Sons of former MLB players: Eli Willits and Ethan Holliday heading to the 2025 Draft

Two Baseball Promises Forged on the Field and in the Family: Eli Willits and Ethan Holliday

Eli Willits’ earliest baseball memories are tied to playing catch with his father, Reggie, in the backyard of Angel Stadium. In late June, Eli stepped back onto the field that his father called home for six seasons with the [Los Angeles Angels](/mlb/team/_/name/laa/los-angeles-angels) during a private workout with the team, which has the second pick in the 2025 MLB draft.

“Eli trained last week for the Angels. For me, it was surreal. He was batting and fielding ground balls, and my kids have been doing that with me since they were little,” said Reggie Willits. “Jaxon and Eli and I would go to left field and do batting practice there; they were very small. They could hit home runs in the bullpen. It was a surreal moment for us as a family. I played my whole career in that stadium.”
Reggie Willits

Ethan Holliday, born in 2007, the same year his father, Matt, finished second in the National League MVP voting for the [Colorado Rockies](/mlb/team/_/name/col/colorado-rockies), fondly remembers a trip to Busch Stadium with his brother, Jackson, when Ethan was 6 or 7 years old, to see his father play for the [St. Louis Cardinals](/mlb/team/_/name/stl/st-louis-cardinals). Both teams have picks in the top five picks of the upcoming draft, but there is no guarantee that Ethan will be available when Colorado has the fourth pick or St. Louis a pick later. These two Oklahoma high school stars share many similarities: they are the sons of former Major League players who also have siblings who excel in the family business. Both are expected to hear their names early in this year’s draft. They have even forged a close friendship through baseball. However, despite the glamour that comes with potential stardom, both have learned from their parents how much behind-the-scenes work is needed on the road to the top of the draft.

“Do you like your name above the box office? Yes,” recalls Eli answering a series of questions from his father a decade ago. “Do you like going out in front of 50,000 fans? Yes,” said Eli. “Do you want to get up at 4 in the morning and go train? No,” said Eli laughing. “But that’s what it takes, and I always wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps. I am very grateful for that opportunity.”
Eli Willits

The Hollidays are the first established baseball family from Oklahoma, helping to raise the profile of a state not known for being a hotbed of draft prospects. Matt batted .299 with 316 home runs in 15 years in the majors, and his brother Josh is the head coach at Oklahoma State (following in the footsteps of their father, Tom, who coached the Cowboys for 26 seasons). Ethan’s brother, Jackson, added to the family legacy by becoming the No. 1 pick in the 2022 draft and plays second base for the [Baltimore Orioles](/mlb/team/_/name/bal/baltimore-orioles). I first noticed Ethan when he was a freshman at Stillwater High. He was batting behind his brother, whom dozens of scouts came to see. Ethan already stood out.

Ethan Holliday is the 1st high school player to sign an NIL deal with Adidas. pic.twitter.com/Xv56hVzD4w
— Kiley McDaniel (@kileymcd) April 27, 2022

Being the younger brother of a first-round prospect has given Ethan a window into the draft process that most players don’t experience. He’s watched Jackson go through the transition from teammate to becoming the number 1 pick and debuting in the major leagues, and that has facilitated Ethan’s transition into his draft process.

“I was his wingman that year. I got to be in his meetings, be with him at the games and practices, when there were 40 scouts at every game and everyone had their camera ready when he was batting, I was there with him,” Ethan said. “Obviously it’s a little different going through it myself, but that definitely took some weight off.”
Ethan Holliday

Jackson’s rapid rise —[ranked number 1 on my list of the top 100 prospects of 2024](/mlb/insider/story/_/id/39420988/top-100-mlb-prospects-list-2024-kiley-mcdaniel-jackson-holliday-jackson-chourio)— also helped bring attention to Ethan early in his high school career. Ethan has been the most well-known player on any field he’s been on for at least a year. Before his senior season, he became the first high school player to sign an [NIL](https://x.com/kileymcd/status/1884285317878108238) deal with Adidas, the brand Jackson signed with once he turned pro.

But despite the apparent advantages of his baseball lineage, not everything has been easy for Ethan. For some scouts, he underperformed last summer on the exhibition circuit against the best high school pitchers in the country. Entering the spring, some in the industry wondered if he would live up to his potential and the hype tied to his last name.

When asked an open question about the evolution of his swing and without mentioning that narrative, he was clearly aware of it in his response.

“In high school, you face a good pitcher, and their plan is to throw off-speed pitches because they don’t trust their fastball,” Ethan said. “In summer, pitchers come in for an inning and throw as hard as they can. It’s different. I never got anything but off-speed in high school, so making the adjustment for summer was difficult. My dad has really helped me with my approach, my swing.”
Ethan Holliday

As expected from someone who has had a recent major league star to turn to for baseball advice, Ethan handled the topic like a professional. He had a great season in high school, and those offensive concerns have diminished due to his performance.

Even though some wondered if Ethan would have a great spring, most scouts were optimistic because Matt is considered one of the best swing coaches in the sport. His son has adopted his father’s hobby of capturing the components of a swing.

“I’ve had a leg kick my whole life,” Ethan said. “One day, in the cage, I was messing around and watching videos of Barry Bonds and his finger tap. Then, I was finger tapping and hitting balls where I wanted, and I hit four barrels in the next scrimmage. Nothing has changed with my swing path or hand position, it just felt great, so I did it.”
Ethan Holliday

When Matt talks about hitting, it’s easy to see why he’s so respected, with the wisdom gained from playing with some of the best players of his time.

