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Jace LaViolette (left) and Ethan Holliday (Photos by Eddie Kelly / ProLook Photos)
We’re in the early days of the 2025 draft cycle. It’s a time when the entire amateur scouting industry has had a few months to focus exclusively on a new class of players. Because of that, there’s often plenty of disagreement and wide ranges of opinions on the class.
The Debate At No. 1
One question I’ve been asking essentially every scout I talk to is: “Who do you have No. 1?”
If you’ve already looked at our draft update, you probably know the most frequent answer to that question. Texas A&M outfielder Jace LaViolette is the new leader of the class and seems like the best fit for the honor at the moment given his well-rounded profile and a down summer from Oklahoma high school shortstop Ethan Holliday, who checks in at No. 2.
Most evaluators seem to have LaViolette and Holliday in their top tier no matter the order, but I have spoken with scouts on the lower end who view Holliday as more of a middle-of-the-first round or back-of-the-top-10 prospect. I haven’t heard that feedback much at all for LaViolette.
LaViolette’s 1-1 case is simple: He’s a physical, 6-foot-5, 220-pound lefthanded-hitting outfielder who combines standout athleticism with a loud toolset and two years of impressive production in college baseball’s stiffest conference. The 20-year-old is a .297/.433/.683 hitter with Texas A&M, has homered at least 20 times in each of his first two seasons, has tremendous exit velocity data (108.8 90th percentile EV in 2024) and raw power, is a shockingly good runner for his size and plays center field well enough to perhaps stick there at the next level.
“He is a freak athlete,” said one scout.
His pure contact skills are likely the one area that holds LaViolette back from being the consensus No. 1 player in the class at this stage. He has struck out at a 25.4% clip in his first two seasons, which would be an extremely high mark for the first college hitter off the board. Scouts are confident he’ll improve that mark during his draft season next spring and cite a strong batting eye (20% chase rate in college) that could help him do it. For now, that’s his one real question mark, and he’ll need to improve on his 71% overall contact rate.
Holliday entered the summer as the top player in the class, and there are still some scouts…