would have been the half-measure to end all half-measures. As much as the industry scoffed and saw Texas as the most OK team money can buy, something bigger was happening.
Seager and Semien were the centerpieces, yes, but Adolis Garcia had evolved into an All-Star-caliber right fielder and Jonah Heim had emerged as a solid catcher and Nathaniel Lowe won a Silver Slugger at first base. Josh Jung, drafted by Daniels in 2019, had developed into an excellent third baseman, and Evan Carter, whose selection in the 2020 draft prompted guffaws from MLB Network analysts who had never heard of him, was one of the best outfield prospects in baseball, perhaps a year or two from the big leagues. Complementing that group with an overhauled pitching staff, and tapping Bochy to play alchemist, added up to something interesting.
That interesting turned good in a hurry. The Rangers swept Philadelphia, the defending National League champion, in their opening series. During Seager’s early-season five-week absence with a hamstring pull, Texas scored more runs than every big league team. The Rangers led the American League West every day of the first half but one. As the Aug. 1 trade deadline approached, Young assessed the Rangers’ current state of affairs — still light on pitching after deGrom’s season-ending elbow-ligament tear — and wondered if he should add more.
The Rangers’ front office decamped to Young’s house in San Diego, where the team was playing a three-game series, for the deadline. He surveyed his staff about the proper approach. How aggressive should they be? Is this a team that can win the World Series? Answering such questions vexes baseball-operations departments around the game. For many, baseball is too damn unpredictable to mortgage the future for a present so sodden with randomness. Young does not abide by this approach, and his subordinates share that aggressiveness. If they could win, they would try to win.
So first the Rangers acquired Max Scherzer, the 39-year-old future Hall of Famer, from the New York Mets for Luisangel Acuna, a top prospect and brother of Atlanta star Ronald Acuna Jr. A day later, they dealt a pair of prospects, infielder Thomas Saggese and right-hander T.K. Roby, to St. Louis for left-handed starter Jordan Montgomery and right-handed reliever Chris Stratton. Other teams saw it as a coup for the Cardinals, and with the deals completed in the midst of San Diego’s three-game sweep of Texas, flickers of self-doubt emerged in Young.
“What am I doing?” he asked Liz.
What needed to be done, it turns out. Because Young was right. You never can have enough pitching. Eovaldi’s elbow started barking and sent him to the injured list. Without Scherzer and Montgomery, the Rangers’ late-season swoon — which included an eight-game losing streak — might have turned into a full-on collapse and thwarted any sort of October appearance, let alone a championship run.
“It certainly didn’t guarantee this, but it gave us a better chance of this,” Young said. “And these players deserved that. Boch deserved that. Our ownership and our fans deserve that. And that’s what we’re here to do.”
AT THE BEGINNING of spring training, Young and Bochy introduced a set of organizing principles — simple-to-grok ideals scalable across the organization, from the front office to the field and beyond. They had settled on three pillars.
Dominate the fundamentals.
Compete with passion.
Be a good teammate.
“It’s the things that we know for us to be successful we have to do, and pretty much every component of what we do on a daily basis falls into one of those, whether it’s your behavior, your play, how you work,” Rangers bench coach Will Venable said. “It’s overall accountability, and as much as they might sound corny sometimes, they’re what guide us. [Bochy] creates an environment where people feel they can be themselves. He challenges the staff but is really open-minded and inclusive. So I think everyone just feels empowered to come every day having critically thought about things and is confident to voice their opinions. And he always gets to the best stuff because he asks questions. He’s open, he’s adaptable. He’s amazing.”
Those tenets were signposts throughout the season, and they also made it easier for the Rangers to remain impervious from any panic surrounding their September swoon. As the postseason began, Eovaldi’s elbow had healed. So had injuries to Garcia, Heim and Jung, who had gone from rookie with questions about his defense to All-Star Game starter and Gold Glove-caliber fielder. Garcia’s knee strain had prompted the early ascent of Carter, who thrived at 21 years old and earned an everyday role. Scherzer and Gray were out with injuries, and the bullpen was thin, but Texas’ tenets offered them solace.
