On July 13th, the Yankees made young shortstop Dax Kilby their top 2025 draft pick, and the 18-year-old has wasted little time in getting off to a fast start. After signing and forgoing his commitment to Clemson, Kilby was sent directly to Low-A to play for the Tampa Tarpons, and made his debut on August 8th. Through the first 53 plate appearances of his career, Kilby has shown off the advanced hit tool and plate approach he was known for during the draft with a .348/.434/.435 slash line, a 13.2-percent
walk rate, and just an 11.3-percent strikeout rate.
Kilby went hitless through his first three games and nine at-bats, but since then he’s gone 16-for-37 (.432) with two doubles and a triple. Even acknowledging the obvious that this is just his first dozen games in the organization, it’s no small feat for a teenager to look so comfortable so soon in his first taste of pro ball. It’s been a remarkable adjustment, and Kilby is beginning to get attention from fans and analysts around the league.
This year’s draft was loaded with high-school shortstops, with Eli Willits, Ethan Holliday, JoJo Parker, Steele Hall, and Billy Carlson all being drafted in the Top 10. Although he hailed from Georgia, a baseball hotbed, Kilby was not one of the most well-known players in the draft this July, ranking 62nd on MLB Pipeline’s draft rankings before being selected 39th overall by the Yankees. (FanGraphs was much higher on Kilby, ranking him 23rd overall).
Here’s what MLB.com wrote in their scouting report:
“Kilby has a quick and relatively compact left-handed stroke and a mature approach. He doesn’t stray from the strike zone too often and makes consistent contact while looking to drive the ball from gap to gap. He has plenty of room to add strength to his projectable 6-foot-2 frame and should grow into at least average power.”
Thus far, that report looks to be spot on. Kilby has been driving the ball to all parts of the field, and his contact rate currently sits above 85 percent. He has yet to hit a home run in Tampa and his ISO is just .087, but Kilby’s batted-ball data suggests that his power tool may even be further along that many have suspected.
Indeed, on Wednesday, Thomas Nestico shared a graphic on Twitter comparing Kilby’s offensive metrics to other players at his level. Kilby’s 93.1-mph average EV (exit velocity) and 105.6-mph 90th% EV rank in the 98th and 87th percentile among hitters. For a rough big-league reference, a 93.1-mph average EV would be comparable to Bobby Witt Jr, Fernando Tatis Jr., Pete Alonso, and Manny Machado. A 90th% EV of 105.6 mph lines up with the numbers posted by Wyatt Langford, Marcell Ozuna, and Brent Rooker. There’s unfortunately no video, but Kilby’s triple from Tuesday went off the bat at 106.6 mph.
Again, Kilby is doing this in a very small sample at one of the lowest levels of the minor-leagues, but posting these numbers just a month after he was drafted out of Newnan High School should be an incredibly exciting development for the Yankees. He’ll be a teenager for all of 2026 as well, as he doesn’t turn 19 until this November. The team has a history of drafting prep shortstops late in the first round, as they did so with Anthony Volpe in 2019 and George Lombard Jr. in 2023, both of whom skyrocketed to the top of the organizational prospect rankings. If early results are any indication, they’re well on their way to doing the same with Kilby.
To look for reasonable comparisons to Kilby’s current situation, it’s easiest to look for age-to-level similarities around minor-league baseball. Other 18-year-old prospects who have posted impressive numbers in Low-A at some point this season include Eduardo Tait, Emil Morales, Edward Florentino, Rainiel Rodriguez, and Braylon Payne, all of whom carry immense upside and could justifiably be considered Top 100 prospects. With a 147 wRC+ at the level, Kilby should be mentioned in those same conversations soon if he’s able to maintain anything close to this level of production.
As to be expected, there are still holes in Kilby’s profile that will need to be worked out. He hasn’t been able to pull fly balls and make the most of his hard contact, and his 56.8-percent groundball rate is far too high. As his 2025 season wraps up over the next few weeks, it’ll be crucial to see which of these stats maintain their current levels and which regress to the mean. If Kilby keeps driving the ball into the ground and stops making as much impactful contact, it’ll be a key indicator that further development is required before fans can get too excited about him. However, if he’s able to continue making this amount of contact while walking as much as he has been and is even able to drive a few pitches into the seats, there will be a ton of chatter around Kilby’s name this offseason.
Kilby currently ranks seventh on MLB Pipeline’s list of Yankees prospects, right behind the more experienced pitching trio of Bryce Cunningham, Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz, and Ben Hess. Rodriguez-Cruz should be flirting with Top 100 status himself and is probably due for a boost in the next update, and given the start to Kilby’s professional career it would be reasonable to put him in that same conversation. Kilby still has a long way to go in his development, but he’s making a strong first impression and could quickly become one of the premier prospects in the organization.
