photo credit: Craven Whitlow / Arkansas Athletics
How the 2025 Arkansas baseball season ended is still a tough pill to swallow for many fans, but the MLB Draft offers an opportunity to fully turn the page and look ahead to next year.
While Dave Van Horn has been hard at work compiling pieces for next year’s team through traditional recruiting and the transfer portal, we won’t have a good idea of how the 2026 roster will look until after the draft. The two-day event begins with the first three rounds Sunday, starting at 5 p.m. CT, and continues at 10:30 a.m. Monday with Rounds 4-20.
Not only are Wehiwa Aloy and Gage Wood expected to make history for the Arkansas baseball program, but a couple of other Razorbacks are likely to hear their names called on Day 1 at the Coca-Cola Roxy in Atlanta, with several more to follow on the second day.
Including high school, JUCO and transfer portal commits/signees, there will likely be double-digit players associated with Arkansas baseball among the 615 total selections.
Keeping it all straight can be difficult, so Best of Arkansas Sports will help you out by compiling our annual MLB Draft preview, with intel sprinkled throughout to complement all of the important information you need to know. Part 1, which focuses on the current Razorbacks, can be found below…
(Part 2 of our preview will focus on the incoming Razorbacks — high school signees, JUCO transfers and transfer portal commits.)
MLB Draft Prospect Rankings
(NOTE: The “slot value range” listed below are the slot values for the pick number at the highest and lowest ranking from the above prospect rankings, excluding D1Baseball’s because that ranking includes only college players. Teams are not obligated to pay those amounts, as they’ll negotiate individual signing bonuses with each player. Players taken outside of the top 10 rounds can sign for up to $150,000 with no penalty for the team, so for picks outside of that range, that’s the low value listed.)
Arkansas’ Top MLB Draft Prospects
The following seven Arkansas baseball players are viewed as virtual locks to be selected in the MLB Draft and begin their professional careers…
SS Wehiwa Aloy
D1: No. 9 | The Athletic: No. 13 | P1500: No. 14 | ESPN: No. 15 | BA: No. 16 | MLB: No. 17 | FSS: No. 20 | PBR: No. 22
Slot value range: $3.98 million-$6.51 million
A relatively unknown prospect coming out of high school in Hawaii, Wehiwa Aloy burst onto the scene by winning WAC Freshman of the Year and earning numerous Freshman All-America honors at Sacramento State in 2023.
He parlayed that success (.376, 14 HR) into an opportunity to play in the SEC, landing at Arkansas out of the transfer portal. After a highly productive first fall in Fayetteville, there was a lot of hype surrounding Aloy going into his sophomore year. He was solid, hitting .270 with 14 homers and being named second-team All-SEC, but it wasn’t until after that season that truly asserted himself as a first-round pick.
Aloy tore up the prestigious Cape Cod League and carried it over into his junior campaign. In addition to slashing .350/.434/.673 with 21 home runs and 68 RBIs, the Hawaiian evolved an elite defender at shortstop and now looks capable of sticking at the position in the pros. He earned numerous All-America honors and won the Golden Spikes Award.
There are still some swing-and-miss concerns with Aloy offensively, as he still struck out 64 times, but it shouldn’t keep him out of the first round. In fact, he’s a consensus top-20 prospect who should command a hefty signing bonus.
RHP Gage Wood
D1: No. 10 | FSS: No. 16 | ESPN: No. 16 | BA: No. 18 | MLB: No. 23 | PBR: No. 23 | P1500: No. 27 | The Athletic: No. 31
Slot value range: $3.04 million-$6.24 million
About a month ago, Wehiwa Aloy was a virtual lock to be the first Arkansas player off the board in the 2025 MLB Draft. That is no longer the case after Gage Wood’s strong postseason.
Calling it “strong” might actually be underselling what the Batesville native did. While he lasted only 3 innings against Tennessee in the super regional, Wood gave up just one run in what was his worst outing of the NCAA Tournament. He racked up 13 strikeouts in the regional-clinching win over Creighton and had a historic performance in Omaha with a 19-strikeout no-hitter, the first at the College World Series since 1960.