“I am fascinated by the swing, the mechanics of the swing, how it is linked to your brain, the focus and how everything works together”, said Matt. “If your timing is not good, your swing will break because when you are late, your body gets scared; it knows it. It will change your front side a little, and the bat will lengthen. I love talking about the swing. I love learning.”
Matt Holliday

After adjustments to his swing, Ethan enters the draft with plus-plus power and has also improved defensively as a shortstop. He could be the first pick and should be off the board no later than the number 4 pick.

The WILLITS FAMILY lives in Fort Cobb, Oklahoma, where they own and operate the [Double Seven Ranch](https://www.doublesevenranch.com/home), run by Reggie’s wife, Amber. Fort Cobb has between 400 and 600 residents, depending on the source. When I spoke with Eli less than a month before he would likely become one of the first picks in the MLB draft, he had helped move 200 bales of hay the day before.

This doesn’t escape the scouts I spoke with, not even Matt Holliday, who said: “I admire the hard work that farming requires. I appreciate his family’s work ethic and what it takes to operate a real farm.”

Eli has a full workload, between training, baseball games, practices, and work on the ranch. He has grown an inch this year — he’s now 1.85 meters tall — and has added 3.6 kilos of muscle since I saw him at a tournament in April. He also took on a heavy workload to finish high school in three years and be able to reclassify for the 2025 draft. Eli won’t turn 18 until December, making him the youngest prospect expected to be selected this year, a historical factor when predicting the success of high school prospects. Reggie initially didn’t like Eli’s idea of reclassifying because Reggie had changed jobs, from coach of the [New York Yankees](/mlb/team/_/name/nyy/new-york-yankees) to the Oklahoma Sooners, to be home with his children.

“That’s why I decided to leave professional baseball, [Jaxon] was about to be a senior in high school, and I hadn’t been able to see him play. I wanted to experience his senior year,” Reggie said. “When [Eli] came to us and wanted to reclassify, it was a difficult decision for us as a family. At first, I said ‘no way’. I didn’t like that very much. It took some convincing.”
Reggie Willits

While the family was going through the reclassification decision, Eli’s success on the field during training with the best college players on his father’s team in Oklahoma (his brother Jaxon is also the shortstop) helped convince Reggie that his son would be ready for the next level.

“We had some infielders get hurt, and we were short there at OU. We started putting Eli there to have some wiggle room and not wear our guys down in the fall. He got some at-bats. He’s been training with us since he was 14. He was getting a lot of live at-bats at 15.”
Reggie Willits

Eli remembers those first live at-bats. “The first hit I got, I was 14 years old and facing a 24-year-old pitcher. I was just trying to do my best. I want to embarrass them, really… Age doesn’t matter, I want to prove that I am the best player on the field.”

Eli did well in 15 to 20 training at-bats and that began to alleviate his father’s concern that his son would be surpassed by the older competition. “I went home and told my wife: ‘I feel like he could play for us at 15, so I’m pretty sure that at 17, he’d be fine if he were reclassified’”.

The Sooners’ right-handed pitcher, Kyson Witherspoon, is a projected first-round prospect, and Willits had to face that level of pitcher when he was in high school. Willits has held his own in these matchups, which has helped him improve.

“I had more confidence going into the summer exhibition season because I know I’m not going to see another Kyson on the mound there,” Eli said.
Eli Willits

Just as Ethan turned to his father for swing advice, Eli gained invaluable experience while accompanying his father when he was the Yankees’ coach from 2018 to 2021.

Although seeing [Aaron Judge](https://www.espn.com/mlb/player/_/id/33192/aaron-judge) take BP up close sounds like a pretty good advantage for having a father who is a coach, the biggest influence might have come from learning from then-Yankees coach Carlos Mendoza, who is the manager of the [New York Mets](/mlb/team/_/name/nym/new-york-mets) and is considered one of the best infield coaches in the game.

“I wouldn’t be anything defensively without Carlos,” said young Willits.
Eli Willits

Eli is a complete player, who is above average in almost everything on the field, except for power. He is not the biggest, strongest, or fastest player in this draft class, despite entering the draft as one of the best prospects.

There isn’t much time for social activities while both players prepare for life as professional baseball players, but Willits and Holliday take a break from baseball by texting each other.

“We don’t talk about the draft. We leave baseball out of it, and we just talk about our lives,” Willits said. “We both like to fish, so we talk a lot about fishing… Last summer was when we really started playing together and getting to know each other. Ethan is now a great friend of mine.”
Eli Willits

They were also teammates on Team USA in Panama at the WBSC U-18 Baseball World Cup Americas Qualifier.

“In Panama, we went out every day before and after the games, the bus, the locker room, we have talked practically every day since then, but I didn’t see Eli in person again until the [high school baseball tournament] in Edmond,” Holliday said.
Ethan Holliday

The Edmond tournament became the scouting event of the year because Willits and Holliday participated. Stillwater and Fort Cobb-Broxton, where the two prospects play high school baseball, are a few hours apart and the schools compete in different classes. The round-robin event at Edmond Santa Fe High School, just outside Oklahoma City, provided a midpoint for scouts to see both players. Willits and Holliday impressed several high-level scouts present from almost every team that selects in the first half of the first round, even if their statistics from those games were not eye-catching. When will the two meet on the diamond? Holliday thought about the possibilities.

“It would be incredible if the next time we saw each other was in the major leagues,” Holliday said. “Probably in the minor leagues? The team that gets him is super lucky. He’s a stud.”
Ethan Holliday

Willits and Holliday laughed when I asked them about a possible friendly rivalry over who will be selected higher. Both said that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“We’re both from Oklahoma. Oklahoma doesn’t get enough credit for the talent it produces,” Holliday said. “We’re really excited for each other; we’re each other’s biggest fans. There’s no bad blood, no rivalry, no Bedlam dispute.
Ethan Holliday