Better know a draft prospect: Ethan Conrad

The outfielder has a well-rounded skill set.

With the calendar turning to June, we continue evaluating prospects that the Royals could target in the first round of this summer’s draft. Today we look at a position player prospect that burst onto the scene a year ago: Wake Forest’s Ethan Conrad.

Conrad was born in Poughkeepsie, New York and grew up in nearby Saugerties. He played baseball at Saugerties Senior High School, where he pitched and played first base. He didn’t get much attention from scouts in his senior season and stayed close to home for college, heading to Marist University.

On opening day 2023, Conrad was not in the starting lineup for the Red Foxes. But it didn’t take long for him to get a shot to play — starting first baseman Justin Kapuscinski was injured early in the game and the freshman was summoned as his replacement. Conrad went down looking in his first at-bat but roped a triple in his next for his first collegiate hit. He would be a fixture in the Marist lineup the rest of the way, serving as the nominal first baseman before moving to the outfield corners when Kapuscinski returned from injury. His performance was uneven at first, but he found his footing down the stretch, finishing the season with multiple hits in four of the last six games. Conrad finished his freshman season hitting .320/.371/.442 in 200 plate appearances. He also stole 19 bases while only being caught once. He was named to the All-MAAC Rookie Team for his efforts.

Conrad headed back home for the summer but didn’t stop playing ball, suiting up for Saugerties Stallions in the Perfect Game Collegiate League, a mid-level wood bat summer league. He didn’t show a ton of power there but otherwise had a productive summer, hitting .330/.410/.418 in 105 plate appearances and stealing ten bases without being caught.

In 2024, Conrad began the season as Marist’s starting first baseman and cleanup hitter. He struggled opening weekend against a talented Southern Miss pitching staff but quickly heated up thereafter. He hit four triples in a game in late March and posted four straight games with at least three hits just a few weeks later. Marist had a tough season but managed to reach the MAAC Tournament, where Conrad was at his best. In four games, he went 7-20 with three homers, a double, and a stolen base. He finished the year hitting .389/.467/.704 with 17 stolen bases in 23 attempts and a nation-leading 13 triples. His play earned him an All-MAAC First Team selection.

Once again Conrad returned to Saugerties for the summer to play for the Stallions. This time, he obliterated the competition, hitting .469/.552/.837 in 58 plate appearances before heading to the Cape Cod League for a bigger challenge. He spent the rest of the summer there and looked the part in the premier collegiate summer league. Conrad hit .385/.433/.486 in 120 plate appearances and swiped 19 bags in 23 attempts. Even before this summer that got him on the prospect radar, Conrad had elected to enter the transfer portal and take his talents to Wake Forest.

As a high-profile newcomer, Conrad was expected to play a big role for the Demon Deacons in 2025. He began the season as the team’s starting center fielder and faced his old team in the first weekend of the season, torching them with a 5-7 showing in two games. He crushed the ball in non-conference and needed no adjustment period in his first ACC series, going 5-11 with two homers and three walks against Notre Dame to open conference play. He also reached base safely in each of his first 21 games. Unfortunately, his streak and season would end there. On March 15, Conrad left the second game of a double-header against Miami with a shoulder injury. He wasn’t initially expected to miss too much time, but the recovery came slowly and, in early April, he underwent surgery on that shoulder that ended his season. Conrad finished the year with just 97 plate appearances but hit .372/.495/.744 with 15 extra-base hits, more walks than strikeouts, and four steals in five attempts.

Conrad looked like a slam-dunk first-rounder before the injury and is still in that range on most prospect rankings:

MLB Pipeline: 28

Kiley McDaniel: 25

Baseball America ($): 22

Keith Law ($): 40

He has prototypical big leaguer’s physicality at 6’3”, 220 lbs. Conrad sets up deep in the left-handed batter’s box with a slightly closed stance, feet a bit more than shoulder width apart. He holds the bat near his head and almost parallel to the ground over his back shoulder with little movement as he awaits the pitch. His hands load simple and shallow with very little bat wrap. He kicks his lead leg as the pitch is coming in with a modest stride, his front foot coming down only slightly ahead of where it began. Conrad’s top-hand dominant swing is short to the ball with a one-handed finish.

Conrad’s 18.4% walk rate in his junior season belies an approach with plenty of chase. His barrel control and feel to hit helped him get away with it and strike out only 17.0% of the time in college, including 14.3% for Wake Forest and 15.0% on the Cape. He’s got solid pop but looked more of a doubles hitter in college than somebody that parks the ball over the fence. This is in part due to his inability to lift the ball with regularity — Conrad posted a 45.3% groundball rate this season and 45.5% over his collegiate career. He has the raw juice for 20 homers if he can learn to pull the ball in the air more consistently.

Conrad is a solid runner, stealing 77 bases in 88 attempts combined between D1 and summer ball. With that speed, it’s interesting that he played so much first base at Marist while exclusively playing the outfield in summer ball. He played center field full time this season for Wake. He held his own out there with decent actions and at least an average arm. Given how little time Conrad has spent at the position, it’s hard to say if he’s rangy enough for center, but he should be more than capable in a corner if he needs to move there.

The injury he suffered this spring and the lack of a clear plus tool makes Conrad challenging to evaluate. A center fielder with his contact skills and power should be a top ten pick in this draft. But it’s a small sample of center field defense and his injury came before he had the chance to test his hitting against the meat of Wake’s schedule. His only stretch against upper-crust collegiate competition was last summer on the Cape, where he hit well overall but posted a .101 ISO, implying below-average power. Even if that’s the case, Conrad’s contact skills could make him a solid regular if he can play a passable center field. Being limited to a corner would put much more pressure on the bat to develop.