Are you ready for the hometown draft day?
The 2025 MLB Draft is right around the corner, a midsummer affair in the Atlanta Braves back yard that will hopefully grant hope to a thus far miserable season for fans. With the All-Star game set to take over Truist Park so too will the Draft, which in two weeks is set to introduce a huge influx of talent into the system.
When, Where, How to Watch
This season is a bit of a new format for the draft, with the broadcast schedule condensed to have it take place over two days now instead of three. Gone is the day three reading of names from a conference call, though I have to imagine the format is likely to be similar once we clear the tenth round of picks. As it stands, the first three rounds along with the compensation picks will take place on Sunday, July 13th, while the fourth round and beyond are set for Monday, July 14th.
TV Coverage will be significant for the earliest picks of the draft, with the first 43 picks set to broadcast on ESPN and MLB Network. The draft is going to start at 6 PM EST this season, but don’t get too comfortable as the Braves will be picking in the back third of the draft and are in for a long wait in a typically leisurely first round. After the first 43 picks, which includes the compensation and competitive balance round, the draft will drop from ESPN’s radar and be exclusively hosted by Major League Baseball. There is a significant break in between the Braves first and second round picks, then after we can expect the pace to pick up a bit as they make their third pick and final pick on day one. Day two, especially the late rounds, will be a much shorter affair and start a touch earlier this season. Day two will be streamed on MLB.com, starting with the fourth round at 11:30 AM.
What picks do the Braves have?
The Braves are once again picking late in the draft, holding the 22nd pick in the first round and three total picks on day one. Their second round pick isn’t until 60th overall and they will close out their first day of picks with the 96th pick overall. The Braves do have one compensation pick in this draft, but it’s not a premium pick. Due to Max Fried leaving in free agency the Braves have a pick sandwiched between the fourth and fifth rounds and will pick at 136th overall in addition to their regular picks from the last 17 rounds.
Reflecting their low draft slot and low compensation pick number the Braves have the eighth-lowest total draft signing pool. Their first round pick will make up a chunk of that at $3,983,900 and given recent history it is possible that the Braves could use that full amount. Just last season they gave Cam Caminiti a full-slot bonus of $3,556,300, though typically they tend to go with an under slot pick in the first round. It’s all a matter of availability, with the Braves willing to go to slot or over to get a player they are fond of, but often left spreading out money after one of their targets is sniped before it gets to their pick. The total pool of course is the important one to know, and sits at $9,081,100.
Who will the Braves draft?
If you pulled up the top 50 draft prospects, printed out a list, and threw a dart at that list you’d be about as likely to land on the 22nd overall pick as I am guessing with intent. It’s been a running joke of sorts that the Braves are going to take a pitcher in the first round every year, and they have each of the past five seasons and nine of the past ten, but again that has been a matter of availability. The Braves have their hitters they like to target in the first round, and it just so happens that Atlanta, being a model-driven organization, often loses their position player prospects to other data-focused team. So the Braves likely have a handful of hitters they like and a handful of pitchers they like and we probably know some of them and don’t know others of them and that’s why we’re going to all watch together. I’ve been responsible for pre-writing first round picks for the past four seasons and in those five seasons we have drafted exactly zero of those guys, and that’s with use pre-writing usually five or more strongly-connected options. Here’s what we can say the Braves like. They love velocity, they love guys with a good secondary pitch, they love elite athletes and especially two sport stars, and they are unafraid to take chances on players who may have command issues or injury concerns. The Braves are once again connected heavily to college arms, and one name that has popped up is Arkansas right-handed pitcher Gage Wood most notable for throwing a 19-strikeout no hitter in the College World Series this season. Given Wood’s strong ties to the Braves I am confident in saying he won’t be picked here and I’m only half joking. The Braves, outside of Ryan Cusick in 2021, really have gone completely away from anyone’s expectations at every stage the past few seasons.
What you can expect from us
The draft is a hectic day for us, so for those two days we’ll be here around-the-clock except for the times when we’re not. I personally likely won’t sleep, more due to an unsafe consumption of caffeine than by choice, and from early in the morning on Sunday we’ll be dropping in the latest mock drafts and rumors and having previews run leading up to day one. All of our day one picks will get individual write ups on the site, and then after that we will have a wrap up and will hear from the organization as well. One day two we’ll have a preview of the top available talent and then write ups of the guys our draft expert Matt Powers deems to be the most notable talents. Sometimes that can be as deep as the 7th and 8th round (and some day three picks as well due to the way the bonus structure works) but if they spend big early we may only be around for individual picks until the fifth or so. Again, we’re going to stay flexible, but after the draft is over Matt will have a detailed look of all of the picks in the draft along with his opinions on how the Braves did as a whole. Then we will shift to the signing tracker phase of the project, which unfortunately has been a bit more boring the last few seasons. The Braves are quick to lock down all of their players, so we will have our yearly signing tracker go up but don’t be surprised to see every single player announced by the end of the week or beginning of the following week. In any case, be prepared for a hectic few weeks of coverage and a ton of fun as we get to break down a ton of new talent.