A Deep Dive Into College Baseball's Best Power Hitter: Nolan Schubart
A blog by Will at Overdue Sports
With the MLB Draft lottery happening tonight, the rumors are already swirling on who is the best bat in the draft. With MLB legacy Ethan Holiday joining the conversation, Texas A&M slugger Jace LaViolette leading the college bats, the options are endless. But I’d like to turn your attention to a guy who I believe can be the best bat in the entire draft.
Meet Nolan Schubart. A Junior outfielder at Oklahoma St with a frame built for professional baseball. The 6’5 left-handed slugger slashed .370/.513/.743 (that’s a 1.345 OPS) with 23 HR and 68 RBI in his sophomore campaign in Stillwater. He averaged a homerun every 7.52 at-bats, with a .468 ISO while generating an average exit velocity of 97.6 mph, creates exit velocities over 95mph over 66% of the time, and running it up to 115 mph. Schubart is one of those guys when he hits the ball on the button (he does this a LOT) you drop what you’re doing and think ‘holy cow this kid can mash.’
With the best raw power in college baseball, you’re wondering why a guy who hit .370 in 2024 isn’t already the projected #1 college bat taken next Summer. In fact, he’s projected to go somewhere in the 15-20 range of the 2025 draft. Believe it or not, the hit-tool is what has scouts raising the red flag. There is some strikeout issues in his game (27.8%), but the chase rate is only at 19.3% which is a really good sign. Schubart punishes balls in the zone, especially when he can get his hands extended, and the rarely gets out of his approach with excellent swing decisions.
The struggles coming from breaking pitches and specifically down and away out of the zone is where we see a lot of swing a miss in his game and decline in power production. The main issue is his contact rate of 63.4%. While the quality of his contact is insanely high which allows for him to have such a high average, finding barrels at a 41.9% clip, the hit tool still needs some work. If we see that contact rate get up into the 70-80% range in 2025, I see Schubart catapulting into Top 10 conversations and potential for the Golden Spikes award, and the first college bat off the board.
To me, he profiles really similar to Jac Caglianone, but with far better swing decisions. The WHIFF issues may catch up to him and cause some slower development, but I’m a full believer in what I see, and can easily be one of the more fun power hitters in the MLB down the line.
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