On Monday, Arkansas' Gage Wood showed all of the baseball world what he could do by no-hitting Murray State in a College World Series Elimination Game. As it turns out, Wood could very easily be on the Atlanta Braves' radar already for the upcoming 2025 MLB Draft.
Last week, The Athletic’s Keith Law put out a mock draft for this year’s draft (subscription required), where he had the Braves picking Wood with their first round pick.
Keith Law’s latest mock draft has Braves going a very familiar route, but with a twist
Law has the Braves selecting Arkansas right-hander Gage Wood, who is in the midst of a stellar junior season.
Here’s what Law had to say about Wood:
Atlanta has gone for pitching in the first round in the last five drafts, so it’s probably not a surprise to see them with an arm here. Wood has some of the best stuff of any starter in the class, but missed time early this spring with a shoulder issue, so some teams are probably going to be out due to the medical (about which I haven’t heard any details at all, and probably won’t until after the draft). I did hear them earlier in the spring with shortstop Steele Hall.
While Wood entered Monday 3-1 on the season with a 5.02 ERA in 28 1/3 innings, he has electric stuff, as referenced by Law. He showed that off two weeks ago when he struck out 13 over six innings against Creighton to clinch the Fayetteville Regional Title.
He built upon that on Monday by no-hitting Murray State in a game where he racked up 19 stirkeouts. He threw 118 pitches and was hitting 98 miles per hour in the ninth inning. The only baserunner he allowed was on a hit by pitch.
GAGE. FREAKING. WOOD. pic.twitter.com/5rlPl6iGP9
— Arkansas Baseball (@RazorbackBSB) June 16, 2025
As Law mentioned, the Braves selecting Wood would make it sixth straight drafts where they picked a pitcher in the first round — but that doesn’t mean that they’ve had a lot of success doing that.
In 2020, they picked Jared Shuster, who they traded to the White Sox prior to the 2024 season in exchange for Aaron Bummer. In 2021, they drafted Ryan Cusick, who they then flipped to the Athletics in the Matt Olson deal.
In 2022, they drafted Owen Murphy, who made it to Double-A last year before undergoing Tommy John surgery. The same can be said for JR Ritchie, their other first round pick that year, who made it to Single-A before undergoing Tommy John.
A year later, they drafted Hurston Waldrep, who made his MLB debut last year but is currently in Triple-A. And last year they picked Cam Caminiti, who is currently in High-A.
And even with that, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them go after an established collegiate pitcher in Wood. While eight of their top 10 prospects are pitchers (per MLB Pipeline), you can never have enough pitching, as evidenced by AJ Smith-Shawver undergoing Tommy John surgery earlier this month.
Chris Sale has been great at the top of Atlanta’s rotation and Spencer Strider’s working his way into his Cy Young form, but it’s been a work in progress in some ways for the past couple years. The Braves have a glut of talented position players who are locked into mega-deals, and have also proven that they’re willing to dip into the trade market to grab expensive position players.
But regardless of who the Braves pick, it doesn’t change the fact they have some work to do this year if they want to sneak into the postseason in a suddenly-loaded National League.