The Cincinnati Reds used the 9th overall pick int he 2025 Major League Baseball Draft to select shortstop Steele Hall out of Hewitt-Trussville High School in Alabama. The 17-year-old reclassified to be eligible for this year’s draft and is one of the youngest players that will be selected in the next two days.
Steele Hall Scouting Report
At 6′ 0″ tall and 180 lbs., Steele Hall has the potential to be a 5-tool player. One of his tools is elite, though. He’s arguably the fastest player in the draft and has 70 or 80 grade speed depending on who exactly it is that you ask.
At the plate you can see the athleticism as his bat is quick and he can show some raw power. But there is also some concern here as scouts note that he’s struggled to hit quality secondary offerings over the past year. That’s led to him being at the back-end of the 1st round on some of the draft boards. Other teams are less concerned about that given just how young he is compared to other players in the draft and that the issues are more related to how aggressive he is instead of an issue of him being unable to truly differentiate between a fastball and secondary pitches quick enough.
Defensively there aren’t many questions. Hall is a player who has the arm, the glove, the athleticism, and the actions to remain at shortstop for the long haul. Both the arm and the range project to be above-average.
Quick Thoughts on Draft Night
The Cincinnati Reds went with upside here. Steele Hall, if things go right, can be an above-average defensive shortstop who steals a ton of bases, hits 20 home runs, and can hit for average. That’s an All-Star caliber player. The Reds have had good early returns selecting athletic shortstops in recent memory with two of their top prospects in Sammy Stafura and Tyson Lewis in the past two drafts and this feels like another pick, though a bit higher int he draft, that’s going all in on a big time athlete with upside.
With that said, the questions about his handling of breaking balls does seem a little bit concerning when you’re talking about not only a player who taken in the top 10, but a guy who probably hasn’t seen a ton of really good breaking balls given that he’s only been playing high school baseball. Still, with how young he is you can get behind the idea that he’s got more room to grow and improve on his weaknesses than just about anyone else because he’s got more time on his side and likely less experience than others taken in the draft.
As I said Friday, not Irish, but a pitcher or another SS. Maybe this guy makes it big by the time EDLC hits free agency. Still no help for the OF.
Irish went # 19 overall. I do worry a little about the fact this kid can’t hit High School breaking pitches. Hopefully he can learn in the minors from our coaches. Hopefully in round 2 or 3 the Reds get an Outfielder or two. I wouldn’t mind seeing a Catcher selected in the first 5 rounds as well.
My thoughts, the scouting department only identify pitchers and shortstop. Seems like they always pass on outfielders and first basement.
Shortstops and pitchers are the predominant 1st round draft choices across MLB. 1B and OF are not top of the first round choices.
If your 1st round outfield draft history included:
Jay Allen, Austin Hendrick, Taylor Trammell, Phil Ervin, Drew Stubbs, Johnny Oliver, Pat Watkins, Chat Mottola, and Scott Bryant
You might be a bit hesitant to take a swing at a 1st round OF…
Also, on average about 4% of 1st round picks are 1B. It’s understandable if the Reds don’t draft 1B in the first round, since nobody else does either.
The Reds have plenty of athletic SS, these players can play CF if needed. I could see Steele Hall playing CF if needed there, but he does project as a good SS just like Edwin Arroyo. Hall has the arm to play RF, any therefore could also play the easier LF. Quit worrying about OFs, if you can get a SS with the speed for CF and the arm for RF. Then you’ve got a guy who can play every fielding position on the field except catcher.
Welcome young man. I hope someday I find myself saying. Wow., he reminds me of Roy. McMillan.
Hope he’s a better hitter, though. Roy was a magician with the glove.
I’d prefer Roy Oswalt or Roy Haladay. Can’t have enough elite arms because of all the injuries pitchers suffer these days especially younger ones. I get that the shortstops are usually the best athletes, but the Reds need to evaluate them early on and convert some of them to other positions. Either that start trading the surplus of blue chips for other positions of need like outfielders.
Give me Roy Hobbs and a WS appearance if I can pick a result
Welcome to Steele Hall.
Wasn’t expected to go this high. Below spot deal?
I suspect they won’t have to pay him slot prices. Maybe it helps them later in the draft.
HS shortstops seem to have been the sweet spot of this year’s draft.
Seems like only yesterday when I was cursing the Reds for choosing pitcher Chase Burns instead of OFr (1B?) Charlie Condon. Seems like that worked out ok.
True. I really wanted the Reds to draft Condon. I’m happy Chase Burns has made it to the big leagues, but I don’t think we know yet that was the right choice. Time will tell.
I wasn’t really tied to a pick this year. I do find it concerning that Hall is a free swinger who has problems with pitch recognition. We have seen a lot of that and the reds player development staff seems to have a problem addressing those issues.
