Its two months before the MLB Draft, but that doesn’t mean that mock drafts aren’t happening
The 2025 MLB Draft first round will be on July 13, 2025, a little over two months away. MLB Pipeline has released their first mock draft of the year.
The Texas Rangers will be picking 12th overall in the 2025 MLB Draft, and in their first mock of the year, MLB Pipeline has the Rangers taking prep shortstop JoJo Parker. He is one of four prep shortstops they have mocked going in the picks from 10 through 14, and part of what they describe as the second tier of high school shortstops, with second generation guys Ethan Holliday and Eli Willits making up the first tier.
The guy I’ve made my early “this seems like someone the Rangers would pick” guy, Ike Irish, is mocked as going to the Houston Astros at #21. Irish is a lefthanded hitter who has both caught and played right field at Auburn, but who is seen as someone who may move out from behind the plate both because he’s not great back there and because his bat may be more valuable as an everyday player without the grind of having to catch.
Irish has performed at a high level in the best collegiate baseball conference and gets good reviews for his bat-to-ball skills and ability to handle velocity, all of which we know the Rangers value. He also was teammates with, and in the same graduating class as, Brock Porter at St. Mary’s Prep High School, where he was the #173 ranked prospect by BA in the 2022 draft class, so the Rangers presumably are familiar with him from their work scouting that team when they took Porter in 2022.