In the 60 years the Major League Baseball Draft has been held, Hawaii has never had two high school graduates selected in the same first round.

That will likely change this year with Saint Louis alum Aiva Arquette and Baldwin graduate Wehiwa Aloy projected to be selected in the top 20 picks on Sunday on the first of two days of the draft held in Atlanta.

The first three rounds will happen Sunday, with Arquette, who recently finished his junior season at Oregon State, threatening Justin Wayne’s status as the top pick ever from the state of Hawaii. Wayne went fifth overall to the Montreal Expos in 2000.

Rounds four through 20 will start early Monday morning at 5:30.

Wayne, a Punahou alumnus who was drafted out of Stanford as a right-handed pitcher, earned a signing bonus of $2,950,500 that season.

That bonus would put him outside of the top 30 picks this season. With values given to each pick, the projected bonus for the top overall pick this season is more than $11 million.

Don’t miss out on what’s happening!

Arquette, a 6-foot-5 shortstop who spent his first two collegiate seasons at Washington before transferring, was picked in the 18th round out of high school.

He has turned himself into the top collegiate bat, according to most mock drafts. The Athletic’s Keith Law has him going No. 3 overall to the Seattle Mariners in his latest mock draft after pegging him as the No. 1 overall pick in his previous mock draft.

MLB.com ranks him as the No. 6 overall draft prospect.

“He is just one of those guys who is so very athletic,” Arquette’s high school baseball coach George Gusman said this week. “It’s all there. The complete package: athletic, hard work ethic, great person from a great family. It’s kind of amazing how that always happens when you have great kids, they usually come from great families.”

Aloy, who won the Golden Spikes Award as college baseball’s player of the year, is ranked 17th in those same MLB.com draft rankings.

A shortstop like Arquette, Aloy’s path to potential first-round draft status has gone a little differently.

He was the Western Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year at Sacramento State, where he signed out of high school as an unheralded recruit from the Valley Isle.

He transferred to Arkansas as a sophomore, then had a breakout summer in the Cape Cod League in 2024, hitting eight homers in 21 games.

He followed that up with an SEC Player of the Year award to complement his Golden Spikes honor as a junior and led the Razorbacks into the College World Series. In Law’s mock draft that has Arquette going third, he has Aloy getting drafted 13th overall by the San Francisco Giants.

“I feel like it’s pretty cool being from Maui and not getting that much exposure at an early age coming out of high school,” Aloy said in an interview late last month about his college accolades. “I thought I could continue at any level coming out of high school. I was really confident and competitive.”

Only two Hawaii high school graduates has ever been selected in the first 20 picks. Waiakea’s Kodi Medeiros was the 12th overall pick of the Milwaukee Brewers out of high school in 2014.

There were two players with Hawaii ties taken in the first round of the 1985 draft. Right-hander Mike Campbell, who attended high school in Washington before playing at the University of Hawaii, went seventh overall to the Seattle Mariners, and another pitcher, David Masters, who graduated from ‘Iolani and attended California, was selected with the 24th pick by the Chicago Cubs.

A year later, another ‘Iolani alum, Mike Fetters, who played at Pepperdine, was taken with the No. 27 overall pick by the California Angels.

Other potential draft picks with Hawaii ties this year include Saint Louis shortstop Bruin Agbayani, the son of Benny Agbayani who has signed with Michigan; and University of Hawaii right-hander Itsuki Takemoto, who struggled at times on the mound this season for the Rainbows but was still an All-Big West first-team selection. Takemoto was named the Most Outstanding Pitcher in the Cape Cod League last summer

Agbayani is rated as the No. 234 overall prospect by MLB.com.

———

2025 MLB Draft prospects with Hawaii ties:

Name Position School MLB.com rank

Aiva Arquette SS Oregon State (Saint Louis) No. 6

Wehiwa Aloy SS Arkansas (Baldwin) No. 17

Bruin Agbayani SS Saint Louis No. 234

Itsuki Takemoto RHP Hawaii N/A

Mana Lau Kong 3B ‘Iolani N/A

———

Players with Hawaii ties selected in the top 50 picks of the MLB Draft:

Name School Pos. Team Draft No.

Justin Wayne Stanford (Punahou) RHP Montreal 2000 5

Mike Campbell Hawaii RHP Seattle 1985 7

Kodi Medeiros Waiakea LHP Milwaukee 2014 12

Mark Johnson Hawaii RHP Houston 1996 19

Kolten Wong Hawaii (KS-Hawaii) 2B St. Louis 2011 22

David Masters Cal (‘Iolani) RHP Chicago 1985 24

Mike Fetters Pepperdine (‘Iolani) RHP California 1986 27

Bronson Sardinha Kamehameha SS N.Y. Yankees 2001 34

Jerome Williams Waipahu RHP San Francisco 1999 39

Caleb Lomavita Cal (Saint Louis) C Washington 2024 39

Derek Tatsuno Hawaii (Aiea) LHP San Diego 1979 40

Dane Sardinha Pepperdine (Kamehameha) C Cincinnati 2000 46

Scott Roberts Hawaii RHP Milwaukee 1981 47