Recapping the 2025 MLB Draft for Kentucky baseball

The 20-round 2025 MLB Draft concluded on Monday night, providing a better outlook on how rosters will look across college baseball next season. MLB teams have until July 28 at 5 p.m. ET to sign their draft picks. However, players selected in the top 10 rounds are expected to sign, and many college players selected in rounds 11 through 20 will also sign.

Last week’s draft primer focused on seven players to watch. Five of those seven were drafted and are likely to sign. We’ll see if there are any surprising developments in the next couple of weeks, but as of now, I would advise folks to proceed with the idea that the five players below are signing with the clubs that drafted them:

• RHP Josh Flores (Lake Central HS (IN), 4th round pick to the Milwaukee Brewers)
• OF Conor Essenburg (Lincoln-Way West HS (IL), 5th round pick to the Atlanta Braves)
• C Jase Mitchell (Cape Henlopen HS (DE), 7th round pick to the Houston Astros)
• LHP Ethan Walker (University of Kentucky, 12th round pick to the Boston Red Sox)
• RHP Kaden Echeman (Northern Kentucky University, 12th round pick to the St. Louis Cardinals)

The draft did not turn out to be the worst-case scenario for Kentucky, but there were not enough things that fell into the Wildcats’ favor to call it a good outcome. It was mostly just…fine.

In my opinion, it didn’t go so well or so poorly that expectations for next year were significantly altered. On paper, this should be a good SEC baseball team in 2026.

Main takeaways

Let’s start with the good things:

• The Kentucky Baseball account tweeted early during Day 2 of the draft that Lexington Catholic High School standout Owen Jenkins would attend UK. As I wrote last week, people around the program had felt good about Jenkins making it to school and that’s how it played out. You never want to take the expected outcomes for granted. With Jenkins set to enroll, it marks the second straight season that the program has signed a high school prospect who ranked in the top 30 by at least one ranking service. There will be plenty of time to dive into how Jenkins fits into the program, but for now, getting Jenkins in Blue & White is an excellent outcome.
• Indiana infield transfer Tyler Cerny has produced a good summer in the MLB Draft League and was thought to be a draft risk. Cerny was not selected in the draft and he told Bat Cats Central that he plans to head to Kentucky for his final year of college baseball. Cerny has a career slash line of .292/.371/.511 with 47 doubles, six triples, 30 home runs, and 135 RBIs in three years at Indiana.
• One other player I’d like to mention is outfielder Braxton Van Cleave. I think Van Cleave was well on his way to being a serious draft prospect had his high school career not been prematurely ended by a torn UCL. He’s been on campus for the past few weeks, continuing his rehabilitation in hopes of being ready to hit in the fall. Whether or not he’s a factor on the 2026 team will boil down to his recovery in the coming months, but Van Cleave had entered the top 75 nationally for the 2025 class at Prep Baseball Report before his injury. It’s easy to envision Van Cleave as a future starting outfielder in Kentucky’s program.

Righthanded pitcher Jaxon Jelkin's withdrawal from the draft last week meant that there was one less player to worry about the past two days. The Wildcats went into the draft feeling like they had a weekend rotation talent — possibly even a Friday night starter if it breaks that way — without having to sweat it out. Jelkin lands in the category of a positive outcome as well, even if we already knew it would be the case heading into the draft. Read more about Jelkin’s decision to return to Kentucky for his senior year.