Why Liam Doyle Is The Most Puzzling Pitcher In The 2025 MLB Draft

What you first notice when watching Doyle—and watching any pitcher really—is how he looks on the mound. 

At 6-foot-2, 220 pounds, Doyle has the physicality of a professional pitcher right now. No projection necessary. He has plenty of good strength throughout his lower half and sets up on the third base side of the rubber with his body angled towards the first base dugout. 

As Doyle starts his delivery, he moves quickly. Here’s his process:

1. Glove and throwing hand come up together in front of his chin
2. Right foot steps back to the third base side as he bring his hands down to his belt
3. Left leg toe tap into the rubber
4. Right leg comes back up and into a high leg lift with his knee up into his chest and between his elbows
5. Glove-hand separation as he begins to drift down the mound
6. A drop-and-drive action as his left arm sweeps back behind his body
7. The ball and hand hidden behind his head at foot strike
8. A spinal tilt towards third base through his arm action to make a low three-quarters slot appear higher
9. A violent finish with a harsh falloff to the third base side that leaves him with his back hip facing the plate

Or, as some scouts would put it: He looks relieverish.

Scouts and teams alike differ in how aggressively they penalize pitchers for the mechanics of their delivery. For some, a violent head whack is a big red flag. Long arm actions bother others. The hip flexibility or the direction of a pitcher’s foot at landing will raise concerns for others still. How a delivery will inhibit or promote command, or how an arm action might be a variable when it comes to adding or tweaking a secondary pitch, are significant discussions that happen when evaluating pitchers. 

At a certain level of results and stuff, however, however it looks when you do it is just that—superficial. A descriptor.

Last year’s $9.25 million righthander and second overall pick, Chase Burns, dealt with critiques of his long arm action dating back to his high school days and his high-effort, violent delivery throughout his junior season with Wake Forest. Ultimately, he stacked three seasons of performance as a college starter with a career 7.5% walk rate and some of the best pure stuff in the class en route to being the first pitcher selected in the 2024 draft.

Pitchers like Chris Sale and Max Scherzer are two of the most prominent big league pitchers and first rounders who overcame questions about their “unusual” deliveries. Tanner Houck and Tim Lincecum can claim membership to that group, as well.

While Doyle’s delivery is currently getting the same squinted-eye treatment, he can boast strong strike-throwing and a relatively large track record as a college starter. As a freshman with Coastal Carolina in 2023, he made seven starts in 23 games, logging 56.1 innings with an 8.5% walk rate. As a sophomore with Ole Miss in 2024, he made 11 starts in 16 games, totaling 55 innings with an 8.7% walk rate. Through his first six starts with Tennessee this spring as the Friday night starter, he has posted a 9.3% walk rate in 31 innings. 

Despite the slightly higher walk rate, Doyle has consistently been a solid pure strike-thrower, and his fastball command, specifically, might even be better this spring than it was previously. He’s done a nice job locating the pitch where it does the most damage—at the top of the zone.

Thanks to Synergy Sports, you can see in the first chart below Doyle’s fastball pitch plot from 2024:

And here’s his fastball pitch plot from 2025:

Doyle’s fastball is more unique than his delivery, and his fastball usage, in particular, could be an even bigger question for his draft status. No pitcher currently in first-round consideration uses their fastball as frequently as Doyle. In fact, his 71% usage this spring tops nearly every first round college pitcher in the last five drafts. 

Below is a table featuring Doyle and every other first-round college arm in the last five full drafts (we’re omitting the 2020 draft’s shortened sample) as sorted by primary pitch usage in their draft seasons. For all pitchers in this 28-player sample, primary pitches were fastballs. 

Year	Player	Hand	School	Primary%
2019	Ethan Small	LHP	Mississippi State	78%
2025	Liam Doyle	LHP	Tennessee	71%
2023	Paul Skenes	RHP	LSU	66%
2023	Chase Dollander	RHP	Tennessee	65%
2021	Gavin Williams	RHP	East Carolina	65%
2021	Will Bednar	RHP	Mississippi State	64%
2019	George Kirby	RHP	Elon	64%
2022	Cooper Hjerpe	LHP	Oregon State	63%
2021	Ryan Cusick	RHP	Wake Forest	63%
2019	Nick Lodolo	LHP	TCU	63%
2019	Zack Thompson	LHP	Kentucky	63%
2021	Jack Leiter	RHP	Vanderbilt	62%
2019	Alek Manoah	RHP	West Virginia	61%
2021	Gunnar Hoglund	RHP	Ole Miss	59%
2024	Jurrangelo Cjintje	BHP	Mississippi State	58%
2024	Ben Hess	RHP	Alabama	58%
2019	Ryan Jensen	RHP	Fresno State	56%
2021	Jordan Wicks	LHP	Kansas State	55%
2024	Hagen Smith	LHP	Arkansas	54%
2021	Michael McGreevy	RHP	UC Santa Barbara	54%
2022	Gabriel Hughes	RHP	Gonzaga	53%
2024	Trey Yesavage	RHP	East Carolina	52%
2022	Cade Horton	RHP	Oklahoma	52%
2021	Kumar Rocker	RHP	Vanderbilt	51%
2021	Sam Bachman	RHP	Miami (Ohio)	50%
2023	Hurston Waldrep	RHP	Florida	47%
2024	Chase Burns	RHP	Wake Forest	45%
2023	Rhett Lowder	RHP	Wake Forest	39%

Just two players in this sample eclipsed the 70% mark: Doyle and fellow lefthander Ethan Small, who the Brewers drafted with the 28th overall pick in 2019. Small ranked as the No. 45 player in his draft class but threw quite a bit softer than Doyle does today. He averaged 89-90 mph with his fastball and touched 96, but the pitch played up from that velocity. 

