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Spanning the State: The Shore’s 2025 MLB Draft Connections

Matt Manley|July 15, 2025|Last Updated August 6, 2025

New Jersey has been a hidden gem for baseball players in the Major Leage Baseball First-Year Player Draft, although it is debatable how hidden the Garden State is at this point. In this year’s MLB Draft, which concluded on Monday evening with rounds four through 20, 23 players who played at a New Jersey High School were selected during the two-day event, which totaled 615 selections.

For those that are not math-inclined, that is 3.7 percent of the selections for a state that makes up two percent of the states in the union and is home to approximately 2.8 percent of the U.S. population. In other words, New Jersey baseball is outperforming expectations — at least based on the results of the 2025 MLB Draft.

The Shore Conference was responsible for six of the 23 selections, including the first N.J. player off the board (Wall alumnus Andrew Fischer) and two of the three players selected on day one of the Draft on Sunday (Central graduate Cam Leiter being the other). The Shore also had one of the four N.J. players drafted directly out of high school, with Toms River East shortstop and Shore Sports Insider Player of the Year Matt Ferrara going to the Philadephia Phillies in the ninth round.

In addition to the six players being selected, there are Shore Conference ties all over the board. Here is a look at a slew of other Jersey players to get the call on either Sunday or Monday and their connection to the Shore.

Mariners Take Non-Public A Championship Hero on Day One

The first high school player take from New Jersey in 2025 has a decorated history in NJSIAA state championship games and both of his championship-winning performances came at the expense of Shore Conference teams.

Christian Brothers Academy was on the cusp of its first NJSIAA Non-Public A championship in 10 years and if not for Nick Becker, the Colts might have upended Don Bosco Prep in the Non-Pubilc A final. The Ironmen shortstop put his tools on display in the final at Veterans Park, slugging a home run in the first inning, flashing his range, glove and arm in the field throughout the 11 innings, and using his legs to score the winning run in the bottom of the 11th to cap a 5-4 Bosco victory.

Becker finished the 11-inning classic — which took parts of two days to play — 1-for-4 with a homer, walk, hit-by-pitch, three runs scored and a stolen base. Becker had only two hits in the entire tournament and both were home runs; his first long-ball was a game-tying three-run home run against rival Delbarton in a game Don Bosco went on to win, 8-6.

Two years earlier, Becker went 1-for-2 with an RBI double to deep center in Don Bosco’s 4-1 win over Red Bank Catholic in the 2023 Non-Public A championship game.

The Seattle Mariners made Becker the first player drafted straight out of a New Jersey High School in the 2025 Draft when they selected the 6-foot-4 shortstop in the second round, No. 57 overall.

Brewers Replace Jersey Pitcher That Got Away With…Another Jersey Pitcher

Last year, the Milwaukee Brewers took two hard-throwing right-handers from New Jersey with consecutive picks, the second of which was CBA right-hander Chris Levonas with the 67th overall pick. Levonas, however, passed on the Brewers’ offer to honor his commitment to Wake Forest, leaving the Brewers with the Hun School’s Bryce Meccage as its lone prep pitcher from the Garden State, plus a compensation pick in 2025 at No. 68.

With that 68th pick, the Brewers went back to New Jersey, selecting left-handed pitcher Frank Cairone directly out of Delsea High School. Although Cairone did not run into any Shore Conference team like Becker did, he was awfully close. Had Delsea not been upset by Ocean City in the South Jersey Group III quarterfinal, Cairone would have pitched at Bill Frank Field against Toms River East in the sectional semifinal. With the Phillies taking Matt Ferrara in the ninth round, that would have been a showdown of two draft picks of contending teams in the National League.

More Brewers and Phillies Connections

With three N.J. selections each, the Brewers and Phillies were the two Jersey-heavy teams in this year’s draft, with plenty of Shore Conference connections aong them.

In addition to Fischer and Cairone, the Brewers took Josiah Ragsdale in the seventh round out of Boston College. Ragsdale graduated from St. Augustine and as a senior in 2021, he authored one of the more notorious moments in the last decade of Shore Conference baseball.

Facing Red Bank Catholic in the NJSIAA South Jersey Non-Public A final at home, St. Augustine was down to its last out with no one on base and trailing the Caseys, 5-4. Ragsdale — a centerfielder hitting No. 9 in the batting order — hit a ground ball to second base and while it would have been a routine ground ball to second base, Ragsdale’s speed made it anything but routine. After a bobble at second base, Ragsdale reached first base in time to extend the game.

Ragsdale was just getting started. He stole second, then stole third, giving himself a chance to score on a wild pitch, passed ball or an infield single. There was also another option: steal home. Ragsdale made a daring dash to the plate and scored standing up for a game-tying, straight steal of home. The Hermits went on to beat RBC, 6-5, in extra innings.

The Phillies also drafted three players from New Jersey, including two Shore alums in Ferrara and Matt Potok. The other was Eastern’s dual-threat star Logan Dawson, who helped lead the Vikings to the Group IV championship game as a junior in 2024 — a postseason run that included a classic 7-5 win over Jackson Memorial in the Group IV semifinal. The Jaguars held Dawson — who was announced as a shortstop by MLB upon his selection — to an 0-for-4 day at the plate in that state semifinal.

Captain of the Shore-Slayers

Ragsdale was part of a St. Augustine dynasty that tormented both CBA and Red Bank Catholic during its run of six straight South Jersey championships from 2016 to 2022.

The best player on the Hermits in 2021 and 2022 was shortstop Ryan Weingartner, who went 1-for-5 in the 2021 championship win over RBC and 2-for-2 with two doubles and two RBI the following year in a 5-2 win over CBA in the 2022 sectional championship game. That Hermits team went on to win the Non-Public A title and finished 27-2.

