The Yankees have an extended historical past of drafting high-school shortstops within the first spherical.
From Derek Jeter to Anthony Volpe to present prime prospect George Lombard Jr., the Yankees boast their share of success choosing gamers in that profile.
They hope Dax Kilby is the subsequent in line.
The Yankees drafted Kilby, 18, with the No. 39 general decide on this week’s draft, headlining a category of 19 gamers.
Kilby is a 6-2, 190-pound infielder from Newnan Excessive Faculty close to Atlanta, whom he simply led to a Georgia state 5-A championship. The lefty-swinging Kilby batted .495 with 5 residence runs, 42 RBI and 15 stolen bases as a senior.
“He was athletic. He has a major-league body. His swing works real well,” Damon Oppenheimer, the Yankees’ vice chairman of home beginner scouting, mentioned Tuesday on a post-draft Zoom name.
“He’s got a contact-oriented swing that also has power and adapts to being able to hit balls in different quadrants. On top of that, he can run. He’s got good instincts, and what we saw of him at shortstop this year gave us a lot of hope that, with our [player-development] people, … he’s going to be able to play shortstop.”
That is the fourth time in seven years that the Yankees drafted a shortstop within the first spherical, having chosen Volpe in 2019, Trey Sweeney in 2021 and Lombard in 2023.
Shortstops are sometimes a draft’s most athletic place gamers and thus among the many prime commodities.
MLB Pipeline ranked Kilby as this draft’s No. 62 prospect, whereas Baseball American ranked him No. 75, however the Yankees had been larger on the infielder, a Clemson commit. Oppenheimer mentioned a crew that picked within the 20s advised him they’d eyed Kilby, too.
“We’ve scouted him intently. Eight different scouts see him at different times,” Oppenheimer mentioned.
“We’ve had him tested by our performance-science people. We’ve had him meet with our mental-conditioning department. He’s been down here to Tampa to visit to see what he would be getting himself into. We’ve met with the family. The deep dive is so much further than what the publications [are] going to have done.”
Kilby was the Yankees’ solely decide inside the prime 100, as they forfeited their second-rounder to signal Max Fried in free company.
Their subsequent decide got here within the third spherical at No. 103, the place they chose shortstop Kaeden Kent — the son of 2000 Nationwide League MVP Jeff Kent — out of Texas A&M College.
Kent, 21, batted .279 with 13 residence runs, 49 RBI and a .942 OPS in 56 video games as a junior final season.
Oppenheimer mentioned Kent is completely different from his father in that he bats left-handed and performs shortstop, reasonably than second base, however he believes they possess the same degree of depth.
“The only dialogue, personally, I ever had with Jeff Kent was watching Kaeden play in a Cape Cod League game, and it just happened to be by accident. … He let his kid do the talking on the field,” Oppenheimer mentioned.
“Being raised in a major-league house, we do know that’s an advantage. They have some knowledge of what’s getting ready to happen and what they need to do.”
The Yankees chosen left-hander Pico Kohn out of Mississippi State at No. 134; infielder Core Jackson out of Utah at No. 164; and right-hander Rory Fox out of Notre Dame at No. 194.
Their seventh-round decide, outfielder Richie Bonomolo Jr. from Alabama, hails from the Bronx and performed high-school baseball at Cardinal Hayes. The Yankees’ last decide was infielder Bryce Martin-Grudzielanek — the son of former All-Star infielder Mark Grudzielanek — out of USC at No. 614.
Kilby was the one excessive schooler taken by the Yankees, whose draft included 10 pitchers, seven infielders and two outfielders.
Oppenheimer mentioned the Yankees had been “fired up” with their draft haul, regardless of having the smallest bonus pool ($5,383,600) to signal gamers of the 30 groups. Each draft slot within the first 10 rounds is assigned a greenback worth, and the sum of a crew’s draft slots decides its allotment.
“[We] think that [we] put the right kind of ingredients into the player-development systems to give us a chance for major-league players,” Oppenheimer mentioned.
“And then we were able to spread out and do the depth that we think that we do a nice job in with some pitching further down that develops. Hopefully there’s a Cam Schlittler or a Will Warren or something like that that we nailed down there, too.”
The Yankees drafted the hard-throwing Schlittler within the seventh spherical in 2022 and fellow rookie right-hander Warren within the eighth spherical in 2021.
Initially Printed: July 15, 2025 at 2:50 PM EDT