They were good teammates, as the 99-win Tampa Bay Rays found out when Texas swept them in the wild-card round.
“A teammate is a person that will do anything to win the game regardless of the situation,” Rangers designated hitter Mitch Garver said. “If Boch told me to bunt” — he last laid down a sacrifice in 2018 — “I would do it. I’m willing to sacrifice my own career to better the team.”
They competed with passion, as the 101-win AL East champion Baltimore Orioles learned when the Rangers swept them in the division series.
“The fact that I’m one of those that shows it outwardly, passionately,” Garcia said, “doesn’t diminish the others who also compete with passion as well in their own way.”
Said Seager, whose outward stoicism is every bit the defining characteristic as his excellence as a hitter: “Being with your teammates. Being out on the field with your guys trying to accomplish one goal. I would say that’s what passion is for me.”
And they especially dominated the fundamentals. While the other two ideals necessitated only effort, dominating the fundamentals took an attention to detail few teams emphasize. The Rangers fixated on limiting errors after committing 96 in 2022. They followed the lead of Semien, who for the fourth consecutive full season played every game and did so because, he said, inactivity stimulates sloppiness. Texas made only 57 errors, the third-fewest by a team in major league history.
“We’ve just got obsessed dudes that are obsessed with their work, that are obsessed with winning, that are just obsessed with the day-to-day,” said catcher Austin Hedges, another trade-deadline acquisition. “I think that’s what baseball’s all about. It’s the day-to-day. We play 162 games plus another whatever in the playoffs, plus spring training. If you don’t love showing up to the field every day with the boys, then it’s not going to go well. But when you truly look forward to it and you have a group of guys you look forward to seeing, those things happen. If you don’t have that obsession, you might as well not even write those things down.”
After winning the AL pennant in spectacular fashion — taking all four road games of the seven-game series against Houston, which beat Texas for the AL West title via head-to-head regular-season record — Texas advanced to a World Series against the team with the second-fewest errors ever: Arizona. And in the course of their five-game romp, the Rangers became the first team since the 1966 Baltimore Orioles to win a World Series without committing an error.
Defense alone wouldn’t carry the Rangers, though. Garcia won ALCS MVP with a historic performance, driving in 15 runs in the series and hitting homer after epic homer. His strained oblique and Scherzer’s locked-up back ended their World Series after the third game, leaving Texas shorthanded. They’d been there, of course, whether in April and May without Seager or later in the season with the injury deluge. They dropped five runs with two outs in the second and third innings of Game 4 and romped. On Wednesday, one day later, Eovaldi threw six scoreless innings and held the Diamondbacks hitless in 10 plate appearances with runners in scoring position. Arizona starter Zac Gallen was even better over those six innings, holding Texas hitless.
“Getting no-hit in the seventh, we still find a way,” Montgomery said. “I mean, I think that sums up the grit of our guys and the battle. There was no panic in that dugout. Because here’s the thing. We’ve still got Corey Seager and Marcus Semien.”
Seager, who would go on to join Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson and Reggie Jackson as the only two-time World Series MVPs, squibbed a single to left field to lead off the seventh. Carter, hitting behind him in the lineup because Bochy surmised that Arizona manager Torey Lovullo would not use his best relievers — all right-handers — instead of attacking back-to-back left-handed hitters with a lefty reliever, doubled Seager to third. Garver smashed a fastball through a drawn-in infield. After 19 at-bats of futility, Texas needed only three to score the game’s first run.
After Josh Sborz, a 29-year-old with a career 5.08 ERA who emerged as Texas’ best of a thin relief corps this postseason, threw a scoreless eighth, Bochy approached him in the dugout, wary of throwing closer Jose Leclerc for a third consecutive day for the first time since July 26-28, 2019.
“You wanna finish it?” Bochy said.