While Doyle seems to be on the extreme end for primary pitch usage among recent first-round caliber arms, there’s good reason for him to be: Hitters can’t handle the pitch. Between 2023 and 2024 when Doyle was sitting 92-93 mph and touching 96, batters hit just .201/.302/.369 vs. his fastball with a 34% miss rate.

The fastball has gotten even better in 2025. Through his first six starts, Doyle has averaged 95.1 mph with the pitch and touched 99. Batters are hitting just .147/.266/.365 against it with a tremendous 48% miss rate that would rank as one of the best in the country.

Scouts and analysts alike view it as a 70-grade fastball or better. The pitch plays up from its already-strong velocity thanks to great riding life. In 2024, Doyle averaged nearly 20 inches of induced vertical break. The pitch has the power and movement to generate tons of whiffs both inside the zone and above it.

Because Doyle is so fastball dominant, there will be questions about how effectively he’ll be able to turn over a lineup and pitch deeper into games as hitters get more acclimated to its unique shape. Even with Doyle’s excellent performance this season, the pitch has been less effective as he gets deeper into games.

Below, you’ll find Doyle’s average fastball velocity, OPS against the fastball and miss rate with the fastball in different pitch count buckets:

Pitches	Number Of pitches	Velocity	OPS	Miss%
1-30	138	96.2	0.228	57%
31-60	129	94.9	0.761	44%
61-90	91	94.2	0.616	44%
91+	33	93.7	0.4	27%

Doyle does taper off his fastball usage to account for this, with his changeup becoming more prominent. But even late in games, his fastball usage has been high:

Pitches	FB	SL	CH	CT
1-30	77%	12%	8%	3%
31-60	72%	11%	10%	7%
61-90	65%	17%	14%	4%
91+	67%	14%	18%	0%

It’s also the case that Doyle has been able to overwhelm the less talented teams he’s faced this season without dipping too far into his arsenal. His three double-digit strikeout games so far this season have come against Hofstra, Samford and St. Bonaventure. In his other three outings against Oklahoma State, Florida and Alabama, he struck out between six and nine batters. 

Against his three non power-four conference opponents, Doyle has racked up an insane 73.1% strikeout rate and 5.8% walk rate. Against the three power-four conference foes, those numbers are still quite good but more in line with typical strike and walk rates: a 36.4% strikeout rate and 12.1% walk rate. 

Below is a table of Doyle’s overall effectiveness and fastball effectiveness based on quality of competition:

Opponent	Miss%	Chase%	OPS	FB miss%	FB chase%	FB usage
vs. Non Power 4	60%	37%	.237	54%	40%	78%
vs. Power 4	31%	24%	.675	30%	25%	66%

Against teams who couldn’t handle his fastball, Doyle simply kept throwing it—to great success. In just two weeks of SEC play, however, Doyle’s fastball usage has come down significantly. Better hitters are able to more successfully time up, make contact and impact his fastball, which means Doyle will need to successfully mix in his secondaries. 

In addition to the fastball, Doyle throws three other pitches: a low-to-mid 80s slider, a mid-80s splitter and an upper-80s cutter.

There seems to be a gap in terms of how scouts view those secondaries vs. how analysts and pitch data view his them. Baseball America has mostly heard from scouts who view his splitter as his best secondary and a potentially above-average pitch, while both his slider and cutter vary from below-average to average grades, at best.

Pitch models could have loftier views of his secondaries across the board, with some putting better-than-plus grades on his splitter and above-average grades on his slider and cutter. 

Doyle’s splitter has a strong combination of power and movement. He kills spin on it effectively and has about an 18-inch gap in vertical break between the splitter and fastball, with nearly a 10-mph separation in velocity. Like his fastball, Doyle has added more power to his splitter this spring, going from a low-80s offspeed offering to a pitch that has averaged 85-86 mph. 

He has already doubled his usage of the splitter this spring (14%) compared to the 2024 season (7%) and could be trending towards using it even more frequently against SEC competition.

If the changeup is Doyle’s loudest secondary at the moment, how teams view their ability to help him develop a quality breaking ball could ultimately determine where they view him on draft day. A number of evaluators have mentioned the idea of helping him develop a true gyro slider in pro ball. Others have expressed excitement about the natural shapes he’s able to generate with a baseball and how that innate ability makes future pitch design opportunities more exciting.

Ultimately, Doyle represents a unique scouting and player development challenge for teams in the 2025 draft. For now, he’ll continue trying to tackle SEC lineups as the foremost arm in Tennessee’s uber-talented pitching staff.