A's Projected to Swerve in 2025 MLB Draft

MLB Pipeline just released their first MLB mock draft, and they have the Athletics doing something they haven't done in nearly a decade--drafting a pitcher in the first round.

The last time the A's took an arm in the first round of the MLB Draft was back in 2016 when they landed left-hander A.J. Puk out of Florida with the No. 6 overall selection. After facing some injuries in his time in the minors and converting to being a high leverage relief pitcher, Puk was traded to the Miami Marlins for JJ Bleday, so the A's ended up with a position player anyway.

Puk wasn't the only pitcher they took in the first round that season, with the club also selecting Daulton Jefferies with the No. 37 overall pick. The righty spent some time with the A's from 2020-22, then bounced around a bit in 2023 and 2024. He was also in attendance at Fans Fest in Oakland back in March.

Suffice it to say, the A's have tended to select their pitching talent later in the draft, though the majority of the team's staff at the big-league level has been acquired rather than developed. Of the 13 arms on the A's 26-man roster, just three (Mason Miller, Hogan Harris, Grant Holman) were drafted and developed by the Athletics.

The rest were free agent signings, waiver claims, trade acquisitions, or Rule 5 picks.

That brings us to which player PIpeline actually has the A's selecting, and that's Kyson Witherspoon out of Oklahoma. They said of the potential A's pick:

"The lone right-hander among the top tier of college pitchers, Witherspoon can get swings and misses with four different pitches (mid-90s fastball, upper-80s cutter, mid-80s slider, low-80s curveball) and could go higher than this."

The 20-year-old is 9-2 this season with a 2.63 ERA in 12 starts spanning 72 innings of work. His WHIP sits at 0.889 while he is allowing just 5.9 hits per nine and 2.1 walks per nine while also striking out 12.5 per nine. While he's not a finished product, he's fairly far along in his development compared to some of the other arms in the class.

The big question as it pertains to the A's is whether or not they will buck years of habit in order to take a pitcher towards the top of the draft. While recent history would suggest they would go in a different direction, their farm system is littered with solid prospects on the position player front, making it a little easier to go against tradition.

The other big factor that could lead the A's to going with a top arm, if it's available, is that the A's aren't looking to select as high as No. 11 for the next few seasons. With the club at the big-league level currently sitting at 20-18 and in second place in the AL West, this team has hopes of competing this season.

As their record climbs, their draft position is likely to get further and further away from the No. 1 pick, making this potentially the last opportunity they'd have to take a big-time arm in the MLB Draft until their cycle of contention runs out. With the implementation of the draft lottery, if the A's fail to make the postseason, they'd still have a shot at picking higher than their record would indicate.

In both 2023 and 2024, the A's have actually selected further back than where they would have under the old draft rules, which was solely determined by record.

In baseball, the common practice is to draft the best player avaiable, and not to draft for a need that the club has at the time. How this draft shakes out will be determined by how the A's have these college and high school players ranked on their own board.