“Let’s do it,” Sborz said.
The Rangers’ hitters were exceptionally good teammates in the top of the ninth. Jung and Lowe led off the inning with back-to-back singles against Arizona closer Paul Sewald, and both scored when a Heim single up the middle slinked underneath the glove of center fielder Alek Thomas and rolled to the wall. Semien followed by blasting his second home run in two nights, and Texas’ 1-0 lead was quintupled.
Sborz emerged for the ninth, struck out Geraldo Perdomo looking on a curveball, induced a popout from Corbin Carroll and ended the World Series by snapping Ketel Marte’s 20-game postseason hitting streak by snapping off a two-strike curveball that landed in the top of the strike zone. Marte stared at the pitch, and so began a celebration that would last deep into Thursday morning.
If there was one error made by Texas in the World Series, it was the team’s continued fixation with 1990s alt-rock band Creed. As the Rangers sprayed bubbly and doused one another with beer, “Higher” strained through the clubhouse speakers and provided the soundtrack for their revelry. Whatever they might lack in musical taste they made up for in baseball acumen and righting wrongs.
“This,” Scherzer said, “is baseball nirvana.”
He was not wrong. Carter, all of two months into his career, looked around and said: “How spoiled am I?” The answer was very — a fact that two other attendees of the party at the Biltmore know well.
Two hours after that locker room celebration, next to fire pits and underneath string lighting and surrounded by fountains, Adrian Beltre and Michael Young sat across from one another and reminisced. They played together on the 2011 Rangers, a team that wound up on the wrong side of one the greatest World Series games ever.
In the Metroplex, Game 6 are curse words. What’s a story of triumph in St. Louis is one of horror to Rangers fans: One strike away from a win, the Rangers gave up a two-run, score-tying, ninth-inning triple to David Freese, blew another two-run lead in the 10th and lost on a Freese home run in the 11th.
“It was the worst day of my life,” Beltre said.
Every day since, he said, he has carried it with him. Young concurred. The sting of the moment eventually faded into an ever-present ache. Nothing short of a championship would salve them.
No one in the clubhouse would dare suggest this reached the levels of Boston in 2004 or Chicago in 2016, but the Rangers have disappointed generations of people. This win, Beltre said, “takes a weight off my shoulders — off all our shoulders.”
About 20 feet away sat Bochy, holding court before the team serenaded him. The daughters of pitching coach Mike Maddux, who had never before won a World Series in his 30-year career playing and coaching in the major leagues, congratulated and thanked him. Coaches and scouts paid homage. Bochy deferred credit, aw-shucks as ever, even as he joined a list of the greatest managers in history — Casey Stengel, Connie Mack, Joe McCarthy, Walter Alston and Joe Torre.
On the other side of the bar, Young held court with the front office. During games in Young’s suite, they’d developed a habit of high-fiving every good play — “positive touches,” they called it — and the camaraderie was clear. Winning a championship bonds people forever. Winning the first championship in the 63-year history of a franchise immortalizes them.
Which is why back inside at McArthur’s, Lowe asked for the music to be turned down so he could deliver a speech. He arrived via trade in 2021, and from that team, only Lowe, Garcia, Heim, Sborz, center fielder Leody Taveras and right-hander Dane Dunning were on the World Series roster. Lowe witnessed the birth of the plan, its execution and the fruit it bore. And it gave the Rangers, he said, “the best f—ing ships.”
He paused slightly before delivering perhaps an even better walk-off than Garcia’s home run that won Game 1.
“Friendships,” Lowe said, “and championships.”
Sports
Kiley McDaniel’s favorite Day 1 draft picks, biggest surprises and best available Day 2 prospects
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Kiley McDaniel
With Day 1 of the 2025 MLB draft complete, it’s time to look at which picks in the first round stood out most.
