{"id":103450,"date":"2025-07-04T19:23:56","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T23:23:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=103450"},"modified":"2025-09-16T11:08:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T15:08:37","slug":"profiling-2025-mlb-draft-prospect-gage-wood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/07\/04\/profiling-2025-mlb-draft-prospect-gage-wood\/","title":{"rendered":"Profiling 2025 MLB Draft Prospect Gage Wood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Starting pitcher <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=wood--000gag\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gage Wood<\/a> exploded onto the scene in the College World Series and has seen his draft stock rise significantly. The Arkansas native posted a 3.82 ERA with a 0.903 WHIP for his hometown Razorbacks this year. This included posting an absurd 16.5 K\/9 with only 1.7 BB\/9, walking only seven batters all year while striking out 69. The highlight of his year was a 19-strikeout, no-hitter performance in the MCWS against Murray State.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_103488\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-103488\" style=\"width: 515px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-103488\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/USATSI_26469832_168400885_lowres-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"515\" height=\"343\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/USATSI_26469832_168400885_lowres-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/USATSI_26469832_168400885_lowres-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/USATSI_26469832_168400885_lowres-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/USATSI_26469832_168400885_lowres-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/USATSI_26469832_168400885_lowres.jpg 1128w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 515px) 100vw, 515px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-103488\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jun 16, 2025; Omaha, Neb, USA; Arkansas Razorbacks starting pitcher Gage Wood (14) celebrates with infielder Gabe Fraser (6) after throwing a no hitter against the Murray State Racers at Charles Schwab Field. Mandatory Credit: Steven Branscombe-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Should Gage Wood be selected, he would join Hagen Smith as back-to-back first-round picks for the Razorbacks.<\/p>\n<h2>Gage Wood MLB Draft Profile<\/h2>\n<h3>What Allows Wood to be So Good<\/h3>\n<p>With a K\/9 as high as it is, Wood utilizes four pitches to dominate hitters. His arsenal is led by a 70-grade fastball that sits at 94-96 mph and can reach 98 at times. The last pitcher to get a 70-grade fastball was <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/08\/05\/brody-brecht-craft-profile\/\" target=\"_self\">Iowa&#8217;s Brody Brecht<\/a> in the 2024 draft. His fastball plays up due to his low release height and the flat arm angle to get an elite swing and miss rate. His secondaries include a 55-grade curveball, a 45-grade slider, and a 45-grade changeup. While the slider and changeup do not play as well, the curveball plays off the fastball along the bottom of the zone to get chases from batters.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">19 STIKEOUTS.<br \/>\nNO-HITTER.<br \/>\nELIMINATION GAME.<\/p>\n<p>GAGE WOOD WITH A LEGENDARY PERFORMANCE IN OMAHA \ud83d\udd25 <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RazorbackBSB?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@RazorbackBSB<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/N47FAjJ4vc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/N47FAjJ4vc<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 SEC Network (@SECNetwork) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SECNetwork\/status\/1934716696008290749?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 16, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Weaknesses in His Game<\/h3>\n<p>While it is more difficult to succeed with a two-pitch mix, Wood needs to develop another secondary to blossom. Despite the action his changeup gets, it would seem his upper-80s slider can be his equalizer. Outside of his pitches, his biggest concern has been his health, as he has never gone over 41 innings in a season. This is in addition to a couple of shoulder injuries that have plagued him throughout his career. If he is not able to handle the workload as a starter, his arsenal plays extremely well as a reliever.<\/p>\n<h3>MLB Comparison<\/h3>\n<p>When comparing Wood to MLB pitchers, the most similar could be <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hortoca01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cade Horton<\/a> of the Chicago Cubs or <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/brownhu01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hunter Brown<\/a> of the Houston Astros. This is due to the high-ride fastball they possess in addition to a wipeout curveball. Additionally, both pitchers have similar walk rates as well as secondaries that convert similarly to Wood&#8217;s. While he may not be a top-10 pick, with some development, Wood can be a late first-round steal for any team that does select him.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: \u00a9 Steven Branscombe-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Starting pitcher Gage Wood exploded onto the scene in the College World Series and has seen his draft stock rise significantly. The Arkansas native posted a 3.82 ERA with a 0.903 WHIP for his hometown Razorbacks this year. This included posting an absurd 16.5 K\/9 with only 1.7 BB\/9, walking only seven batters all year [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5552,"featured_media":103486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1071,29143,35],"tags":[3671,29038,5519,1290],"class_list":["post-103450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-mlb","category-mlb-draft","category-news","tag-cade-horton","tag-gage-wood","tag-hunter-brown","tag-mlb-draft"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5552"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103450"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103489,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103450\/revisions\/103489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}