SF Giants select shortstop Gavin Kilen with No. 13 overall pick of MLB draft

SAN FRANCISCO — For the Giants, contact was king on the first day of the 2025 MLB draft.

San Francisco selected a pair of contact-oriented, middle-of-the-diamond position players in Sunday’s annual draft, taking Tennessee shortstop Gavin Kilen out of Tennessee with the 13th overall pick and Rutgers outfielder Trevor Cohen in the third round (85th overall).

“We like living in the middle of the diamond, we like guys that make elite contact, and we think we accomplished both of those with these guys,” said Giants director of amateur scouting Michael Holmes.

Kilen, 21, spent the first two years of his collegiate career with Louisville before transferring to Tennessee, where he had a slash line of .357/.441/.671 with 15 homers and 46 RBIs as a junior. The middle infielder’s hit tool projects as his greatest strength, evidenced by his career .323 batting average in college and minuscule strikeout rate of 9.7 percent.

Kilen, interestingly enough, was drafted as a shortstop despite spending most of the 2024-25 collegiate baseball season at second base. As a junior with Tennessee, Kilen was named to the All-SEC first team as a second baseman. Baseball America and Perfect Game also named Kilen as a first-team All-American at second base. For now, Kilen will develop as a shortstop.

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The Boston Red Sox originally drafted Kilen in the 13th round of the 2022 MLB draft, but Kilen elected to attend college.

“Elite bat-to-ball skills,” Holmes said of Kilen, who was originally drafted in the 13th round of the 2022 MLB draft but elected for college. “We think that he’s more of a line drive hitter, but he’s a guy that was able to hit 15 home runs this year, so we think there’s some power to come with him.”

As far as Cohen, MLB Pipeline did not list Cohen on its list of the best 250 draft prospects while Baseball America left Cohen off its list of top 500 draft prospects. The Giants, though, believed him to be underrated.

Cohen spent three years at Rutgers, hitting .338/.415/.430 with four homers and 39 steals. As a junior, Cohen set the Big Ten single-season record for most hits during conference play (56). While Cohen didn’t hit for much power, Holmes assessed that Cohen had some “sneaky good (exit velocities)” and believes the Giants’ player development group can help Cohen unlock additional pop by elevating the baseball.

Along with the bat-to-ball skills — Cohen only struck out eight percent of the time in college — Cohen impressed the Giants during his interview with the team at the draft combine.

“In a lot of ways, he won us over with his interview at the combine,” Holmes said. “I’m a big believer in not only betting on the players and talent, but people. The time we sat down with him at the combine kind of just really sold us on the individual he was. One thing we want to do is we want to bring winning players — championship-type players — in our organization that buy into a team winning concept. The way he presented himself at the combine in our meeting was definitely influential.”

At Rutgers, Cohen played alongside outfielder Peyton Bonds, whose uncle is none other than Barry Bonds.

The Giants did not have a second-round pick after signing shortstop Willy Adames to a seven-year, $182 million deal. Last year, the team also didn’t have a second-round selection after signing third baseman Matt Chapman. Based on experiences from the last draft, Holmes said the team learned to not spend too much time on players who were unlikely to be available in between selections.

“It was really important for us to get out, identify the players that we liked and wanted to spend time on,” Holmes said. “The worst part of the day was the waiting game between (picks) 13 and 85. I didn’t think it would ever get there. But making sure that we spent time on the players that we felt fit and identified those is I think what we’ve learned from it.”

Major League Baseball’s decision to schedule the start of the draft at 3 p.m. resulted in the Giants’ brass having its attention both at the ballpark and on the draft board.

Right before the start of the draft, Luis Matos hit a two-run home run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning to send the Giants’ final game of the first half into extra innings. San Francisco would end up losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 11 innings at 4:10 p.m. then making its first selection at 4:15 p.m.

“It was interesting, right? Had two things going on at once,” Holmes said. “It’d be nice for us to be able to handle this draft with all the games already being played. Then, of course, the game goes extra innings on draft day. So, how ironic. But it really wasn’t difficult to manage. Obviously the attention was in both places, but we knew what we were there to do. We were there to draft.”

With the first overall pick, the Washington Nationals made a surprising pick by selecting shortstop Eli Willits out of Fort Cobb-Broxton High School, the third-youngest player to ever be selected first overall.

he Los Angeles Angels made an even more shocking selection with the No. 2 pick by drafting UC Santa Barbara’s right-handed pitcher Tyler Bremner, who most didn’t project as a top-10 pick.

Ethan Holliday, the son of outfielder Matt Holliday and the brother of Jackson Holliday, was selected with the fourth overall pick by the Colorado Rockies, where his Matt played for six seasons.