After weeks of speculation about the various directions the Washington Nationals could go with the No. 1 pick, they surprised the industry by taking Oklahoma high school shortstop Eli Willits — and the Los Angeles Angels followed up with a surprising pick of their own at No. 2 by taking UC Santa Barbara pitcher Tyler Bremner
Though the nature of the baseball draft means that some of the picks we aren’t quite sure about on Day 1 will become clearer when we see how teams spread their bonus allotment around later in the draft, here are the early picks I liked the most and some eye-opening selections along with the top players still available entering Day 2.
Five favorite moves
Mariners and Pirates get their guys
The buzz leading up to the draft was that Kade Anderson was atop the Mariners’ draft board and Seth Hernandez was the top target (after Willits, who wasn’t going to get there) of the Pirates. Seattle was the other team taking a long look at Hernandez, but the shenanigans at the top two picks (more on that later) means that both Seattle and Pittsburgh got their preferred arms.
A’s select Arnold and Taylor
The Athletics had only two picks on Day 1 but received excellent values at each. Jamie Arnold was the top prospect in the draft entering the season and seemed primed to go somewhere between No. 2 and No. 8 after an uneven season. He somehow was the prospect left holding the short straw, falling to the 11th pick. Devin Taylor was in the mix at multiple picks in the comp round but lasted five selections into the second round.
Twins embrace risk with Quick and Young
The Twins took two hit-first college infielders as their first picks last year (Kaelen Culpepper and Kyle DeBarge), took another one in the 2023 second round (Luke Keaschall), and two more in the top two rounds in 2022 (Brooks Lee, Tanner Schobel) — and also took one with their first pick this year in Marek Houston.
What interested me though is what Minnesota did after that, taking big swings with the upside of Riley Quick (four potential plus pitches but below-average command) and Quentin Young (80-grade power potential with big questions on contact rate).
Phillies try to jump the reliever trade market?
Gage Wood has a chance to start long term but can also go straight to the upper minors — if not the big leagues — and potentially help the bullpen later this season, like a trade deadline addition. The Phillies’ next pick, Cade Obermueller, is another possible starter who also could move quickly as a lefty turning 22 later this month with two knockout pitches in his fastball/slider combo. Odds are good that at least one of them can provide big league value in the next 12 months if Philly wants to utilize them that way.
The Red Sox land Witherspoon, Phillips and Eyanson
The Red Sox are interested in creating more pitching depth and selected a number of interesting arms on Day 1. Kyson Witherspoon had a lot of interest in the top 10, but the Red Sox got him at No. 15.
He’ll need to sharpen his execution a notch and his short arm action is unique, but there’s midrotation upside. Marcus Phillips has a chance to start but could also bring another distinctive look as a late-inning arm with four plus pitches from a low slot and a triple-digit fastball. Anthony Eyanson is a different sort, with fringy fastball velocity but standout command along with a slider and splitter that keep hitters off-balance.
Five eye-openers
Eli Willits at No. 1
The buzz ahead of the draft was that there were three players in play for the top pick and Willits was my third-ranked player in the class, so the same group is what I would’ve been considering — and I love Willits as a player. The bonus will be a factor in evaluating how successful this pick will be viewed — I’ll guess it starts with an eight — but I think this will be seen as a solid decision, as long as Kade Anderson or Ethan Holliday don’t become stars.
Tyler Bremner at No. 2
The biggest piece of late buzz I was hearing is that Bremner was in play at No. 3 to the Mariners. I didn’t hear his name at all at No. 2 so that made this pick the first shocker in the draft.
Bremner was considered in this area (on a deal) because he could easily be the best pitcher in this class — but only if he can develop a better slider, which isn’t a small if. The Angels seem to have a thought about how to solve this, and how he progresses will be one of the more followed storylines of this draft.
Tigers take Yost and Oliveto
I like both players, but it’s fascinating that these two and the most-rumored prep hitter tied to Detroit that they didn’t take (Coy James, who had a tough summer) were all missing strong 2024 summer performances.
Jordan Yost and Michael Oliveto were the only two prep position players in the first-round mix who weren’t in the major national events on the summer circuit, thus creating a lot of uncertainty about how to project them.
