The first day of the 2025 MLB draft was a big day for the Lodise family. Florida State shortstop Alex Lodise was taken by the Braves in the second round with the 60th overall pick. Sixteen picks later, the White Sox opened the third round by taking his cousin Kyle, a fellow ACC shortstop coming off a breakout year with Georgia Tech.
Kyle Lodise hit .329/.429/.667 with 16 homers and 34 walks against 47 strikeouts after transferring from Augusta University, a D-II school. He started all 55 games for the Yellow Jackets at shortstop, which reinforces Chris Getz's assertion that he was indeed targeting that position in the draft. Unlike first-round pick Billy Carlson, Lodise doesn't have one standout attribute. He's gotten to this point by doing a lot of things well enough, which is enough to mask over the weaker areas of his game.
Speaking of which...
What's Kyle Lodise's game?
Lodise, who stands 5'11" and 180 pounds, made his mark in the ACC by crushing fastballs, although there's a potential catch. D1Baseball says he slugged .765 against fastballs, which is good, but Baseball America said he did almost all of his home run damage on pitches under 92 mph, which is less impressive. His contact against breaking pitches was less frequent and authoritative, but his plate discipline brought pitchers back to the strike zone.
Defensively, any question about whether he can regularly play shortstop has to do with his arm, because his hands are the reliable component. He went 13-for-13 in stolen bases in his junior season, so that adds to the value proposition as well.
"He nailed the interview at the combine; talk about professional, well spoken, intelligent, instinctual." said Mike Shirley. "A Chase Meidroth-type of player. He touches Ryan Fuller’s thing of contact and decisions at a high level. You play shortstop and we feel like we are starting to touch the point of emphasis we are trying to build out the better baseball player and better at-bats."
Where did Kyle Lodise rank?
What does Kyle Lodise look like?
Any good anagrams?
Nah. Most of them involve the word "yokel."
