MLB Draft Scouting Report: Marek Houston is one of 2025's biggest risers

Marek Houston has been one of the top risers in the 2025 MLB Draft class and continues to be a darling on plenty of draft boards. The 21-year-old shortstop out of Wake Forest wasn't a name carrying a ton of buzz headed into the 2025 season, however, we are now talking about a potential top-10 pick come this July.

Houston was only a Third Team All-ACC selection just a year ago, but has all of a sudden looked like one of the top position players in all of college baseball thus far in 2025.

Previous Scouting Reports:

• Jace Laviolette, Texas A&M

Marek Houston Scouting Report: Bio and Tools

Marek Houston has been a late bloomer. He wasn't necessarily a highly sought-after prospect coming out of the Florida high school ranks in 2022. His plus defense earned him the starting shortstop role at Wake Forest in his freshman year, but he was a well-below-average bat.

He made plenty of improvements at the plate last year, but the expectation was still that he was going to be a glove-first shortstop headed into the 2025 season. While he's maintained his status as a premier defender, the bat is certainly catching up. And the fact that he's just now developing into an impact bat only suggests that there might be more potential to tap into as he enters pro ball.

As far as Houston's bat goes, it's a hit-over-power profile, although the power tool has been the most improved part of his game in 2025.

He has continued to add size and strength throughout his college career, and has turned that into more bat speed and harder contact. His season-high in home runs came last year where he hit eight, and he managed to surpass that this year by March 22nd.

It's a short, compact swing tailored for prioritizing contact, but he's still packing a healthy amount of punch into it as well. He possesses a bit of a unique plate approach, which was something he changed coming into the season. He's very patient, but a larger portion of his swings come from out of the zone than you would like to see.

He can get away with it because of how much contact he makes, but hitting the ball and hitting the ball with authority are two different skills. A higher rate of those two-strike counts he backs himself into will turn into strikeouts when he gets in front of pro pitching at the next level.

Defensively, there's very little reason to believe Houston can't stick at shortstop long-term. His plus skills at the position are what earned him the starting role at Wake Forest, and he has only gotten better with time. He has great lateral quickness to both sides as well as a strong and accurate arm. He also displays above-average speed and is well on his way to the first 20+ stolen base season of his career, although evaluators believe his speed will show up more defensively rather than on the bases at the next level.

Marek Houston 2025 MLB Draft Outlook

I have Houston being selected 10th overall by the Chicago White Sox in my recent mock draft. Unfortunately for the White Sox, the best their 121-loss season could yield them was the tenth overall pick. On the flip side, the White Sox have done a solid job in their recent drafts.

They have selected bat-first shortstops in the first round in two of their last four drafts, and it seems likely Houston — the glove first shortstop — may be the best shortstop available at tenth overall. It's a great position to continue investing in, especially when you're dealing with a player with as high of a floor as Houston.

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