As the 2025 MLB Draft quickly approaches, the Prospects Live team wants to make your life as easy as possible. In this upcoming series of articles, I'll be providing team-by-team analysis of their recent draft trends, their available draft capital for 2025, any areas of the draft they've heavily targeted, as well as a few names in this year's class that might fit into their historically preferred archetype.

This analysis isn't sourced for the upcoming year, nor is it a guarantee the organization won't pivot from what they've done in the past. Simply put, this article aims to provide an in-depth look at teams and their recent draft classes to try and decipher trends that could help uncover players your favorite team might be targeting. It's far from a perfect science, but I've done my job if it makes things easier to follow on draft day.

Arizona Diamondbacks

  • 2025 Bonus Pool Value - $10,917,800 (18th)
  • Top 100 selections - 18, 29, 92

The D-Backs combat their lack of a second-rounder this season (signing Corbin Burnes) with their compensation pick awarded for losing Christian Walker in the offseason, and they find themselves roughly in the middle of the pack in terms of bonus pools. Arizona has done relatively well in recent drafts and has more depth than the impact in their system. That’s certainly a byproduct of their general strategy throughout the draft. However, I’m curious if that trend continues with top-heavy draft capital.

2024 Draft Overview

It was a massive haul for Arizona in 2024 as they were able to spread their large bonus pool around and come away with six T-150 players, according to the 2024 Prospects Live final board. 

Slade Caldwell ($40,000 over slot) and Ryan Waldschmidt (slot) headlined the class as metric darlings with twitch and OBP skills. However, names like JD Dix ($480,000 under slot) and Tytus Cissell ($265,000 over slot) were late risers in the high school class, bringing some projectability to the system. 

Big-time arms Connor Foley ($608,000 over slot) and Daniel Eagen ($67,700 under slot) rounded out the top names in this class, though high schooler Bo Walker ($350,000 over slot) was a nice get in the 11th round, and only further supplements a tremendous group of players.

2023 Draft Overview

Injuries have plagued this class of draftees, but they were still able to secure some top-end talent in first-rounder Tommy Troy ($640,000 under slot) and second-rounder LuJames Groover (slot). 

Troy has had a tumultuous time thus far as a pro. However, he’s performed much better early this season, showing off the skills that made him worthy of a top-ten pick back in 2023. 

Groover, meanwhile, has performed rather steadily and should see Triple-A at some point this season. However, most of the savings made in this draft were spent on collegiate lefties Caden Grice ($40,000 over slot) and Grayson Hitt ($600,000 over slot); yet, neither one has been able to stay on the field consistently and lacks any legitimate professional track record. Unfortunately, their seventh-rounder Ryan Bruno, who had some legitimate upside coming out of Stanford, fell to the same injury bug and is yet to debut as a pro. I’ll chalk the bulk of this class up to a string of unfortunate luck. It seems like the process was sound, and it just hasn’t worked out.

2022 Draft Overview

This draft differed from their two more recent classes because they had the second overall pick and a larger piggy bank of pool money to play with. 

Druw Jones (slot) was the clear pick at #2 overall and has not lived up to expectations, while Landon Sims ($90,000 over slot) and Ivan Melendez ($420,000 under slot) have been whelming professionally but provide a bit more promise professionally. 

They were able to move some money around with Melendez and nabbed both Demetrio Crisantes ($175,000 over slot) and Spencer Giesting ($250,000 over slot), a move that’s paid off wonderfully for the snakes and perhaps anchored their commitment to spreading the wealth throughout their draft classes. This class had a nice mix of collegiate talent and prep flash; however, the payoff ultimately resulted from the later rounds booming in a big way.

Early Round Demographics 

Overall, Arizona has done a nice job playing to each class's strengths and maximizing the value they extract yearly. 

However, they aren't necessarily sticking to one common positional group or demographic. I don't expect them to go largely over-slot in round one and would not be surprised if they cut money on one of their top thirty picks to try and land an over-slot deal in the later rounds. 

They've followed that blueprint consistently over the past few years, and I don't expect that to change with the depth of this draft. Expect to see college players who are metrically inclined (aka "model darlings") and twitchy, athletic prep players with up-the-middle traits. Hit-over-power is typically the preference here as well, with a strong command of the zone often being an emphasis.

Late Round Demographics

There’s been a longer track record of success of going with the flow of drafting arms later in the draft, though the emergence of Demetrio Crisantes could potentially help sway them to take prep players in a deep year for high schoolers. 

Positionally, look for a lot of arms. After the first ten rounds have come and gone, they’ve almost gone with arms for the past two years. They’ve mixed in some positional talent loosely after taking big swings in the middle rounds on over-slot pitchers (Hitt, Foley); however, for the most part, they’re looking to fill out their organizational pitching depth. The odds of unlocking something in a pitcher are usually higher than unlocking something in a position player, so this general strategy seems like a good bet.

Names to Know

Ethan Conrad, Wake Forest OF - Conrad went down with an injury this season but was well on his way to being a top pick. Seems like a guy Arizona would be all over.

Brendan Summerhill, Arizona OF - Much of the same as with Conrad, Summerhill was a top prospect and went down with injury. I’d be surprised if he made it to 18, but if he did, I’d expect him to be a Diamondback.

Dean Moss, HS OF - He doesn’t have the footspeed of Caldwell, but Moss possesses an advanced approach at the plate, twitch, and a well rounded profile. His OBP skills and impressive EV’s could leave him a target for Arizona.