{"id":682140,"date":"2026-04-24T14:43:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T14:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/682140\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T14:43:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T14:43:42","slug":"kentucky-qb-commit-matt-ponatoski-breaks-down-mlb-draft-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/682140\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky QB commit Matt Ponatoski breaks down MLB Draft decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kentucky QB commit Matt Ponatoski breaks down MLB Draft decision<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Matt Ponatoski is one of the best high school athletes in the country.<\/p>\n

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He’s a high-level QB capable of heading to the University of Kentucky and being a quarterback for the Wildcats. He is also in line to be a high-end MLB Draft pick in July.<\/p>\n

That creates a decision, because he can’t do both, at least right now.<\/p>\n

If Ponatoski wants to sign with the MLB team that drafts him, he won’t be able to go to Kentucky.<\/p>\n

If he wants to play for the Wildcats, he’ll have to pass on his MLB draft pick.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0This might be the weirdest way to get an inside-the-park HR<\/a><\/p>\n

Ponatoski could then play baseball at UK and conceptually be drafted again in three years, but that’s a long way away.<\/p>\n

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Right now, he’s finishing out his senior season at powerhouse Archbishop Moeller in the Cincinnati area.<\/p>\n

He spoke with S<\/a>pectrum News<\/a> about what will go into his eventual choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to be fully prepared to go to school and go be at Kentucky and enroll and go compete for a quarterback battle when I get there,” Ponatoski said. “But at the same time, like going and putting my best foot forward to these MLB teams and showing them like I have what it takes for you to draft me.\u201d<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Even the New York Times is mocking the New York Mets<\/a><\/p>\n

Essentially, Ponatoski isn’t giving anything away. And he probably genuinely doesn’t know which path he’ll end up taking.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s one A and one B,\u201d Ponatoski said. \u201cI\u2019m going to go have a great career at Kentucky, or I\u2019m going to go be a professional baseball player. It\u2019s like you can\u2019t draw it up much better.\u201d<\/p>\n

That’s a positive way of looking at it.<\/p>\n

It’s a good problem to have for Ponatoski. For Kentucky, though, it’s got to be at least a bit stressful waiting to see if their QB recruit ever shows up on campus.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kentucky QB commit Matt Ponatoski breaks down MLB Draft decision originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2276],"tags":[86293,5,2291,86292,4,1586,61,30431],"class_list":["post-682140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb-draft","tag-archbishop-moeller","tag-baseball","tag-major-league-baseball-draft","tag-matt-ponatoski","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-draft","tag-new-york-mets","tag-university-of-kentucky"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116460218159976088","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682140","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=682140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}