A handful of Florida Gators hear their name called every draft cycle, typically a few inside the first five rounds. The 2025 class looks to be no different with six Gators on D1Baseball’s list of the Top 150 College Draft Prospects ahead of the spring season.
Shortstop [autotag]Colby Shelton[/autotag] (63rd), right-hander [autotag]Jake Clemente[/autotag] (79th), left-hander [autotag]Pierce Coppola[/autotag] (101st), infielder/outfielder [autotag]Blake Cyr[/autotag] (113th), second baseman [autotag]Cade Kurland[/autotag] (125th) and catcher/first baseman/outfielder [autotag]Brody Donay[/autotag] (150th) all made the cut.
Florida baseball fans should be familiar with five of those six names from last season, the lone addition being Cyr, who transferred from Miami.
No. 63: SS Colby Shelton
Shelton transferred to Florida ahead of the 2024 season from Alabama, with the promise of being the Gators’ everyday shortstop instead of being shifted to third base by the Crimson Tide. Defensively, Shelton impressed but still has work to do to remain at short in the pros. MLB teams interested in him might view him more as an offensive second baseman come draft time.
Offensively, Shelton will enter the 2025 season as Florida’s most feared bat and hit in the middle of the lineup. He has a chance to lead the team in home runs, with power being his most projectable tool.
It’s notable that a .254/.375/.551 slash line and setting the program record for homers by a shortstop (20) last season was viewed as disappointing, but the dip from a .300/.419/.729 freshman year can be attributed to a flatter swing and focus on defense. The flattened swing resulted in a 4% increase in line drives, but he also hit the ball on the ground 6% more often. Getting that flyball rate back up above 50% should help his numbers in a metal-bat league.
After shining offensively as a freshman and defensively as a sophomore, Shelton’s junior year is the time to put it all together. Areas of focus will be cutting down on a career 25.6% strikeout rate and returning to form in isolated power (.429 in 2023, .297 in 2024).
No. 79: RHP Jake Clemente
Clemente, a standout two-way player out of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, spent his first season on the shelf at Florida, recovering from a shoulder injury. He made 19 appearances with two starts and posted a 5.34 earned run average over 28 2/3 innings. His strikeout-to-walk ratio neared 2.00 — 39 strikeouts and 20 walks — last year and he had a breakout summer in the Cape Cod League.
On the Cape, Clemente emerged as the Brewster Whitecaps’ most reliable starter. He had a 3.00 ERA over 27 innings and held opponents to a .165 batting average. Entering his redshirt sophomore year, Clemente has a chance to be a part of Florida’s weekend rotation, although a two-pitch arsenal may limit his usage.
He’s a fastball-slider guy with good action on his low-to-mid-90s heater that tops at 96 mph. The fastball has good carry, which makes the ball look like it’s rising to hitters, and his slider can be devastating when it hits. There’s two-plane movement on the breaking ball, which makes it act more like a slurve at times but is still a work in progress. Developing an offspeed pitch — changeup — would give him a much better shot at cracking the rotation.
No. 101: LHP Pierce Coppola
Coppola was a draft prospect out of high school thanks to a towering 6-foot-8-inch frame and good velocity from the left side. His college career has been riddled with injuries, though. He opened the 2022 season in the weekend rotation as a true freshman, but he underwent and expected surgery to address a bulging disc in his back after just one start. In 2023, he was spotted in a sling and didn’t pitch all year.
Finally healthy a few weeks into SEC play in 2024, Coppola rejoined the rotation and made eight starts for the Gators. An 8.75 ERA isn’t ideal, but neither is returning to action in the middle of the year as a starter against SEC bats. The encouraging part of his game is a career strikeout-to-walk ratio above 3.00 — 35 strikeouts and 12 walks last year.
He has a three-pitch mix, headlined by a power fastball that can creep up to 97-98 after sitting in the mid-90s. His slider generates a ton of swing-and-miss (40-50%) against hitters on both sides of the plate, and his changeup is serviceable. Coppola is the definition of projectable, but he must prove himself as a workhorse in his fourth year of college ball if the goal is to jump into the first few rounds of the 2025 draft.
No. 113: INF/OF Blake Cyr
Cyr is the most high-profile transfer joining the Gators this year, so it tracks that the former Miami Hurricane is a potential draft prospect. Although Cyr has experience at second base, another Gator on this list has locked down that position over the past two years, which means he’ll likely end up in left field.
The Hurricanes began transitioning Cyr to the outfield last year, but injuries kept him from the field for much of the 2024 season. His slash line dipped from an impressive .305/.427/.620 as a freshman to .284/.397/.537 over 95 at-bats as a sophomore.
Scouts like his hit tool the best, but there’s some considerable power that hasn’t been fully tapped into just yet. If Cyr can bounce back and stay healthy, he’ll be as dangerous as Shelton and give Florida a solid 1-2 punch in the middle of the lineup.
Areas to focus on include his strikeout rate, which trended down from 28.2% to 23.1% last year, and fewer ground balls.
No. 125: 2B Cade Kurland
Kurland has made 129 starts at second base for Florida as an underclassman, and he could be in for a big junior year. An All-SEC First Teamer and Freshman All-American in 2023, Kurland regressed due to a hand injury suffered in early 2024 that never fully healed.
His slash line dropped from .297/.404/.555 to .245/.346/.457 and his strikeout rate jumped from 20.5% to 25.4%. Again, the misdiagnosed hand injury is the main reason for this decline. What he believed to be a bone bruise ended up being a fracture and forced him to change his grip at the plate.
Kevin O’Sullivan expressed to Gators Wire that the program has a lot of faith in Kurland following the Miami series last year, just days after he returned to the lineup. Kurland struck out four times that game, but Florida stuck with him through the struggles.
A healthy Kurland could bounce back to All-SEC form, but the aggressive approach at the plate is still a concern. An All-Star nod over the summer in the Cape Cod League is a positive sign.
No. 150: C/1B/OF/DH Brody Donay
Donay transferred to Florida from Virginia Tech a year ago to give the Gators a right-handed power bat and depth at catcher. Donay has Jac Caglianone-esque power that could grade out at 70 on the 20-80 scale used by pro scouts.
While Donay figures to be an important piece in the middle of Florida’s lineup, it’s not clear where he’ll wind up on the field. The Gators used him as a designated hitter most of the time (30 starts) but also gave him time at catcher (14 starts) and first base.
With Luke Heyman likely to start behind the dish, Donay could see more action at first or even in the outfield. Sully’s job is to figure out where he helps the team most, but some defensive question marks aren’t going to keep a guy capable of 450-foot home runs out of the lineup.
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