Indiana baseball outfielder Devin Taylor became the highest-drafted outfielder in program history Sunday, as the Athletics selected him in the second round with the 48th overall pick in the 2025 MLB Draft.
Taylor, who played the past three seasons in Bloomington, is the highest-drafted Hoosier since the Chicago Cubs picked Kyle Schwarber with the fourth overall pick in 2014.
From the moment Taylor arrived at Indiana, he was poised to become a star. Indiana head coach Jeff Mercer, who began recruiting Taylor when he was 14 years old and already had the plate approach of an MLB veteran, dubbed the Cincinnati native a “program changer.”
Taylor was the 2023 Big Ten Freshman of the Year and went on to earn eight total All-American honors across his three seasons donning the Cream and Crimson. He was a unanimous All-American in his junior season, which ended without a trip to the NCAA Tournament in the spring.
Taylor set the program record for home runs with 54. He finished his collegiate career with a .350 batting average, 220 hits and 179 RBIs.
The Athletics, which are amid a relocation from Oakland, California to Las Vegas and are currently playing in Sacramento, California, had previously selected five Hoosiers in previous drafts — pitcher Jack Perkins being the most recent in 2022 — before Taylor became the sixth Sunday.
Taylor was drafted at a slot value of $2.03 million, which serves as a beginning point for contract negotiations. Taylor will likely begin his professional career with either the Stockton Ports in Single-A or the Lansing Lugnuts in High-A.
Since Mercer took over the reins of the Hoosiers ahead of the 2019 season, he has now produced 27 MLB draft selections — a number that will certainly grow as one of Taylor’s counterparts in 2025, Korbyn Dickerson, is slated to be drafted.