The Tigers are right to assume this could create a potential quick gain in value if Yost and Oliveto can perform early in their pro careers, but I don’t remember seeing a team double down on lack of summer exposure in the early rounds.
Orioles take two catchers in the first round, and two pitchers in the second
It’s certainly a bit odd that the Orioles took two college catchers with their first two picks after taking another one (Ethan Anderson) in the second round last year. Obviously, teams don’t draft for big league need — the O’s already have Adley Rutschman — and they need at least two catchers at all four full season minor league affiliates, it’s just odd to see them invest in this position early multiple times. And after all of the position players they have drafted under Mike Elias, they did sneak in two arms on Day 1 with Joseph Dzierwa (a command-forward lefty) and J.T. Quinn (one of my favorite college relievers with the traits to start in pro ball).
Guardians lean into power
The Guardians often draft, or sign internationally, hit-first players who are often underpowered, with Steven Kwan a prominent example. They swerved a lot this year, taking Jace LaViolette with their first pick (I compare him to Cody Bellinger or Joey Gallo; he hit .258 this season) and Nolan Schubart (24% strikeout rate, 22% in-zone whiff rate) with their fifth pick on Day 1. Those two have big power and strong pull/lift rates, and LaViolette has the athleticism to play center field, so there’s real talent, it’s just not usually the type that the Guardians have targeted.
Best available for Day 2
Listed by top 250 draft rankings
43. Mason Neville, OF, Oregon
44. Matthew Fisher, RHP, Evansville Memorial HS (Ind.)
53. Josiah Hartshorn, LF, Orange Lutheran HS (Calif.)
55. Brock Sell, CF, Tokay HS (Calif.)
61. Jack Bauer, LHP, Lincoln Way East HS (Ill.)
69. Coy James, SS, Davie County HS (N.C.)
70. Alec Blair, CF, De La Salle HS (Calif.)
71. Mason Pike, RHP, Puyallup HS (Wash.)
72. Cam Appenzeller, LHP, Glenwood HS (Ill.)
73. Briggs McKenzie, LHP, Corinth Holders HS (N.C.)
The first day of the 2025 MLB draft is complete! The Washington Nationals selected Eli Willits with the No. 1 pick, opting for the prep shortstop — who might be more likely to sign below slot — in a draft with no clear-cut top prospect. And there were plenty of other intriguing selections as the first three rounds unfolded Sunday night.
The Seattle Mariners had to have been thrilled to have Kiley McDaniel’s No. 1-ranked prospect, Kade Anderson, fall to them at No. 3, and Ethan Holliday was selected at No. 4 by his famous father’s former squad the Colorado Rockies.
We asked ESPN baseball insiders Alden Gonzalez, Jesse Rogers and David Schoenfield to break down their favorite and most head-scratching moves of the draft’s first night, as well as to predict which players will bring the most to their new teams in the long term.
A lot of us were thrown for a loop by the first two selections. What do you make of the Nationals taking Ethan Willits at No. 1 and the Angels picking Tyler Bremner at No. 2?
Gonzalez: I was stunned on both accounts. Though there was definitely some uncertainty around the Nationals’ approach, especially since the firing of GM Mike Rizzo, I didn’t see anybody, anywhere, projecting Willits to be their choice at No. 1 overall. But the Angels drafting Bremner was an even bigger risk. Kiley had him 18th in his latest ranking. Six pitchers were ranked ahead of him. But Bremner might be someone who can rise and impact their major league roster quickly, and the Angels are always looking for that.
Rogers: The first two picks really summed up the uncertainty of the entire draft. The Nationals’ faith in a 17-year-old will be tested over the coming years, but the pick will likely save them some money for later in this draft and give Willits time to grow. The same can be said of many of the top picks: They’re going to need time. There are far fewer sure things this year — though Bremner could be the exception. The Angles love to graduate their players quickly, and as a college arm, he could see the majors sooner rather than later. Like Willits, this could also be a cost-saving move for later spending.
