Get to know Red Sox's No. 14 pick Kyle Teel

After three dominant seasons for the powerhouse University of Virginia baseball program, Kyle Teel was selected 14th overall by the Red Sox in the 2023 Draft. Here’s what you need to know about the highly touted catcher.

FAST FACTS
Position: C
Ht/Wt: 6-foot-1, 190 lbs.
B/T: Left/right
DOB: Feb. 15, 2002
College: Virginia
High school: Mahwah High School (NJ)
Born: Ridgewood, NJ

Multi-sport high school star

While Teel’s pro future is in baseball, the diamond is not the only place where he thrived for Mahwah High School. Teel also started at quarterback for Mahwah, excelling as a dual-threat option for a team that reached the NJSIAA sectional semifinals in his senior season before falling to an undefeated Lyndhurst squad. Teel’s ability to play through contact was evident with this tag at home plate in the 2023 ACC Tournament:

But, of course, Teel was also a dominant baseball player at Mahwah, even with the COVID-19 outbreak wiping away his senior year. In what ended up being his final high school season, Teel had a .574/.678/1.164 batting line to go with eight homers, 31 RBIs and only two strikeouts as a junior. This led to Teel earning second-team All-State honors from NJ.com that year. Having been on varsity since his freshman year, he finished his prep career with a cumulative batting average of .430 and 14 home runs.

Never been drafted … by choice

MLB teams will often use a mid- or late-round pick to take a flier on an elite high school player with a college commitment in hand, hoping to score a Draft bargain but knowing there is a good chance the player won’t ever sign with the organization.

Teel preempted any such pick. Even though he was among the top high school players in the Class of 2020, being named the New Jersey Gatorade Player of the Year as a senior (despite the season being canceled that year), Teel made the decision to inform big league clubs in April 2020 that he would forgo the Draft and attend Virginia.

According to NJ.com, Teel was projected to be picked somewhere in the second through fifth rounds prior to opting out. This projection came before MLB decided to shorten that year’s Draft to five rounds due to the pandemic.

“Me and my family have talked about this. We really think it is important for me to get an education at the University of Virginia,’’ Teel told the New York Post at the time. “It was definitely a tough decision. Being a professional baseball player is also a dream of mine. It’s hard to not go into the draft, but Virginia is going to make me ready for not only baseball but for the real world.”

Virginia’s latest superstar

Teel was a Cavalier from the get-go, committing to Virginia during his freshman year of high school, and he has proven to be the latest star to walk through Charlottesville, Va.

After Virginia reached four College World Series in a seven-season span from 2009-15 (culminating in a national championship in 2015), the Cavaliers did not reach any more CWS before Teel’s arrival on campus. But that changed in his freshman year of 2021, when he burst onto the scene with a team-high .335 batting average to lead Virginia to its first CWS appearance in six years. His most notable moment came in the clinching win of the Super Regional against Dallas Baptist, when he hit the first grand slam in UVA postseason history to give Virginia the lead in the seventh inning:

After his stellar 2021 season, which resulted in him becoming the first UVA freshman ever to earn first-team freshman All-American honors from D1Baseball.com, Teel’s statistics took a slight dip in his sophomore year. But Teel was better than ever in what will likely be his final college season, which head coach Brian O’Connor called “as impressive of a regular season as I’ve seen anybody have in 20 years.”

The junior set a single-season school record with 105 hits, also leading all Division I catchers in the metric. Teel led UVA to its second CWS appearance in three years, and he was named the 2023 ACC Player of the Year, becoming UVA’s first winner of that award since two-time MLB All-Star and fellow NJ native Sean Doolittle in 2006.

During his college offseasons, Teel played for the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team in both 2021 and 2022, joining Doolittle as the only Cavaliers to play on the CNT in back-to-back seasons.

Five-tool player

When it comes to evaluating what Teel can do on the diamond, his biggest strength may be his lack of a weakness. Via the MLB 20-to-80 scouting scale, Teel ranks average or better in hitting, running, throwing and fielding.

Even his lone allegedly below-average trait, power, has not proven to be an issue on the stat sheet. Entering the College World Series, Teel had a career-high 13 home runs in 2023, and his career-best .655 slugging percentage ranks second on Virginia only behind fellow 2023 MLB Draft prospect Jake Gelof’s .710.

Versatility in the field was another trait that improved Teel’s Draft stock. He spent significant time in high school and college playing both shortstop and outfield, in addition to his primary position of catcher.

(B)all in the family

To say that baseball runs in Teel’s family would be an understatement. For starters, Teel’s father, Garett, was selected by the Dodgers in the 12th round of the 1989 Draft, and he played five seasons in the Minors as a catcher and third baseman before later serving as a coach and trainer at various stops.

But Teel’s most notable relative as of late is also one of his college teammates: younger brother Aidan. Aidan was initially in the Class of 2023 at Mahwah, and while the two brothers got to be football teammates for a season there, they never got to play a baseball game together in high school, with the pandemic stripping them of what would’ve been Kyle’s senior season and Aidan’s freshman season.

“It’s really unfortunate,” Aidan told BVM Sports in 2022. “Kyle and I still talk about it, how awesome that year would have been. But you just have to adapt through the hard times.”

But Aidan, who followed in his brother’s footsteps by also committing to UVA as a freshman in high school, shook things up by re-classifying to the high school Class of 2022, a move which he acknowledged was at least partially driven by the opportunity to share a collegiate season with his brother before the latter got drafted.

“Having my freshman year and his senior year canceled and not being able to play together in high school was a really big bummer,” Aidan told UVA Athletics. “But I also wanted to get to UVA as quickly as possible and be around the best coaching staff in the country and be on the best team in the country.”

Bad luck interjected for the Teel brothers, though, preventing them from playing together once again. Aidan suffered a torn UCL in April 2022, resulting in him undergoing Tommy John surgery and thus missing the entire 2023 season with Virginia.

Despite the cruel twist of fate, the Teel brothers chose to focus on the positives of the situation, as they still were able to share a locker room and dugout even if Kyle didn’t get to catch pitches thrown by his younger brother in a game.

“It sucks a little bit not being able to play together,” Aidan said, “but there’s not many people that can say they went to college with their older sibling. We’re able to share our time on the same team, and being able to cheer him on while being part of this team, being able to be at practice with him, is something that I’ll be able to cherish forever.”