The Biggest (Literally) Draft Class Yet

In my experience, there isn’t such a thing as a standard ballplayer personality. Sure, there are a few givens: competitiveness, capacity for hard work, and self-confidence. If you don’t have those, you’ll be going pro in something other than sports.

But beyond that? There are brash ballplayers, shy ballplayers, smart ones, dumb ones, nervous and twitchy ones, and guys who are so preternaturally relaxed they look like they’re going to fall asleep mid-sentence.

Coleman Borthwick is a people person. Borthwick is a two-way high school player from Florida (in the panhandle, about halfway between Destin and Panama City, which should be a helpful reference for those of you who partied a lot in college), and he’s a people person.

In four years of going to the MLB Draft Combine, I’ve had the odd player bring a baseball into the interview room, either to demonstrate pitch grips or as something to fidget with. Borthwick is the first player I’ve seen bring a bat to his interview. He sauntered into the room like Paul Bunyan, big smile on his face, accent replete with stretched vowels that TV has ironed out of most kids his age.

When he arrived at the FanGraphs suite at Chase Field late on Day 1 of the Combine, Borthwick was a little shy of halfway through his dance card: 10 team interviews done, 14 more to come on Wednesday.

“It was a lot easier than I thought,” Borthwick said of talking to potential future employers. “Everybody’s stressed out about it. Dude, I’m a talker, so I ain’t worried. I have a good personality, so I just… go with the flow.”

In contrast to some high school prospects, who are just getting their first taste of life under the lights, Borthwick has been around the block. He was MVP of the WSBC U-18 World Cup last fall, where he hit .300 and threw a three-hit shutout against Japan in the tournament final.

Borthwick sat in the low 90s with his fastball against Japan, and has flirted with the 97-98 mph range as a senior, with a potential plus slider that was a serious bat-misser in international competition.

What he’s not, however, is projectable. Borthwick has already projected.

The 18-year-old Floridian is massive, standing 6-foot-6, listed at either 245 or 255 pounds. He already fills out the Team USA kit like an adult World Baseball Classic pitcher, with baggy trousers that only make him look even more humongous.

He looks like Chad Billingsley’s older brother.

This year’s draft class has plenty of your standard, lean, 6-foot-3, 200-pounders. But if you were walking around Chase Field during the week of the Combine, you couldn’t sling a bat over your shoulder without it bonking into a 250-pound prep pitcher or a would-be center fielder the size of a defensive end.

Are there drawbacks to playing baseball at that size?

“I’ve always been an athletic player in the field, ever since I was in kindergarten,” he said. “My dad’s the baseball coach at my high school, and the school bus would drop me off at the high school, and every day I would go out on the field and practice. I’d work out at shortstop, center field, running into the fence, making weird throws to keep my arm athletic, and that grew into my older self now. It keeps me short, like an infield throw.”

If there’s one thing that stands out visually about Borthwick as a pitcher, it’s his arm motion. I saw 6-foot-6 on the stat sheet and expected something languid, but Borthwick has a compact, drop-and-drive delivery and snatches the ball through the air with an economical arm swing.

This gives his fastball life up in the zone, and sets up his slider as a swing-and-miss pitch low and out of the zone. And in stark contrast to your typical prep giant, he has no trouble throwing strikes; Borthwick walked just one hitter in 10 innings at the U-18 World Cup, and in 65 2/3 innings as a high school senior, he struck out 121 opponents and issued just seven walks.

“I’ve always been a natural strike-thrower,” Borthwick said. “I can throw anything. I can throw submarine, sidearm, over the top for strikes.”

That short arm action, derived from his natural throwing motion on the left side of the infield, is the key, Borthwick believes.

“I’ve never had a problem with that short, compact arm slot,” he said. “I’ve always had it — knock on wood — no injuries so far, and it’s been very beneficial for me. I hold my velo all game, I’m not one of those guys that comes out throwing 100 and later in the game is 93-94… It’s just easy and simple. You’ve got to repeat it, repeat it, repeat it.”