Schoenfield: In a draft that not only lacked a sure-thing No. 1 overall pick but was viewed as weaker at the top than those of recent years, it’s perhaps not a huge surprise that the Nationals and Angels used their picks to strike likely underslot deals with Willits and Bremner, giving them money to spend later in the draft — which they can use on high school prospects who might have slipped, trying to buy them out from going to college. It’s a strategy teams have used with success over the years, so the drafts for the Nationals and Angels will have to be viewed in their totality and not just focused on these two players.
What was your favorite pick of the night — and which one had you scratching your head?
Gonzalez: The Rockies have done a lot of things wrong over these last few … uh, decades. But it was really cool to see them take Ethan Holliday at No. 4 after his father, Matt, starred in Colorado for so long. Outside of the top two picks, Ethan Conrad going 17th to the Cubs was my biggest surprise of the night. Kiley had him ranked 30th; others had him falling out of the first round entirely. There’s uncertainty coming off shoulder surgery. But Conrad, 21, put up a 1.238 OPS in 97 plate appearances before his season ended prematurely in March. And the dearth of college bats probably influenced a slight reach here.
Rogers: I’m loving Billy Carlson to the White Sox at No. 10. Though they lost 121 games last season, Chicago couldn’t pick higher than this spot per CBA rules — but the Sox might have gotten a top-five player. Carlson’s defense will play extremely well behind a sneaky good and young pitching staff that should keep the ball on the ground in the long term. Meanwhile, with the pick of the litter when it came to hitters — college outfielders and high school kids as well — the Pirates took a high school pitcher at No. 6. Seth Hernandez could be great, but they need hitting. A lot of it.
Schoenfield: The Mariners reportedly wanted LSU left-hander Kade Anderson all along, but they certainly couldn’t have been expecting to get him with the third pick. (Keep in mind that the Mariners were lucky in the first place to land the third pick in the lottery, so they added some good fortune on top of good luck.) They get the most polished college pitcher in the draft, one who should move quickly — and perhaps make it a little easier for Jerry Dipoto to dip into his farm system and upgrade the big league roster at the trade deadline. Even though I understand why the Angels did it, Bremner still seems a little questionable. With the second pick, you want to go for a home run, and the consensus is that Holliday or even Anderson is more likely to be a more impactful major leaguer. Bremner’s lack of a third plus pitch is an issue, and you have to wonder if the Angels are relying too much on his control — which, yes, should allow him to get to the majors — and ignoring the possible lack of upside.
Who is the one player you’d like to plant your flag on as the biggest steal of this draft?
Gonzalez: Seth Hernandez, who went sixth to the Pirates and should someday share a rotation with Paul Skenes and Jared Jones. High school pitchers are incredibly risky, especially when taken so early in the draft. But Hernandez is a great athlete who already throws hard, boasts a plus changeup and showed improvement with his breaking ball this spring. He’ll go the Hunter Greene route, from standout high school pitcher to major league ace.
Rogers: Jamie Arnold will look like a steal at No. 11, especially when he debuts in the majors well before many of the players taken around him. I’m not worried about the innings drop in 2025 — not when he was striking out 119 hitters and walking just 27. The A’s need to polish him up but will be pleased by how consistent he’ll be. You can’t go wrong with a college lefty from an ACC school — at least, the A’s didn’t.
Schoenfield: I’m going with Billy Carlson with the 10th pick — with the admitted caveat that the White Sox haven’t exactly been stellar at developing hitters. But Carlson looks like an elite defensive shortstop with plus power, and that alone can make him a valuable major leaguer. If the hit tool comes along, we’re looking at a potential star. OK, he’s Bobby Witt Jr. lite? That’s still an All-Star player.
What’s your biggest takeaway from Day 1 of this draft?
