Ethan Holliday goes No. 4 overall
Stillwater High School product and Oklahoma State Cowboy baseball commitment Ethan Holliday was selected No. 4 overall by the Colorado Rockies in the 2025 MLB Draft on Sunday evening.
Ethan had long ago committed to play for uncle Josh Holliday at OSU. It has long been a foregone conclusion that he would never play for the Pokes – just like his dad and older brother before him.
The youngest Holliday projected to go as high as No. 1 overall, matching his brother Jackson who was the top pick overall in the 2022 draft.
The fact that Jackson Holliday has turned into an every day player for the Baltimore Orioles certainly did not hurt Ethan’s draft stock in the least. Compared to Jackson, Ethan is built much more like their 7X All Star father, Matt Holliday. Ethan stands 6’4″ by 215 pounds. All of the Holliday’s are natural right-handers, but the two boys have hit left-handed their whole lives. Ethan will begin his career as a shortstop/third base prospect.
Matt himself was once an OSU signee – for both football and baseball. He was a similar level baseball prospects as his sons, but was also among the top 2 or 3 quarterbacks nationally in the 1998 class. In part due to uncertainty if he would opt for football, Matt would up falling to the seventh round in the ’98 MLB Draft. The Rockies knew a bit more than most teams since his uncle Dave was a scout in the Rockies organization at the time. Thus, with their first pick in the draft, the Rockies drafted father and son 27 years apart.
Given that he was projected and ultimately went in the top five, there’s no real loss for OSU baseball, since it was highly unlikely Ethan Holliday would drop far enough to even consider the college game.
While Ethan ultimately was not the No. 1 overall pick, another Oklahoma high school product did. Fort Cobb-Broxton shortstop Eli Willits had that honor in this draft. If the last name sounds familiar, it’s probably because his dad – Reggie Willits – was a star college player at Oklahoma (and is currently a volunteer coach for the Sooners.
