2025 MLB Draft Deep Dive: Devin Taylor
The college baseball season is in full swing, and Just Baseball continues our analysis of 2025 MLB Draft prospects with Devin Taylor up next.
The 2025 College Baseball season is well underway, and we’ve seen the sport’s top prospects begin to play incredibly well. One of these players, Indiana outfielder Devin Taylor, has performed exceptionally so far.
Taylor is the next player up in this year’s MLB Draft Deep Dives, which will continue as we approach draft day in July. Without further ado, let’s look at the left-hander a little more closely.
- Just Baseball Prospect Ranking: #9 Overall College Draft Prospect
- Age: 21.5 on Draft Day
- B/T: L/R
- HT: 6’1
- WT: 215
- Hometown: Cincinnati, OH
- 2024 Stats: 59 G, 285 PA, .357.449/.660 (1.109), 67 R, 11 2B, 1 3B, 20 HR, 5 SB, 37 BB, 38 SO, 150 wRC+
College Performance and Scouting Report
While the state of Ohio hasn’t produced many top MLB talents over the last few seasons, Devin Taylor received solid draft interest in the 2022 MLB draft.
Scouts were intrigued by his skill set on the surface, but questions about his swing, his glove, and overall athleticism came with this interest. Due to these concerns, he wasn’t ranked highly on many draft boards, so the decision to land on campus at Indiana came easier for him than other draft prospects.
From the moment Taylor landed on campus, his talent shined incredibly bright. As a freshman, he hit 16 homers, and slashed .315/.430/.650 with a 1.080 OPS in 55 games, immediately making an impact in Indiana’s lineup. He led the team with a 143 wRC+, showing how big of an impact he made.
Fast forward one more season, as Taylor entered his sophomore season in 2024, where he tore the cover off the ball. His power saw an even bigger spike, seeing him hit 20 homers while slashing .357.449/.660 with a 1.109 OPS while leading the team with a 150 wRC+ once again.
From that point on, scouts fell in love with Taylor’s game, leading him to be projected as one of the top players selected in the 2025 MLB Draft.
Taylor’s stance is a big reason for his strength and sheer raw power. He crouches fairly low into his stance, really prioritizing storing up his power in his back half. He has a decently sized leg kick, reminding me a lot of Pirates star prospect, Termarr Johnson, another smaller, lefty slugger.
Along with this, Taylor doesn’t see a whole lot of movement in his hands, allowing for a clearer path to the ball, which could be a huge reason for his power. This is also one of the bigger adjustments he’s made over his college career, allowing for fewer at-bats where was beaten simply for too much movement in his hands.
While Taylor does a lot of things well, the most obvious strengths he possesses are his power and excellent quality of contact tools. He should possess the raw power to hit 30 homers at the big-league level, especially with some fine-tuning in the lower minors.
This isn’t to discredit his other tools, however, as his hit tool has fielded grades as high as a 55 from different outlets. Also, although his speed isn’t graded highly, I do think it’ll play better than most think.
When I had the chance to watch Taylor play versus Penn State, I was shocked to see him score from first with ease on a double. While you may think most players at this level of baseball should be able to do this, a player who was routinely handed a 45 or lower grade on his run tool scoring this easily really surprised me.
His glove will likely trend more toward a 45-50 grade, but again, this could rise with some time. After seeing him in person, I subscribe to the idea that he’ll find a permanent home in a corner outfield position once he hits professional baseball.
Data Evaluation
Although I liked a lot of what I saw from Taylor when I watched him in person, in today’s baseball landscape, the “eye test” can only take you so far. However, the data backs up exactly what we’ve seen from Taylor all year.
In Taylor’s last full season of NCAA action in 2024, he excelled at doing some serious damage at the plate. He finished with a wOBA of.468, which landed him in the league’s 96th percentile. Not only this, but Taylor’s expected outcomes finished closely to his actual wOBA, with his xwOBA of .450 placing him inside the 97th percentile.
He also placed near the top of the league in xwOBACON and xDamage, backing up this idea of Taylor succeeding at doing damage as well.
His exit velocity numbers were a little lower than we would’ve liked to see, with his average exit velocity finishing below 92 MPH (91.6 MPH) and his max exit velocity just barely eclipsing the 110 MPH mark (110.4 MPH).
In a league where the top MLB draft prospects eclipse 110 MPH exit velocities regularly, this could appear very underwhelming. This is especially the case, when you consider Taylor’s calling card is his power.
However, Taylor’s hard-hit rate gives me a lot of hope, as he posted a hard-hit rate of over 50% in 2024 (53.3% hard-hit rate), which was good enough to place him just outside the 90th percentile.
When examining the data, we see that Taylor’s plate discipline still has a long way to come, however. He saw a relatively poor whiff rate of 21.7%, as well as an in-zone whiff rate that finished around 16%.
Not only this, but Taylor’s chase rates, and zone-contact rates still have room for improvement. He also tends to get a little passive at times, posting a swing rate under 43% in 2024.
Taylor makes a decent amount of contact on pitches outside of the zone though, with his O-Contact percentage sitting just shy of 70%. Considering his higher chase rate, the ability to consistently make contact outside of the zone will be a key tool for him moving forward.
When you take all of these tools into consideration, you begin to see the building blocks for a very solid major-league hitter in the works.
Taylor’s ability to do damage will be very attractive to scouts as the draft comes around, but if he wants to make the most of his offensive game, his plate discipline still has room for improvement.
Main Takeaways
After taking a closer look into Taylor’s game as a whole, I really like what I’ve seen. He’s played incredibly well so far in his first 17 games of 2025, hitting 6 homers, and slashing .375/.495/.736 while posting a 157 wRC+ in the process.
Being able to see him in person also gave me a lot of courage in projecting the type of player Taylor could be, as I was more impressed by his run tool and glove than other outlets have been.
Taylor is currently ranked as Just Baseball’s No. 9 college draft prospect, with room to grow in the coming weeks. It’ll be interesting to see where he begins to fill himself in on draft boards as we inch closer to draft day in July.
If Taylor continues to make improvements in his overall offensive game, and with his glove, I could definitely see him sliding up draft boards very quickly. Right now, I could see Taylor realistically being selected in the 10-15 overall range, with the potential to sneak inside the top ten picks once Draft Day comes.
Taylor’s draft stock reminds me of former North Carolina outfielder Vance Honeycutt’s stock last season, where most outlets had him all over the board, not having a good idea of where he’d land before Draft Day.
However, one thing’s for certain: Anyone who takes a chance on Taylor in July will be getting one heck of a ballplayer, and someone who could be a key part of their organization’s future.
Written by
Jay Staph, a huge baseball fan and stat nerd, founded and ran his own baseball writing website, BSBWrites, at just 16-years-old. With focal points around prospects,…