The shoulder injury that sidelined him for a good chunk of this season might be cause for some concern, but his electric fastball – one of the best in this year’s draft class – has scouts drooling. When he was healthy, he struck out 41% of the batters he faced, which was the third-best rate in all of college baseball.
D1Baseball compared him to MLB All-Stars Craig Kimbrel and Spencer Strider, while CBS Sports’ R.J. Anderson ranked him as the 20th-best prospect with the added caveat that he “could develop into the best pitcher in the class.”
With Wood’s status now solidified, this will most likely be the first year Arkansas has had two first-round picks in the same MLB Draft. The biggest question is whether it’ll be him or Aloy off the board first.
LHP Zach Root
D1: No. 18 | The Athletic: No. 29 | P1500: No. 35 | FSS: No. 36 | BA: No. 40 | MLB: No. 42 | ESPN: No. 48 | PBR: No. 48
Slot value range: $2.03 million-$3.19 million
He had an up-and-down regular season that may not have lived up to some fans’ expectations, but Zach Root still did enough to earn first-team All-SEC accolades and was nails in the postseason.
Although he had the small hiccup against LSU in Omaha, the left-hander threw 6 shutout innings against Creighton in the critical winner’s bracket game of the Fayetteville Regional, allowed only 1 earned run on 1 hit against Tennessee in an emotional super regional performance and capped his career with 5 shutout innings against UCLA in a College World Series elimination game.
Considered one of the best pitchers available in the transfer portal last offseason, Root mostly lived up to the hype that followed him from East Carolina. His 126 strikeouts rank seventh on the UA’s single-season list and he posted a solid 3.62 ERA and 1.18 WHIP.
Perhaps most notably for his draft stock, Root’s velocity ticked up down the stretch and even reached 99 mph. It was a significant development that was known more for his wide variety of offerings than how hard he threw.
OF Charles Davalan
The Athletic: No. 25 | D1: No. 30 | MLB: No. 54 | P1500: No. 57 | ESPN: No. 60 | BA: No. 62 | FSS: No. 66 | PBR: No. 70
Slot value range: $1.19 million-$3.61 million
Similar to Root, Charles Davalan is viewed as a borderline first-round pick. Whether or not he sneaks into the sandwich picks (picks 28-43, still considered “first-rounders”), four Arkansas players will almost certainly hear their name called on Day 1 of the MLB Draft. The Razorbacks have had multiple top-60 picks just once before (2010) and could double that this year.
Considering what he did at Florida Gulf Coast as a freshman last year, it may be surprising to see Davalan projected so high, but he made the most of what will likely be his lone season in the SEC.
As a draft-eligible sophomore, the Canadian locked down the leadoff spot from the jump and slashed .346/.433/.561 with 14 home runs and 60 RBIs while striking out just 27 times (compared to 35 walks). He also led the team in stolen bases, going 10 for 13.
Despite the final play of his career unfolding the way it did, Davalan was a solid defender – first in center and then in left – and should only improve as he gets more comfortable in the outfield, as he played a lot of second base at FGCU. His bat-to-ball skills and increased power this year likely made him a lot of money in the MLB Draft.
3B Brent Iredale
D1: No. 93 | P1500: No. 165 | ESPN: No. 174 | MLB: No. 177 | FSS: No. 192 | BA: No. 238
Slot value range: $229,000-$407,300
The Razorbacks had to sweat it out last summer when Brent Iredale was considered one of the top JUCO prospects in the 2024 MLB Draft, but he went undrafted and made it to campus.
It was a huge development for Arkansas, as he asserted himself as one of the top hitters on the team and proved he was an above-average defender capable of handling the hot corner during the fall.
He got off to a super hot start, but struggled once SEC play rolled around. He still ended up slashing .286/.450/.544 with 14 home runs and 57 RBIs, though. The biggest reason he stayed in the lineup despite the hits drying up late in the year was he still managed to get on base at a high clip thanks to a team-high 46 walks and 21 HBPs, not to mention his solid defense at third.
