Oregon State\u2019s Dax Whitney tops updated 2027 draft rankings<\/p>\n
Published 1:03 pm Wednesday, April 8, 2026<\/p>\n
Baseball America names Beavers right-hander No. 1 prospect in next year\u2019s draft class<\/p>\n
Oregon State sophomore Dax Whitney<\/a> still has some 15 months of waiting before he\u2019ll hear his name called in the Major League Baseball draft, but is already the front runner to be the top selection. <\/p>\n On Wednesday, Baseball America<\/a> published its updated draft rankings, tabbing Whitney as the class of 2027\u2019s<\/a> No. 1 prospect. The right-hander is no stranger to such lists, appearing in the top five of its past renditions and drawing plenty of buzz in 2024 coming out of Blackfoot High School in Idaho.<\/p>\n Whitney\u2019s sophomore season in Corvallis has elevated the Oregon State right-hander from a toolsy, impressive youngster into arguably the country\u2019s best right-handed starter and the ace of a top-10 ranked Oregon State team. <\/p>\n Dax Whitney\u2019s dominant sophomore campaign <\/p>\n In eight starts this year, Whitney is a perfect 5-0 and owns a 1.33 ERA. He leads the country with 88 strikeouts with 47 and 1\/3 innings under his belt. <\/p>\n Whitney has a nine-strikeout lead over his closest competition \u2014 junior USC left-hander Mason Edwards<\/a> (79 K, 45 IP) \u2014 and has punched out double-digit batters in six of his last seven starts. <\/p>\n In 25 collegiate starts, Whitney owns a 2.61 ERA, an 11-3 record and amassed 124 innings. He\u2019s struck out 208 of the 514 batters he\u2019s faced and allowed 36 earned runs on 87 hits. <\/p>\n New tools in the belt <\/p>\n Whitney\u2019s dominance is a credit to an overhauled arsenal following an equally-impressive freshman campaign. As a freshman, his fastball sat in the low-to-mid 90 mph range, paired with a hard curveball and a sweeping slider. <\/p>\n He added velocity to his fastball for his sophomore year, which consistently sits in the 96-98 mph range now and has topped 101 mph. Whitney\u2019s curveball remains just as dominant, now paired with a sharper, tighter slider in the upper 80s and a changeup with nearly two feet of separation from his fastball \u2014 both vertically and horizontally. <\/p>\n In layman\u2019s terms, Whitney is really, really good at throwing a baseball. <\/p>\n Opposing batters hit just .159 against him. He\u2019s worked into the fifth inning of all eight games he\u2019s started and five of the seven earned runs he\u2019s allowed came on home runs. <\/p>\n Whitney on pace for Oregon State\u2019s single-season strikeout record, Hjerpe\u2019s throne<\/p>\n At the time of this article\u2019s publication, Whitney is on pace to smash Oregon State\u2019s single-season strikeout record. Cooper Hjerpe, a St. Louis Cardinals draft pick in 2022, set the record the same year with 161.<\/p>\n The pair are tied for the Beavers\u2019 single-game strikeout record of 17. Hjerpe achieved the feat over eight frames against Stanford in April 2022, Whitney did it in seven against Baylor on February 20<\/a>. <\/p>\n Whitney\u2019s 2026 and Hjerpe\u2019s record-setting 2022 season are nearly identical through their first eight starts, innings wise. Hjerpe worked 47 and 2\/3 innings in the span, while Whitney is one out behind at 47 and 1\/3. Whitney, however, has an 11-strikeout lead over his predecessor. Hjerpe punched out 77 batters in the span. <\/p>\n Whitney averages about six innings and 14.5 strikeouts per start. With six Friday games left for Oregon State during the regular-season, Hjerpe\u2019s record is well within striking distance for Whitney. <\/p>\n Hawaii pitcher Derek Tatsuno\u2019s 1979 record of 234 in a single season<\/a> (174.1 IP) may never be touched; and former LSU pitcher Paul Skenes<\/a>\u2019 209 punchouts in 2023 (122.2 IP) \u2014 arguably the most dominant season by a college arm \u2014 is equally distant. <\/p>\n Other awards and honors <\/p>\n On April 2, USA Baseball named Whitney to the Golden Spikes Award midseason watchlist, college baseball\u2019s highest individual honor and the sport\u2019s Heisman Trophy equivalent. He was a unanimous preseason all-American selection prior to the season\u2019s start, too. Perched atop Baseball America\u2019s rankings, he also appears on the outlet\u2019s player of the year and pitcher of the year watchlists. <\/p>\n If a Major League club picks Whitney first overall in 2027, he\u2019d be the Beavers\u2019 third No. 1 pick in a decade, joining Cleveland Guardians second baseman Travis Bazzana (2023) and Baltimore Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman (2019).<\/p>\n Oregon State, Vanderbilt and Arizona State are the only colleges to produce multiple No. 1 picks in the MLB Draft since 1965.<\/p>\n Arizona State\u2019s four No. 1 selections (Rick Monday, 1965; Floyd Bannister, \u201976; Bob Horner, \u201978; Spencer Torkelson, \u201920) are the most in history. Vanderbilt has produced two, pitcher David Price (\u201907) and shortstop Dansby Swanson (\u201915). <\/p>\n Whitney\u2019s next start is scheduled for Friday, April 10, when No. 7 Oregon State (25-7) faces Cal Poly (18-13) at Goss Stadium in Corvallis. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oregon State\u2019s Dax Whitney tops updated 2027 draft rankings Published 1:03 pm Wednesday, April 8, 2026 Baseball America…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2276],"tags":[5,2291,4,1586],"class_list":{"0":"post-673382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-draft","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-major-league-baseball-draft","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-mlb-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116386938818368887","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}