Tennessee baseball infielder Dean Curley was selected No. 64 overall by the Cleveland Guardians in the second round of the 2025 MLB Draft on Sunday night.
Curley was the sixth Vol selected in this year’s draft. The No. 64 overall pick was assigned a slot value of $1,380,000. The estimation provides a ballpark range for the amount Curley could sign for in the coming weeks.
Curley was the starting shortstop on the Vols’ national championship team as a true freshman in 2024. The California native was a freshman All-American and earned SEC All-Freshman Team honors in 2024 before posting an impressive sophomore season in 2025 in which he started all 65 games to hit .315 with 14 home runs and 51 RBIs. Curley hit .301 with 46 extra-base hits, 26 homers, 101 RBIs and 76 walks.
The Athletic’s Keith Law ranked Curley as his No. 34 overall draft prospect. MLB.com ranked Curley No. 60.
“Curley has excellent feel to hit with a simple swing that gets the ball in the air, although as the season went on he started to have more trouble picking up off-speed stuff from the better pitching in the SEC,” Law wrote in his scouting report for Curley. “He rarely chases pitches well outside of the zone (10 percent this year on pitches beyond the “shadow,” down from 14 percent last year), and makes enough contact in the zone to project an average hit tool, although his performance in conference is a little concerning. He can get to good velocity, but he’ll have to work on pitch recognition at some point in the high minors, maybe in Double A where he’ll see better secondaries on a consistent basis. He’s not a shortstop and probably has his best shot to stay on the dirt at third base. He’s draft-eligible as a sophomore, as he turned 21 in April.”
Curley is the 49th Tennessee player that has been drafted since Vitello took over the program in 2018. The Volunteers entered this year’s draft averaging just over six picks per year, and have produced at least seven selections in each of the last four drafts. The Vols had a program record 10 drafted in 2022 and eight selections in each of the last two drafts.