Borthwick is far from the only big prep arm likely to be available later on Day 1 of this year’s draft. During our conversation, I mentioned that I’d just spoken to Massachusetts high school left-hander Brody Bumila.

“Man, I thought I was big,” Borthwick said. “I’m pretty big, but that’s big.”

There’s no other way to put this: Bumila is the biggest 18-year-old I’ve ever seen in my life. Every bit of 6-foot-9, 255 pounds, with hands like the Jaws of Life. Pitching Ninja taped a video at the Combine in which Bumila nearly touched his thumb to the tip of his ring finger around a baseball. Eric Longenhagen’s writeup of Bumila on The Board reads, in part: “his changeup (which Bumila barely needed facing New England high schoolers) is already quite nasty.”

No kidding. This kid could palm Saturn; I bet his changeup is nasty.

Bumila’s draft stock has already been a game of Chutes and Ladders. Going to a Catholic school in New England, he’s a hard scout anyway — easier competition than in Florida or Texas, short season, inconsistent weather — and internal brace surgery on his UCL knocked out a chunk of playing time as an underclassman.

Still, Bumila can hit 101 with some regularity, and even in an age when velocity has never been easier to come by, that kind of heat from a left-handed starter is still special. A late first-round draft slot seemed likely until a new UCL injury showed up on a pre-draft MRI. Now it seems more probable that Bumila will either settle for an over-slot bonus later in the draft, or follow through on his commitment to play for the University of Texas.

Bumila’s throwing motion isn’t anywhere near as buttoned-up as Borthwick’s. He’s loose and languid, from a low-three-quarters arm slot.

Nevertheless, he keeps his enormous frame under control, a trait he chalks up to his natural athleticism.

“I’ve been athletic enough to where I don’t really need to think about it,” he said. “I just kind of do it, and my body naturally figures it out.”

It’ll shock you to learn that a 6-foot-9 teenager also plays basketball, and Bumila says his multi-sport background has helped him on the baseball diamond.

“[Basketball] can be so athletic, and it made me do so many different motions,” he said. “All those baseball motions didn’t feel awkward, it was natural. It sounds weird, but striding in basketball, jumping — how low I get when I pitch is how low I get when I jump, so it’s helped me a lot to be explosive in those areas.”

Bumila’s basketball background isn’t otherwise relevant to his draft stock, but I want to spare a moment for it anyway, because it’s fun.

I mentioned to Bumila that it was a little hard to find film of him pitching online because the internet is full of his basketball highlights, and he almost seemed chagrined. He said he never even thought about concentrating on hoops.

“I’ve wanted to be a baseball player ever since I was a kid, and that’s not going to change,” he said. “Just because I wasn’t nearly as good at basketball as I am at baseball.”

That statement gets much funnier once you understand how good a basketball player Bumila is.

Bumila’s Bishop Feehan Shamrocks won the Massachusetts Division I state title this winter, winning four of their five postseason games in overtime. Bumila averaged 40 points and 19 rebounds per game during that playoff run, including 51 and 22 in the semifinal.

Back in the regular season, Bumila came into Senior Night 45 points short of 1,000 for his career. He scored 46 in the first half and sat out the rest of the game.

On his senior night, Bishop Feehan star Brody Bumila scored 46 points in the FIRST HALF to surpass 1,000 career points. He needed 45 to hit the mark entering tonight.

Here’s the moment he reached his milestone.

Legendary stuff. What a scene. pic.twitter.com/Hv3NaIKcs1

— Steve Hewitt (@steve_hewitt) February 7, 2026

And he’s so much better at baseball he never considered another sport. I said you need self-confidence to get ahead in this business.

Speaking of getting ahead in business: Bumila also has a good head for numbers. Those of you who read my article on the MLB proposal to limit the draft to 12 rounds and exclude high schoolers might remember that Bumila had more to say about the issue than anyone else I talked to, including off-the-cuff command of the bonus numbers at play.