But it’s all water under the bridge now. I will be surprised if Hall ever makes it to the majors. But what do I know? Just going by what others have wrote. The good news is, I will be too old to care at that point.
Yes, it is too early to determine if Burns or Condon was the right choice. However, Burns flew through the minor leagues while Condon has had mixed results to date. Time will indeed tell.
I also did not follow the draft leading into tonight. The early consensus seems to be that the strength of the draft was in the HS SS ranks. Six of the top ten picks were SSs, with 5 of the 6 being in HS. The other 4 top 10 picks were pitchers.
10 of the top 15 picks were SSs, with 8 of the 10 being in HS. The other 5 top 15 picks were pitchers.
As for pitch recognition, Hall is only 17 years old, so he probably hasn’t seen a ton of quality off speed pitches, and he certainly has some time to grow in his pitch recognition abilities. Hall was rocketing up the prospect lists; I’m content to leave the analysis to the guys that do this for a living.
We are (I believe) about the same age. WAY too early to talk about being to old to care about things like baseball. I’m seeing the Reds in NY this coming weekend and I’m here on this site because I care (a bit too much?).
Skip Condon at #3 and look up Nick Kurtz stats from the #4 pick in 2024 MLB draft.
MLB: .892 OPS with 17 homers in 206 ABs and worth 1.4 WAR already in 2025 MLB season just one year after being drafted.
All I can think of is Billy Hamilton pt2.
With Carlon on the board, I think this is a bad pick.
Maybe an underslot pick, and they something latter, else it does not look good at this time.
Sorry for being negative, but with 30 years of no post season series wins, it is hard.
Hall is 360 days younger than Carlson and is already a better athlete than him.
TB picked up Brendan Summerhill at #42… shame…Taylor and Cannarella still available as I type this
Summerhill was projected everywhere from 11 to 20. As the tear went along seemed to move off the 20 puck to around 15.
Summerhill was my guy. Loafs of talent. (U of AZ)
I’m much more upset about losing out on Devin Taylor than I was Brendan Summerhill. Summerhill isn’t a lock to stay in CF and has little power.
Reds have only drafted 7 high school position players in the 1st round this century.
And none of those were in the top 10 picks.
Clearly the Reds like something about Hall to break that trend.
And the fact that most people had him ranked in the top 10 or 15 prospects, says the Reds weren’t alone in their assessment.
Looking forward to his development next season.
Wow 17, so young! Was Greene 17 when drafted too? Does reclassified mean he graduated a year early from high school so he could get drafted? V
Congrats to this young man, amazing these young men could be set for life financially just by getting drafted in the first round if they handle their money wisely.
Yes, that is what reclassified means.
Reds take HS pitcher Aaron Watson with their next pick. Very talented young man with a lot of potential. However he is committed to Florida. If he was selected in the first round I would have expected him to go pro. But going at 52 makes playing college ball much more likely. Based on that risk I do not know if this is a great pick. Perhaps the Reds have already been in contact and feel comfortable he will sign?
I am sure they have been in contact with him.
If I recall (Doug can correct me, if I dumb), the Reds usually sign all of there first 10 round draft choices.
There’s almost no chance that anyone selected by any team in the top 10 rounds goes unsigned.
The teams pretty well know before they pull the trigger that the draftee will sign, especially one this high.
How many of these SS that the Reds have acquired have switched positions other than McLain? How many have been traded to fill a need for the team? Getting the best athletes is great but……
Noelvi Marte.
Forgot about Marte. Never think of him as a SS. haha
Eric Davis and Billy Hamilton.
Steer
Steer was a SS?
Steer boosted his draft value during the spring while earning all-Pac-12 honors when he led the Ducks with a .349 batting average and 57 RBIs and sharing the team lead with six home runs. He started all 56 games for Oregon and was a Pac-12 all-defensive selection after beginning the season at shortstop before returning to third base.
In three seasons at Oregon, Steer batted .297 with 12 home runs and 129 RBIs and scored 93 runs. He set school records for single-season and career RBIs.
Steer said he originally heard he might be picked by the Diamondbacks before getting taken by the Twins, who drafted him as a shortstop.
Played SS at Oregon in 2019, drafted as a SS by Min in 2019, played SS among other positions in MiLs every year 2019-2022.
The best position player athletes on teams usually play SS for their HS and college teams. And obviously a team’s best athletes get drafted. Cs mix in the draft too of course.
The 1st round saw 18 SS drafted, So it’s not a Reds thing. It’s a MLB thing for the reasons above.
I totally get it that SS are generally the best athletes. I guess my main point is that the Reds have a lot of depth in that department that maybe could/should be used to strengthen the current team through trades.
The thing is, as with Steer, being drafted as a SS does not mean the player will stick. If the team likes the bat, they will find another position for the player rather than trade.
