Bigger, Badder Marek Houston Headlines Early 2025 MLB Draft Takeaways
Image credit: Marek Houston (Photo by Eddie Kelly / ProLook Photos)
The 2025 draft cycle is in full swing with Division I baseball kicking off last weekend. Throughout the year, we’ll check in on key draft players to know to see who’s performing, who’s struggling and who’s made real changes to their profiles.
This week we dive into the early-season efforts of ACC player of the week Marek Houston, Alabama righthander Riley Quick and Tennessee lefthander Liam Doyle.
Marek Houston, SS, Wake Forest
- Draft Rank: 20
- Week 1 Stats: 10-for-18 (.556), 3 HR, 1 2B, 5 BB, 2 K
Houston entered the spring as a first-round talent. He is viewed as one of the best defensive shortstops in the class and also boasts strong contact skills at the plate. He had a light-hitting season as a freshman in 2023 but took a step forward in 2024 and slashed .326/.433/.516 with a 14.4% walk rate and 12.5% strikeout rate.
While Houston can boast some of the best glove work in the class, he’s also stacked up as a light hitter when compared to other top college bats. Because of that, scouts were hoping to see him add a bit more physicality and pop in his draft year. Over the offseason, scouts were optimistic about that after seeing the amount of good weight he’s added to his frame. Houston is bigger and stronger in 2025 and checks in with a listed weight of 205 pounds compared to 185 in 2024.
The results have already come through on the field. Houston homered in each of his first three games out of the two spot for Wake Forest, with multi-hit efforts in his first four games. Last year, it took him 22 games and until April 2 to get his third home run of the season. He finished the year with eight total home runs. In 2025, he should breeze past that mark.
Wake Forest coach Tom Walter praised Houston’s growth, both as a team leader and also the more obvious physical development.
“It was hard work in the gym,” Walter said. “You know, it’s just getting older. It’s natural development. You look at both his parents, his dad played football at Army and his mom was a great tennis player. So he’s got good athletic genes … You look at those guys with wide shoulders and they usually grow into that frame at some point.”
Houston’s home runs have gone mostly down the line to the pull side in his college career. All three of his homers on opening weekend were yanked down the line to left field and came against fastballs at 80, 83 and 83 mph, respectively. As a freshman and sophomore, Houston also did most of his extra-base damage vs. offspeed pitches and fastballs thrown under 93 mph. Below are his SLG and OPS numbers vs. each pitch category, sorted by best OPS:
- Fastballs under 93 mph: .481 SLG/.928 OPS
- Offspeed: .514 SLG/.899 OPS
- Fastballs 93 mph and over: .295 SLG/.665 OPS
- Breaking balls: .329 SLG/.599 OPS
Through the first four games, Houston hasn’t faced a pitch harder than 93 mph, but as the season unfolds, he’ll get more opportunities to prove his pop against harder throwers and higher quality breaking balls.
Walter noted that Houston’s speed and power have improved thanks to his strength gains, and he expects him to show more power this spring to the opposite field gap.
“He was always able on the pull side to generate a little pop,” Walter said. “He homered in the super regional against Alabama. All of his power was pullside back then. Now with the added strength, he can generate that same level of power to all fields.”
If Houston shows that well-rounded power in games throughout the season, it’ll be difficult to find a hole in his profile. He ranks as a middle or back of the first round talent currently. Given his contact skills and defensive prowess, it’s possible Houston could push himself into the top of the draft and give Wake Forest another top 10 pick a year after they produced three of them.
While Houston might not have the pure upside of Chase Burns or the impact power of Nick Kurtz or the pure athleticism and speed of Seaver King, he might be the best shortstop to come out of the program in Winston-Salem.
“We’ve had a lot of good shortstops here, and he’s the best one we’ve had,” Walter said. “He’s just different. And that was from the first day he stepped foot on campus. His glove is so accurate. If it’s hit to him, he catches it, and he throws it accurately.
“Any time it’s hit to him you get into a mindset where it’s an out. Anytime it’s not an out, everybody in the stadium is surprised. And that’s a feeling you don’t have very often in college baseball.”
Riley Quick, RHP, Alabama
- Draft Rank: 56
- Fist start line: 3 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K
Quick’s 2025 season is one of the most anticipated by scouts. The massive 6-foot-6, 245-pound righthander entered the spring with just 25 college innings under his belt. He pitched as a reliever in 2023 then made just one start in 2024 before Tommy John surgery ended his season prematurely. Despite his lack of track record, scouts who saw him this fall raved about his size, stuff and command—enough to place him as a top-two round talent in the class with next to no extended track record.
Quick made the Saturday start this weekend against Bradley and delivered on the hype: three shutout innings on 50 pitches, with four strikeouts and no walks.
He worked with a three-pitch mix that included a two-seam fastball that averaged 97 mph and touched 99, a mid-80s slider and a firm, upper-90s changeup. Both the fastball and slider are potential plus offerings. Quick’s heater features solid armside running life and sink that should generate plenty of weak groundball contact. His sweeping slider is a more consistent swing-and-miss pitch currently. He generated whiffs against lefties and righties with the slider on Saturday and also did a better job throwing the pitch for strikes compared to his fastball.
Quick used his 89-90 mph changeup exclusively against lefthanders in this outing, and the pitch more than lived up to its average billing. He did a nice job landing the pitch down in the zone and generated four whiffs on five swings. In total, Quick had four changeup whiffs, two slider whiffs and one fastball whiff.
Quick’s control was better than his command in this outing. While he didn’t walk a batter, his fastball location was erratic at times, and he didn’t always repeat his release point consistently. There were a handful of yanked fastballs down and to his glove side, as well as a few he left up and to his arm side above and wide of the zone.
Despite that nitpick, it was a strong outing. Quick has the pure stuff to rival most college arms in the class, with a workhorse frame to go along with it. Now he just needs to keep posting.
Liam Doyle, LHP, Tennessee
- Draft Rank: 52
- First start line: 5 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 11 K
Doyle was one of the more notable additions to our preseason draft rankings in early February. He jumped onto the board at No. 52 overall after scouts effusively praised his fall efforts. Evaluators noted the 6-foot-2, 220-pound lefthander had unique fastball traits between his pure velocity and ability to both cut and ride the ball to miss bats.
Doyle got the Friday night start for Tennessee last weekend against Hofstra and dominated with his heater. He struck out 11 batters on an ultra-efficient 58 pitches and generated 22 total whiffs, 18 of which came on the fastball. Doyle averaged nearly 95.8 mph on his fastball in this outing. That’s three ticks higher than his 2024 average of 92.4 mph. He also didn’t need to reach too far into his arsenal, using his fastball for 45 of 58 pitches (78%) and to finish nine of his 11 punch outs.
He attacked the zone relentlessly and let the fastball go to work, missing barrels in the heart of the zone, at the top of the zone and above it. While the fastball is clearly Doyle’s best pitch, he also mixed in a cutter in the upper 80s, a changeup in the 85-87 mph range that flashed above-average on one occasion and a pair of sliders at 84 mph.
Doyle will carry some reliever risk because of his high-effort delivery. He works from the third base side of the rubber and features a deep plunging arm action. He then comes through a three-quarters slot with great arm speed and effort, as well as a head whack and harsh fall off to the third base side.