Weingartner went on to star at St. Joseph’s for two years, then at Penn State this past fall and was selected by the St. Louis Cardinals in the eighth round on Monday.

Family Ties

The name Meola is legendary in U.S. Soccer and, by extension, New Jersey athletics. Tony Meola was the National Team’s goalkeeper during the 1990, 1994 and 2002 World Cups, but in his younger years, he was also an outstanding baseball player — so much so, the New York Yankees used a draft pick on him in 1987.

That baseball prowess has extended into the next generation of Meolas and on day two of the Draft, another Meola heard his name called. The San Francisco Giants selected Lorenzo Meola — a cousin of Tony Meola — out of Stetson University, where Lorenzo played shortstop for the Hatters.

Lorenzo is the second cousin of Tony’s two baseball-playing sons, Jon and Aidan — both of whom played at Toms River East. Jon graduated from Toms River East in 2015 and played college baseball at both the University of Virginia and Stetson. Aidan played his first two high school seasons at Toms River East before moving to Florida prior to his college career at Oklahoma State, where he just completed his senior season.

From Group 2 to Round 1

Group II has been loaded with talent in recent years, so much so that the first two players from New Jersey drafted in the 2025 both graduated from Group II programs. Fischer was the first and the second was Coastal Carolina catcher and former Haddon Heights star Caden Bodine, whom the Baltimore Orioles selected at No. 30 overall.

Bodine twice ran into Shore Conference teams in the state tournament while playing for the Garnets, with mixed results. As a junior in 2021, 12th-seeded Manchester began its stunning run to a South Jersey Group II championship by upsetting Haddon Heights in the first round. The Hawks kept Bodine quiet, with the future Orioles draft pick going 0-for-2 with a walk and two stolen bases.

A year later, Haddon Heights redeemed itself by making it all the way to the Group II championship game and to get there, the Garnets ran through three Shore Conference teams — including a revenge game vs. Manchester. First, Haddon Heights took down Barnegat in the sectional quarterfinals, with Bodine going 3-for-4 with an RBI in a 6-5 win in eight innings.

The rematch with Manchester came in the sectional semifinals and it was not close. Bodine went 3-for-5 with a double and four RBI as Haddon Heights rolled to a 13-3 win over the defending sectional champion. After beating Cedar Creek in the sectional final, Haddon Heights took down a talented Rumson-Fair Haven squad in the Group II semifinal. In the win over Rumson, Bodine went 1-for-2 with a walk and a run scored while running the game behind the plate.

While at Coastal Carolina, Bodine was a three-year starter behind the plate and caught two former Shore Conference standouts: Wall graduate Teddy Sharkey and Matt Potok from Jackson Memorial. Potok was also drafted in this year’s draft — by the Phillies in the 18th round — and Bodine will be reuniting Sharkey in the Orioles system. The Orioles selected Sharkey in the seventh round of the 2023 draft and the former Wall flame-thrower is up to High-A as a relief pitcher.

The Would-Be Hero

Shane Van Dam had one of the most memorable games of his life in the 2022 Group III championship, but his perforance ended up a footnote in the game — not just because Cranford lost the game, but because of how they lost it.

Middletown North walked off with a 5-4 win over Cranford in the Group III final in the notorious “Pitch-Count” game, in which Middletown North’s Colin Dowlen threw 10 more pitches than he should have been allowed to throw because the official NJSIAA pitch-counter lost count. To make a long story short, the official counter gets the final say of what the pitch count is, Cranford did not properly challege the pitch count during the game, and the result of the game stood.

Part of that result, however, was Van Dam’s outstanding day at the plate. The North Carolina State product went 2-for-3 with an opposite-field home run and a double for the Cougars.

Van Dam, however, was not drafted for his bat; he was drafted as a pitcher Monday by the Kansas City Royals in the ninth round. The right-hander struck out 15 in only 8 2/3 innings as a senior at Cranford and pitched only eight innings for the Wolfpack this spring, but his 6-foot-6 stature and room to add velocity was enough for the Royals to use a ninth-round flier on him.

Seeing (More) Red

The color red has agreed with Kyle McCoy throughout his baseball career. He starred as the ace of the Hunterdon Central Red Devils in High School and played his college ball at the University of Maryland. Apparently, the Cincinnati Reds like how the color looked on him, because the Reds made McCoy their eighth round selection Monday in the MLB Draft.

McCoy had a rebound season with Maryland in 2025 after missing the entire 2024 season while recovery from elbow surgery. He earned All-Freshman honors in the Big Ten in 2023, but that came with a 5.91 ERA in 53 1/3 innings and was a precursor to his injury.

Whisper’s of McCoy managing arm trouble began during his senior year of high school, when he missed nearly a full month in the middle of the season before returning for the NJSIAA Tournament. McCoy handled the opposition in his first two playoff starts, including a 12-strikeout performance in 5 1/3 innings during the sectional final vs. Woodbridge.

In the Group IV final, McCoy took the ball looking to pitch the Red Devils to a title, but Howell was all over him. The Rebels completed their magical run to a Group IV championship with a 9-8 win, tagging McCoy for six runs in 3 1/3 innings, with McCoy still managing to collect six strikeouts. The big swing was a first-inning home run by Howell shortstop Thomas Strauch.

That loss began a long two-year trudge through adversity for McCoy, who has come out clean on the other end after a strong showing as a red-shirt junior at Maryland, which earned him a spot on the All-Conference Third Team: a 6-3 record, 3.32 ERA, 71 strikeouts, 21 walks in 84 innings.

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