Phillies select three college pitchers on first day of MLB draft

On Day 1 of Major League Baseball’s 2025 amateur draft, the Phillies went with experience on the mound.

With three picks in the first three rounds on Sunday night, the organization drafted three college pitchers. The Phillies selected right-hander Gage Wood out of Arkansas with the 26th pick in the first round, Iowa left-hander Cade Obermueller with the No. 63 pick in the second round and Vanderbilt righty Cody Bowker with the 100th overall pick in the third.

Wood had a 3.82 ERA in 10 starts this year and threw a no-hitter at the College World Series last month, but he did miss a portion of the season due to injury.

Obermueller had a 3.02 ERA in 15 starts at Iowa this season. He was drafted in the 19th round by the Rangers last year, but he returned to school for another season.

Bowker played two seasons at Georgetown before transferring to Vanderbilt. He had a 4.38 ERA in 16 starts for the Commodores in 2025.

Earlier this week, Phillies assistant general manager and head of amateur scouting Brian Barber described the set of college pitchers as a strength of this year’s draft class to go along with its prep middle infielders. The Phillies had not taken a college pitcher in the top-three rounds since 2017 — three draft cycles before Barber joined the organization — when they took Spencer Howard in the second round and Connor Seabold in the third. They came away with three on Sunday.

The draft will resume on Monday for Rounds 4 through 20.