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Eight Weeks into Spring Season 1-1 Candidate Check In

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Doyle pushing for 1-1. Photo via his Twitter account.

Here’s our fourth check-in on the 1-1 candidates. We’ve started to get some more draft content from the typical sources now that we’re through “Prospect Season” and past opening day.

The consensus on this draft so far from pundits seems to be this: there’s no clear-cut #1 overall pick, but the draft itself is pretty deep. So, bad for us at the top but teams that have multiple picks and lots of money to work with are ecstatic about the depth of talent they’ll be selecting in the 1-Supp and 2nd rounds.

Important Draft related Links that have published since our last posting:

  • Baseball America’s top 300 Draft Prospects for 2025. Dated 3/26/25, goes Arnold, Holliday, Bremner, Hernandez, and Arquette. LaViolette at 9, Doyle 16, Kilen in the 20s, and Taylor in the 30s so i’ve removed them.
  • Prospects Live Top 100 Prep Draft Prospects was posted on 4/1/25. Interestingly they put a new name at the top over the 3 existing names; one Billy Carlson from the same Corona HS as Seth Hernandez. Wow, what a team; can you imagine having two first round talents on the same HS team? Anyway, if you want to read more scouting reports on the Prep kids in the mix, go to the above link to read about them.
  • Right after doing their top 300 list, the team did a “Staff Draft” that ended up with a very interesting name at the top: Seth Hernandez. He would famously be the first ever prep RHP to be drafted 1-1 if this were to happen, and in their podcast this week the writer who took the pick basically said that the struggles of the other candidates combined with the raw talent of Hernandez had him making the pick.
  • Keith Law was onsite for Tennessee-TAMU, and got to see several guys we’re talking about. Notes below on Doyle and LaViolette primarily.
  • Ethan Holliday’s Oklahoma HS team has a matchup coming up with national power Eli Willits, which will be well covered so we’ll finally get some scouting. Law notes that the word on the street so far is that Holliday is hitting and fielding well, which helps his 1-1 case.

Aggregation Stats for College Baseball for Reference:

Link Block for the top guys under 1-1 consideration. I’ve got this whittled to 5 for now.

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

Prospects guys we’re removing from 1-1 discussion for now and why.

Here’s some updated commentary.

  • LaViolette: continues to improve his season numbers, now slashing .294/.451/.633 for the season. That’s up from 284/.434/.568 two weeks ago. He’s hit for a ton of power in the last two weeks, helped by a mid-week game against Incarnate Word where he blasted 2 dingers for 7 RBI in a day. Against Tennessee last weekend he went 0-2 against Doyle (no shame there) and an up-and-down weekend otherwise. Creeping back into respect ability; now has 10 hrs and 6 SBs in 31 games on the year. Law’s report was not rosy: 20 swings, 10 misses, and he says basically he saw strikeouts and weak contact all weekend. Law puts him as a back of the 1st rounder at this point, and I may stop reporting on him after this post.
  • Arnold: two up and down starts since we last checked in: at Notre Dame he couldn’t get out of the 5th, needing 94 pitchers to go 4 2/3rds against the not-very-impressive ND squad. A week later at home he cruised against Wake Forest, a tougher team, but still needed 98 pitches to complete 5 innings. 10 ks/2 BB, 2 hits allowed, 2 HBP. He needed 98 pitches to get through 20 batters, which says to me … he’s not hitting the plate a whole lot and is going deep into counts.
  • Bremner: got lit up by Long Beach State, giving up 5 runs and getting yanked in the 4th. Not good. Turned around and got a 7ip/4h/10k outing against UC Davis. Here’s the problem; both these teams are sub .500 Big West rivals; we’re not talking about top competition here.
  • Arquette has cooled significantly, having two straight bad weekends. He went just 1-11 at Nebraska two weeks ago, then just 2-10 at home against UC Irvine to drop his season slash line to .321/.439/.604.
  • Doyle will continue to be on this post until the very end, since he’s the Friday starter for one of the best teams in the country, in the best division. There’s not a player in this draft that we won’t get a better sense of from now until June. In the last two weeks: he gave up 9 hits and 5 runs to South Carolina in a loss (still struck out 11), then frigging no-hit Texas A&M for 6 innings before getting yanked on 96 pitches. 6ip, 0hits, 8k/2bb. Law’s impression? Good. 95-99 on the fastball, a nearly unhittable splitter as his second pitch, then two other pitches that he struggled with (a 87-90 slider and a low-80s curve). He does mention that Doyle’s arm lags, that he’s got funky mechanics, but also that he’s athletic and repeats his motion well. Still, some clear pro reliever worry, not exactly something you want out of your 1-1 pick.

The Race for 1-1 status: I think four of the 5 college guys we’re tracking are playing their way out of the top spot. Right now I think 1-1 is either Doyle or Holliday. If I had to guess how the top 5 picks go right now, I’d guess Holliday, Doyle, Arnold, Hernandez, and Arquette.