MLB Draft notes: Kade Anderson, Kyson Witherspoon flash first-round stuff in showdown

On Thursday night, I was in Norman, Okla., freezing along with a ton of directors and cross-checkers for a big matchup of first-round arms in LSU lefty Kade Anderson and Oklahoma righty Kyson Witherspoon.

Anderson has joined that big group of college lefties likely to go off the board in the top 15-20 picks along with Tennessees Liam Doyle, Florida States Jamie Arnold, and Arkansas Zach Root.

Hes similar to Root, as theyre both pitchers who use their broad arsenals and mix pitches extremely well, throwing strikes and keeping hitters off-balance by changing speeds and locations, but Anderson has a better fastball than Root does.

GO DEEPER MLB Draft 2025: Keith Laws top 30 draft prospects to start the season Anderson is a true four-pitch pitcher, 91-95 on the fastball with what I think were both four- and two-seamers, with a plus changeup with good deception, a downward-breaking slider in the low 80s, and a big two-plane curveball in the upper 70s.

He uses the slider more than the other off-speed pitches, but the changeup has incredible fading action to it and gets more whiffs.

The curveball looks right with a huge arc to its break, but in this game and on the season as a whole the sliders gotten more whiffs, so the curve might just be a good show-me pitch or a way to get a chase on something below the zone.

He threw everything for strikes, was willing to attack with the fastball getting into a jam and then striking out two batters in a row on the heater and competed all night.

Advertisement And by all night, I mean all freaking night.

Anderson finished the seventh at 108 pitches, a great outing that should have ended his day in a sane and rational world.

Instead, LSU had him throw the eighth, which he finished with 119 pitches, so of course they sent him out for the ninth.

The shutout took 135 pitches, on a night where the temperature had dropped below 50 degrees by the final inning.

Its mind-boggling that in 2025 there are still college coaches out there ignoring the mountains of evidence showing that pitching too much increases the risk of injury.

No MLB pitcher threw 135 pitches in any game last year, or in any year since 2013.

Since 2019, only Alex Cobb (131) has gone over 130 pitches ( and that was in a game he finished one out away from a no-hitter ).

And Im going to go on a limb and say that Louisiana State University, with all its pitching resources , probably had someone in its bullpen who was capable of getting those last three outs.

Letting Anderson throw that much in a game is just irresponsible, even more so when hes staring at a $3 million bonus in just a few months, and just more data that MLB cannot just farm out player development to college baseball and pretend the minors dont matter.

Witherspoon came out dealing for the Sooners, sitting 97 in the first inning his first six fastballs were all at that speed and holding 95-97 into the seventh, despite the cold.

His arm is really quick, and the fastball is lively, while his off-speed stuff wasnt as sharp in this outing.

He threw a slider and a cutter that ran into each other, all in the 85-90 mph range, leaving too many of them up in the zone.

Hes got very good arm speed on a hard changeup at 88-89, and his curveball is really sharp, almost certainly a spike given its shape, but he didnt use either pitch that much in this game.

Hes very athletic and I think there are probably some small delivery tweaks a team could make to get him to a more consistent release point and shore up the command.

Hes a mid-first rounder for sure, and I wouldnt be shocked to see him get into the top 10 as a hard thrower with a fair bit of room for growth beyond just velocity.

Advertisement LSUs Dickinson showing a strong approach LSU second baseman Daniel Dickinson, a transfer this year from Utah Valley State, has been a steady producer for the Tigers with a .346/.507/.655 line and more walks than strikeouts (11.5 percent K rate), so of course I got an oh-fer from him.

He punched out once on a slider/cutter down and away from Witherspoon, but that was his only swing-and-miss on the evening.

Its a simple swing without a ton of loft, with his value really coming in his approach and especially his very low in-zone whiff rate (8.2 percent last year, 14 percent so far this year).

Its possible someone will see him as a candidate to pull the ball more in the air given his strong contact skills; he doesnt have elite exit velocities, and I dont think theres a ton of projection here, so I dont know how much that hitting plan will help him.

He can hit, and hes hit well in the SEC so far.

If he keeps that up, hell probably go in the second round.

OUs Carmichael handles a tough catching assignment Oklahoma catcher Easton Carmichael did a capable enough job catching Witherspoon, which cant be a terribly easy assignment.

As a hitter, Carmichael swings early and often, with a history of low strikeout and walk rates, with 55 power.

He had one of the five hits Anderson allowed, grounding a slider through the left side for a single.

I wont pretend I got a ton out of this look other than seeing that he was capable of handling Witherspoon on a cold night when the pitcher didnt have great command.

(Photo of Anderson: Sarah Phipps / The Oklahoman / USA Today Network via Imagn Images).

This article has been shared from the original article on theathleticuk, here is the link to the original article:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6260065/2025/04/07/mlb-draft-kade-anderson-kyson-witherspoon/