Bumila said he’ll spend time poring over old players’ stats pages, and knew offhand that Babe Ruth had 182 career bWAR. We gave him a hard time for using Baseball Reference’s WAR instead of ours, but any high school prospect with a good command of stats is on the right path. And having access to more data is one of the things Bumila’s looking forward to most about the pro game.

“I live for analytics [in relation to] the body,” Bumila said. “Like, learning everything about it. I love talking about it, I love thinking about it, I love seeing how it affects me.”

At the far other end of the spectrum from Bumila is Georgia Tech outfielder Drew Burress, who’s listed at 5-foot-9, 182 pounds.

I use the term “listed at” for a reason, because having seen Burress up close, I am highly skeptical that those figures are going to survive first contact with a professional ABS system. Burress’ 5-foot-9 is what I’d call a Tinder bio height. Not wanting to be impolite, I didn’t confront him on this point directly, but 5-foot-9 is short enough that the size question came up on its own.

“For me, it’s always been about the production, and I’ve had as much, or more, production as any other player in college baseball the last three years,” Burress said. “Obviously people look for the frame and the projectability and whatnot, but for me, it’s about being a winning baseball player. Checking the receipts, I’ve done what I’ve done, and it’s better than anybody else in the country.”

On this point, Burress is empirically correct. In three seasons in Atlanta, totaling 179 games, he’s hit .357/.484/.720, with 60 home runs and 60 doubles. This year, the Yellow Jackets had one of the best offenses in recent college baseball history: They hit .356/.467/.639, leading Division I in all three figures. They scored 662 runs, which led Division I by so much that that figure needs additional context. Only 12 other programs scored even 500 runs this season, and the only team to come within 110 runs of Georgia Tech’s output was their in-state rival Georgia, which needed six more games to do it.

Burress, who hit .358/.473/.657 as a junior, with 49 walks and 43 strikeouts, was at the heart of that offense. His teammate, catcher Vahn Lackey, is a near-lock to be drafted in the first three picks and is a contender for no. 1 overall. But Burress is going to be the second Yellow Jacket off the board, probably somewhere in the late lottery. (Eric’s first mock draft has Burress bound for Washington with the no. 11 overall pick.)

Burress said he takes pride in confounding those who doubt him because of his size.

“I’ve been doubted a lot, obviously, from the time I was 14 years old, that’s something that’s never really changed,” he said. “And it probably won’t change until I’m in the big leagues for 10 years and been an All-Star a few times.”

Of course, we have quite a bit of evidence that short guys can hang just fine in baseball. A little tinkering with arbitrary endpoints reveals that we’ve had more 21st Century MVPs who were 5-foot-9 or shorter (Miguel Tejada, Jimmy Rollins, Dustin Pedroia, Jose Altuve, Mookie Betts) than 6-foot-5 or taller (Joe Mauer, Justin Verlander, Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge).

The Altuve precedent is instructive, because Burress has that same kind of taut, lean strength.

“Where it starts for me is that I’m strong enough to do it,” Burress said. “Obviously, if I was 5-foot-9, 180 and I was weak, then it would be one thing. But I’m really strong, which helps me get [power] from the ground… That’s something I do better than anyone else. I can get the energy from the ground into the bat and into the ball, and up the kinetic chain.”

And there are advantages to having shorter arms.

“A lot of guys that are big, 6-foot-5 guys, most of them swing and miss a lot,” Burress said. “I don’t know if it’s because I’m closer to the ball or what. I think even with ABS now in the big leagues there’s something to be said about there being an advantage to being a smaller player.”

But about those 6-foot-5 guys who swing and miss a lot.

Last year, there was a genuine pop-up star at the Combine. Arizona State outfielder Brandon Compton hit just nine home runs in his draft year, then came across town to the Combine and put up the event’s best power numbers. He had the three hardest-hit batting practice balls, maxing out at 116.9 miles per hour. He posted a median exit velo of 112.3 mph, and while no other hitter touched 114 mph more than once, Compton did it five times in 22 batted balls.