Gonzalez: The Nationals throwing a wrench into the proceedings by selecting Willits. It was a surprising choice, but in their minds an easy one. Interim general manager Mike DeBartolo called Willits the best hitter and best fielder available. And in a draft devoid of can’t-miss, high-impact talent, Willits is no doubt a solid pick — a polished hitter who should stick at shortstop and might consistently hit 20 homers and steal 20 bases at a premium position. He also might come under slot, allowing flexibility later in the draft. But his selection is what allowed Anderson to reach the Mariners at No. 3 and prompted the Rockies to draft Holliday at No. 4, among other dominoes. It set a really interesting tone.
Rogers: Things change quickly in baseball. Whereas college hitters are usually the safest bets early in the draft, this year high school position players dominated. (And they all play shortstop, at least for now.) Athleticism has returned to baseball, and draft rooms are acting accordingly.
Schoenfield: I’m agreeing with Jesse. The selection of that many prep shortstops stood out — and they all seem to hit left-handed and run well, and some of them have big power potential and a cannon for an arm. Look, the hit tool is the most important and the hardest to scout and project, so not all these kids are going to make it, but their potential is exciting and, to Jesse’s point, their wide range of tools is showing that baseball is still drawing top athletes to the sport.
The 2025 MLB All-Star Home Run Derby is fast approaching — and the field is set.
Braves hometown hero Ronald Acuna Jr. became the first player to commit to the event, which will be held at Truist Park in Atlanta on July 14 (8 p.m. ET on ESPN). He was followed by MLB home run leader Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners, James Wood of the Washington Nationals, Byron Buxton of the Minnesota Twins, Oneil Cruz of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Junior Caminero of the Tampa Bay Rays, Brent Rooker of the Athletics and Jazz Chisholm Jr. of the New York Yankees.
On Friday, however, Acuna was replaced by teammate Matt Olson.
With all the entrants announced, let’s break down their chances at taking home this year’s Derby prize.
Full All-Star Game coverage: How to watch, schedule, rosters, more
2025 home runs: 17 | Longest: 434 feet
Why he could win: Olson is a late replacement for Acuna as the home team’s representative at this year’s Derby. Apart from being the Braves’ first baseman, however, Olson also was born in Atlanta and grew up a Braves fan, giving him some extra motivation. The left-handed slugger led the majors in home runs in 2023 — his 54 round-trippers that season also set a franchise record — and he remains among the best in the game when it comes to exit velo and hard-hit rate.
Why he might not: The home-field advantage can also be a detriment if a player gets too hyped up in the first round. See Julio Rodriguez in Seattle in 2023, when he had a monster first round, with 41 home runs, but then tired out in the second round.
2025 home runs: 36 | Longest: 440 feet
Why he could win: It’s the season of Cal! The Mariners’ catcher is having one of the greatest slugging first halves in MLB history, as he’s been crushing mistakes all season . His easy raw power might be tailor-made for the Derby — he ranks in the 87th percentile in average exit velocity and delivers the ball, on average, at the optimal home run launch angle of 23 degrees. His calm demeanor might also be perfect for the contest as he won’t get too amped up.
Why he might not: He’s a catcher — and one who has carried a heavy workload, playing in all but one game this season. This contest is as much about stamina as anything, and whether Raleigh can carry his power through three rounds would be a concern. No catcher has ever won the Derby, with only Ivan Rodriguez back in 2005 even reaching the finals.
2025 home runs: 24 | Longest: 451 feet
Why he could win: He’s big, he’s strong, he’s young, he’s awesome, he might or might not be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. This is the perfect opportunity for Wood to show his talent on the national stage, and he wouldn’t be the first young player to star in the Derby. He ranks in the 97th percentile in average exit velocity and 99th percentile in hard-hit rate, so he can still muscle the ball out in BP even if he slightly mishits it. His long arms might be viewed as a detriment, but remember the similarly tall Aaron Judge won in 2017.