Many top defensive OFs in MLB were SSs
Tatis
Betts
Rafaela
In the case of Rafaela for example, he was an OK SS but a much better CFer.
“I totally get it that SS are generally the best athletes. I guess my main point is that the Reds have a lot of depth in that department that maybe could/should be used to strengthen the current team through trades.”
Sure: trade your drafted SS for one of the other 13 first round shortstops. Where do the good outfielders come from?
Some of them come from the same place that Eric Davis did.
Melvin if you were in charge of player evaluation in the Reds organization, EDLC would’ve been moved from SS to CF or RF in the lower minors. He’d be the next Garry Maddox or Vladimir Guerrero Sr., a perennial All Star, and 1st ballot Hall of Famer!! Hope I didn’t stir up a Hornets nest with that comment.
haha As I’ve said many times I’m not at all disappointed in him playing SS but I stand by my view of CF being the best position for him. Maybe not this year but in the long term definitely. He WOULD BE a gold glover already playing out there. Maybe the BEST you’ve ever seen. 🙂
High school shortstops selected in the first round generally mean “athlete”. I’ll imagine each of the three drafted in recent years can transition to the outfield if the bat is ready but the position is otherwise filled.
As Smokey sang: “It was just my imagination running away with me.”
That was the Temptations, not Smokey Robinson & The Miracles. Sorry Tex, I lived in MoTown awhile ago.
Mike Miley was HS SS from Louisiana. Reds picked him in 1971 first round.
Mike Schmidt was college SS picked by Phillies a few picks later. Royals picked HS SS George Brett the next pick after Schmidt.
Brett and Schmidt are HOF 3B. Miley is not.
Yep. 54 years and 10,000+ draft picks ago, we have a couple ringers.
That should calm any of the naysayers.
Don’t have to go back that far. Reds picked Chad Mottola in 1992. Yankees picked Derek Jeter next that year.
The Reds have an inconsistent history on first round picks. Howsam was especially bad. Simpson and Gullett were success stories. The rest were not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cincinnati_Reds_first-round_draft_picks here are all of the Reds first round picks.
To illustrate how bad Howsam was at drafting, he missed on Buddy Bell in 1969 and Dave Parker in 1970. Both were local Cincinnati HS prospects.
I like that this Steele guy is Athletic, and is good defensively and has a good arm. I have concerns about scouts saying he has trouble hitting secondary pitches. He is young, and hopefully the Reds system can teach him to become a decent hitter. We just don’t need another guy that strikes out too much, we already have that with these current Reds.
I don’t have any idea but seems logical to me that high school kids overall would have a harder time hitting a breaking pitch. There are MLB hitters that still have trouble with secondary stuff. But as you noted he is 17 and has years to learn how to hit them.
My brother could hit better than this guy in high school. Terrible pick. The modern day leadership of this team has a long record of losing. Milwaukee and Tampa Bay have smarter people running their small market team. There were pitchers who would have been better picks.
No he can’t.
Who did your brother play for?
Five of the next seven picks were SS’s, including yet another HS SS picked by the smart people in Tampa Bay at pick #14.
The word I heard is that Tampa was super in on Hall and praying he fell to 14.
Did your brother hit .484 with a .584 OBP and .871 slugging? Or steal 33 bases? Or run a 6.1 60 yard? Please send me the link to his stats. Thanks
And 8 HRs too, in what, 30-35 games?
I hope with everyone else that Steele Hall develops into the next Bobby Witt Jr. or perhaps Derek Jeter!! However with the injury issues that Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo have had the last few years, I think selecting either RH Kyson Witherspoon or LH Jamie Arnold would have been a better choice. What does Terry Francona always say? ” Just when you think you have enough pitching, go out and get more!”
Yes, my brother could. You are wrong. Lol. Have a good night!
Which MLB team rafted your brother?
Surely if your brother could hit better than a Top 10 draft pick, he would have had teams banging down his door.
Absurd points are often the hardest to refute, C131. We should let William dream in peace.
Perhaps his name is William Trout?
William=the male version of Karen.
Ian Happ was a #9 pick in the draft.
So was Kyler Murray.
And so was Zac Veen who was up with the Rockies in April… and then couldn’t even keep a spot on one of the worst teams of all time…
He had 4 hits in 12 games and might have been sent back down just for being a goofball rookie:
https://www.tiktok.com/@broncosmakemedepressed/video/7491808367090912543
My brother led the city of Cincinnati in home runs his Senior year. He had more power than this guy.
Power is one element of good hitting, and hitting is one element of good baseball playing. But that is an impressive accomplishment for your brother.
Thank you. It is true. I am proud of him. Best wishes to Steele Hall. I hope he becomes a great MLB leadoff hitter.