Compton’s monster workout catapulted him from down on the board to pick number 46, where he signed with the Marlins for $2 million. (Compton has struggled in pro ball, ranking 42nd on the most recent Marlins list with a 35+ FV, but don’t worry about that.)

If there’s a Compton-like workout warrior in this year’s class, it’s Missouri State outfielder Caden Bogenpohl. There was some tough competition at this year’s Combine, from Stanford slugger Rintaro Sasaki, high school outfielder Genson Veras, and Rutgers outfielder Peyton Bonds, nephew of you-know-who.

But Bogenpohl put up the three hardest-hit balls of the week, and six of the top 10. The pick of the litter came off his bat at 119.4 mph, which is the biggest exit velo number I can remember seeing, and by some margin. Even with a couple misfires in his batting practice session, Bogenpohl’s median exit velocity was 110.3 mph. This is serious pop.

“That’s kind of what I came here to do,” Bogenpohl said. “I wanted to put on a show, and try to hit some balls pretty hard, get some good flight in there, and actually have a pretty good BP round. But I definitely wanted to try to go for a crazy number on one of those swings.”

Bogenpohl is 6-foot-6, 255 pounds, with a broad torso and big legs. Unlike with Burress, there is no mystery where his power comes from.

“I’ve got a lot of mass behind me, but I rotate pretty well too,” Bogenpohl said. “I’m a good athlete, play center field, so I’ve got some explosive movements, but a pretty simple swing, nothing too crazy. I think the good Lord blessed with a nice body, and I rotate pretty fast.”

Just casually dropping an “I play center field” is pretty big talk from a player as big as Bogenpohl, but it’s not crazy talk. I watched his outfield drills at the Combine, and while he didn’t exactly look like Devon White out there, he moves smoothly and has a strong arm. I don’t have any trouble believing that with professional instruction, Bogenpohl could be playable in center field for the first half of his career.

“I tell everyone I’m a center fielder, and I want to play there for as long as I can,” he said. “I’m a big dude, I get it. Like, as I get older I’m probably not going to be able to keep up with those young dudes coming in that fly around and run 6.2 60s. But I’m going to work as hard as I can to stay out there for as long as possible.”

Balancing strength and mobility at that size hasn’t actually been that big a problem, Bogenpohl said. He’s gained about 20 pounds in college without losing much in terms of his speed and agility testing, and he thinks he could drop some of that weight if the team that drafts him thinks it could help him gain a step.

But marrying power and contact ability is another issue, which brings us back to Burress’ point about long levers. As a freshman, Bogenpohl hit 20 home runs in 56 games, and while he walked in 19.9% of his plate appearances, that came at the cost of a 27.7% strikeout rate. That’s just fine for a big league power hitter, but striking out more than a quarter of the time in the Missouri Valley Conference doesn’t bode well for a prospect’s professional fortunes.

“I kind of flattened out my bat path a little bit, to allow myself to make more contact in the zone,” Bogenpohl said. Sure enough, he cut his strikeout rate by a third over the next two seasons, but at a massive cost. Bogenpohl hit just six home runs as a junior, with an anemic .139 ISO. It didn’t even help his batting average, which actually dropped 19 points from his freshman year.

“That led to more groundballs, obviously, which isn’t going to help your slug a whole lot,” Bogenpohl admitted. But he’s optimistic that he can find the right balance with the help of a major league coaching staff.

“I’ll have all the resources in the world open to me in pro ball,” Bogenpohl said. “It’ll be a conversation with them and their development guys, what we want to do with my swing and where we want to go with it. But like I said, I’m a good athlete, I’ve got good aptitude, and I’m prepared to do anything it takes to get back to where I was, but still coming down on the strikeouts a little bit.”

One of my favorite things about baseball is how the best players in the world come in such a wide variety of shapes and sizes. We can scout and train for strength and fitness, but there isn’t really such a thing as a perfect body for baseball.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re 6-foot-5, or 5-foot-8, or anything in between,” Burress said.

Still, it’s fascinating to see top prospects test the limits of that truism, in both directions, from Bumila to Burress.