Why he might not: His natural swing isn’t a pure uppercut — he has a pretty low average launch angle of just 6.2 degrees — so we’ll see how that plays in a rapid-fire session. In real games, his power is primarily to the opposite field, but in a Home Run Derby you can get more cheapies pulling the ball down the line.
2025 home runs: 20 | Longest: 479 feet
Why he could win: Buxton’s raw power remains as impressive as nearly any hitter in the game. He crushed a 479-foot home run earlier this season and has four others of at least 425 feet. Indeed, his “no doubter” percentage — home runs that would be out of all 30 parks based on distance — is 75%, the highest in the majors among players with more than a dozen home runs. His bat speed ranks in the 89th percentile. In other words, two tools that could translate to a BP lightning show.
Why he might not: Buxton is 31 and the Home Run Derby feels a little more like a younger man’s competition. Teoscar Hernandez did win last year at age 31, but before that, the last winner older than 29 was David Ortiz in 2010, and that was under much different rules than are used now.
2025 home runs: 16 | Longest: 463 feet
Why he could win: If you drew up a short list of players everyone wants to see in the Home Run Derby, Cruz would be near the top. He has the hardest-hit ball of the 2025 season, and the hardest ever tracked by Statcast, a 432-foot missile of a home run with an exit velocity of 122.9 mph. He also crushed a 463-foot home run in Anaheim that soared way beyond the trees in center field. With his elite bat speed — 100th percentile — Cruz has the ability to awe the crowd with a potentially all-time performance.
Why he might not: Like all first-time contestants, can he stay within himself and not get too caught up in the moment? He has a long swing, which will result in some huge blasts, but might not be the most efficient for a contest like this one, where the more swings a hitter can get in before the clock expires, the better.
2025 home runs: 23 | Longest: 425 feet
Why he could win: Although Caminero was one of the most hyped prospects entering 2024, everyone kind of forgot about him heading into this season since he didn’t immediately rip apart the majors as a rookie. In his first full season, however, he has showed off his big-time raw power — giving him a chance to become just the third player to reach 40 home runs in his age-21 season. He has perhaps the quickest bat in the majors, ranking in the 100th percentile in bat speed, and his top exit velocity ranks in the top 15. That could translate to a barrage of home runs.
Why he might not: In game action, Caminero does hit the ball on the ground quite often — in fact, he’s on pace to break Jim Rice’s record for double plays grounded into in a season. If he gets out of rhythm, that could lead to a lot of low line drives during the Derby instead of fly balls that clear the fences.
2025 home runs: 19 | Longest: 440 feet
Why he could win: The Athletics slugger has been one of the top power hitters in the majors for three seasons now and is on his way to a third straight 30-homer season. Rooker has plus bat speed and raw power, but his biggest strength is an optimal average launch angle (19 degrees in 2024, 15 degrees this season) that translates to home runs in game action. That natural swing could be picture perfect for the Home Run Derby. He also wasn’t shy about saying he wanted to participate — and maybe that bodes well for his chances.
Why he might not: Rooker might not have quite the same raw power as some of the other competitors, as he has just one home run longer than 425 feet in 2025. But that’s a little nitpicky, as 11 of his home runs have still gone 400-plus feet. He competed in the college home run derby in Omaha while at Mississippi State in 2016 and finished fourth.
2025 home runs: 17 | Longest: 442 feet
Why he could win: Chisholm might not be the most obvious name to participate, given his career high of 24 home runs, but he has belted 17 already in 2025 in his first 61 games after missing some time with an injury. He ranks among the MLB leaders in a couple of home run-related categories, ranking in the 96th percentile in expected slugging percentage and 98th percentile in barrel rate. His raw power might not match that of the other participants, but he’s a dead-pull hitter who has increased his launch angle this season, which might translate well to the Derby, even if he won’t be the guy hitting the longest home runs.
Why he might not: Most of the guys who have won this have been big, powerful sluggers. Chisholm is listed at 5-foot-11, 184 pounds, and you have to go back to Miguel Tejada in 2004 to find the last player under 6 foot to win.
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