Today, we take a look at the five college baseball programs that came out of the draft as the biggest winners. In this analysis, I only included players that were set to be newcomers and were industry-recognized draft risks, not players that were already on the team or were coming in from the portal as non draft-eligible players.

Most of the programs here lost a lot of their top talent to the draft, as expected, but all of them on the list retained more than expected. Here’s a look into which teams came out on top of the 2025 draft the most.

University of Tennessee

The biggest college draft winner for me is the Tennessee Volunteers. It went about as expected for the Vols, losing top prep shortstops Billy Carlson and Steele Hall within the first ten picks. Also, Kruz Schoolcraft was selected at pick number 25. They also lost one of their intriguing portal pickups from Bowling Green, OF/RHP DJ Newman, in the late rounds.

It could have been a lot more devastating as one of the biggest shocks of the entire draft was prep lefty Cameron Appenzeller not being selected until the 19th round where he, barring some massive surprises, likely won’t sign and will make it to Knoxville. Ethan Moore was also another late round selection from the Vols’ class and is also likely to make it to campus.

Tennessee landed a pair of former Virginia Cavaliers out of the portal who had a pretty good chance to go in the draft in Henry Ford and Evan Blanco. Catcher Trent Grindlinger was another surprise land for Tennessee as he was expected to go fairly early.

Among other top guys they retained from Tennessee’s recruiting class are 1B Evan Hankins, RHP Ethan Baiotto, RHP Tyler Wood, OF Nathan Eisfelder, and OF Taylor Tracey. All in all, Tennessee made out very well post-draft and they have brought in multiple players who are set to make a major difference early on, filling the roles of some big-time losses from last year’s team. 

University of Texas