Angels 2025 Draft: Building a Foundation for the Future with Smart Upside Plays

This is a big draft for us Angels fans and the team, with the #2 pick and a chance to add high upside. The Angels have a $16,656,400 bonus pool for the 2025 draft (3rd most in MLB). With the allowed 5% overage, they would have up to $17,489,220.

The #2 pick looks like an underslot pick, which might not be a bad thing. There isn't a clear pick at #2 or even in the top 3 that feels truly worth that full slot value. This gives the Angels some flexibility to not only save money up top but also spread talent throughout the draft.

Now to break down the first three picks and my ideal scenario.

Pick 1, #2 overall — the slot value here is roughly $10.2 million. My pick is Jace Laviolette. You just can't ignore the upside here. Laviolette offers high-end potential as a middle-of-the-lineup bat, with the ability to hit 30+ home runs in the majors. The most encouraging part of his development has been his improving plate discipline; he has reduced his strikeout rate each of the past three years and now sits under a 19% K rate for the season with a walk rate over 20%. He’s a left-handed hitter, which we badly need, and the upside is absolutely monstrous. I would project signing him for around $7.7 million, which would be a strong underslot deal. That would save about $2.5 million from the slot value, bringing the adjusted pool to around $9.7 million.

Pick 2, #47 overall — here it gets interesting. With money saved from the first pick, the Angels would have the flexibility to go over slot for a high-upside player who might have slipped out of day one, most likely a high school prep player. This should be the focus for this pick. Two players I would target here are Brock Sell and Landon Harmon. Sell, a high-upside high school bat, brings solid skillsets with the chance to be a future table setter at the big-league level. Baseball America has given him a 50-grade hit tool while MLB Pipeline has given him a 60. Landon Harmon is a prep right-handed pitcher who already shows two plus pitches and has the size, frame, and upside to eventually anchor a big-league rotation. These are the type of upside risks the Angels need to take. Expected signing bonus here would be around $2.7 million, about $700k overslot, which would still leave approximately $7 million to spend.

Pick 3, #79 overall — for this pick, I would lean towards a safer college bat: Murf Gray. He doesn’t have a set defensive position yet, but his offensive projection will get him drafted somewhere in the third or fourth round range. His bat would add more depth and potential impact to the system. I would expect his signing bonus to be around $1 million, which would leave roughly $6 million remaining in the bonus pool for the rest of the draft.

The rest of the draft is where it gets really interesting. With about $6 million still left to use, the Angels would have the flexibility to make an aggressive move later — like targeting another high-upside high school player in the $2 million bonus range, while also drafting a safe college arm (someone who projects as a No. 3–5 starter type) in the $1–1.5 million range. It's a really exciting position to be in, and I hope the Angels capitalize by bringing in a mix of high-upside college and high school players. The approach should be to chase upside with the first four picks, then go big again in the 11th round for a high school prep player.