What to expect from the Cleveland Guardians in the 2025 MLB Draft

The 2025 MLB Draft is on July 13, and as it gets closer, all eyes across MLB will turn toward mock drafts in the hopes of getting a bit of a clue into which player(s) their favorite team will pick.

The MLB draft has consisted of 20 rounds since 2021, which means over 600 players will hear their name called. Some of those players will be selected by the Guardians.

The Guardians have selected a total of 84 players since the 2021, including three of their most touted prospects in Chase DeLauter, CJ Kayfus, and Travis Bazzana. They’ve also selected key contributors like Tanner Bibee and Gavin Williams, along with many other picks knocking on the door in their high-major affiliates.

Of those 84 selections, the Guardians have selected 14 high school pitchers, 46 college pitchers, three high school position players, and 21 college position players. That averages out to roughly four high school pitchers, 11 college pitchers, one high school position player and five college position players per draft.

Those kind of averages make it seem like the Guardians will use this year's draft to load up on a new crop of pitching along with a handful of position players. This trend also tends to match the Guardians' strengths as an organization, with the gems of their system often emerging in the starting rotation and bullpen.

It's also worth looking at how they've drafted their premium picks in recent years, as the Guardians have had six first-round picks and six second-round picks since 2021.

They've selected two college pitchers, two college position players, one high school position player, and one high school pitcher in the first round along with having selected four college pitchers, one high school pitcher, and one high school position player in the second round.

You can never have enough pitching, and the Guardians have embraced this idea in their draft strategy as they consistently spend high value picks on pitching and use the depth of the draft to bring a variety of arms into the system.

It is also important to notice that the Guardians tend to value college players over high school players, which aligns with their organizational strategy of churning out MLB-ready talent on a yearly basis to supplement their current core.

College players, especially pitchers, tend to be more experienced and have more refined mechanics, and are often put in positions to be aggressively promoted through the Minor League system. Take Andrew Walters for example. The Guardians drafted him in the second round in 2023 out of Miami and he was pitching in the ALCS against the Yankees a little less than a year later.

While this timeline is rather extreme, it speaks to the value of drafting college players over high school players, who often need a few years to physically catch up to their professional competition. For a small market team like the Guardians, they must rely on the rapid development of their top draft picks to fill out the Major League roster rather than dipping into the free agent market for more experienced and expensive options.