Those struggles against SEC pitching led to the Australian slipping down draft boards, but he will likely still get picked and receive a mid-six-figure signing bonus.
LHP Landon Beidelschies
The Athletic: No. 62 | BA: No. 72 | D1: No. 150 | P1500: No. 159 | FSS: No. 205 | MLB: No. 208 | ESPN: No. 233
Slot value range: $236,800-$1.45 million
Another heralded transfer for the Razorbacks, Landon Beidelschies was widely considered one of the two best left-handers in the portal last offseason, alongside Root. He was Ohio State’s ace in 2024.
He was pretty good in his lone season at Arkansas except for one glaring issue: the long ball. The 6-foot-3, 230-pound lefty surrendered a whopping 14 home runs in 61 2/3 innings, which is how many Root and Gabe Gaeckle combined for in 170 2/3 total innings.
Take out the home runs and his numbers look significantly better than the 4.82 ERA he finished with. Sure enough, pitching at the cavernous Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Biedelschies capped his career with 5 really strong innings against eventual national champion LSU. Both of the runs he gave up scored after he came out of the game and he racked up a season-high 9 strikeouts.
As such, the experts vary wildly in their opinion of Biedelschies. The Athletic and Baseball America each consider him a top-100 prospect, while Future Stars Series, MLB Pipeline and ESPN have him outside the top 200.
RHP Christian Foutch
D1: No. 83 | P1500: No. 229 | MLB: No. 231 | FSS: No. 253 | BA: No. 258
Slot value range: $209,600-$243,300
Armed with a fastball that touches triple-digits and a nasty splitter, Christian Foutch had some of the best pure stuff at Arkansas over the last three seasons, but he never quite put it all together to have a large role on the staff.
After posting a minuscule 0.81 ERA in 22 1/3 innings as a sophomore, the right-hander was projected to be the Razorbacks’ closer in 2025. He struggled out of the gate, though, and didn’t maintain that role very long. Foutch eventually had some solid outings down the stretch, and finished with 31 strikeouts in 22 innings while holding opponents to a .182 batting average, but still had a 4.09 ERA.
Still, he has the potential to be a weapon out of the bullpen at the big league level if he can figure it out and some team will take that gamble. Look no further than Jake Faherty last year. He was even less proven than Foutch, but got picked in the 11th round and received a $200,000 signing bonus, meaning the Marlins dipped into their bonus pool to sign him.
Intel on Arkansas’ Borderline MLB Draft Prospects
It would not be a shock to see any of these guys picked during the 2025 MLB Draft, but they are far from locks. Here’s what Best of Arkansas Sports baseball expert Andrew Hutchinson is hearing…
OF Justin Thomas Jr.
FSS: No. 327
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Arkansas Baseball Players Out of Eligibility
OF Logan Maxwell
RHP Dylan Carter
RHP Will McEntire
OF Carson Boles
OF Kendall Diggs
OF/1B Rocco Peppi
All six of these players have exhausted their collegiate eligibility and therefore have no leverage if they get drafted, meaning they would almost certainly receive signing bonuses well below slot value.
However, that is also what makes it possible that they hear their name called at some point in the 8th-10th rounds when teams pick seniors in order to save money in their bonus pool for earlier picks that will require over-slot bonuses.
Logan Maxwell is the most likely candidate here, as he led the team with a .356 batting average and nearly tripled his career home run total this season with 13 – despite being hampered by a nagging hamstring injury. That health concern could also lead to him going undrafted.
Dylan Carter posted a 2.18 ERA and held opponents to a .202 batting average in 33 innings this season. He has also touched 98 mph on the radar gun, so it wouldn’t be shocking to see him drafted at some point — but he turns 24 in August and has had Tommy John surgery.
Age is also a factor for Will McEntire, as he is almost 25 years old. He doesn’t have the same velocity as Carter, but the Bryant native knows how to pitch and could get a pro opportunity.
The other three didn’t play much this year and probably won’t get drafted, but could sign as undrafted free agents. Kendall Diggs never seemed to bounce back from his shoulder injury that required surgery, Carson Boles hit well in limited opportunities and Rocco Peppi was productive at his previous stops.
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