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Milton, Georgia native Luke McNeillie attended the eponymously named high school in the city, lettering all four years he attended the school and establishing himself as a prospect to follow. Considered one of the better high school pitching prospects in Georgia in 2023, the right-hander had a strong commitment to the University of Florida and went undrafted in the 2023 MLB Draft.
The results did not exactly match the stuff in his freshman season with the Gators. The right-hander 26 appearances in 2024, including two midweek starts, and posted a 7.07 ERA in 35.2 innings, allowing 33 hits, walking 21, and striking out 43. That trend continued in 2025, his sophomore season, where McNeillie posted a 4.82 ERA in 52.1 innings over 28 relief outings and 2 starts, allowing 44 hits, walking 24, and striking out 72.
That summer, the right-hander played for the Harwich Mariners Cape Cod Baseball League. Making four starts, he posted a 5.68 ERA, allowing 8 earned runs in 12.2 innings, giving up 12 hits, walking 8, and striking out 14. Returning to Florida for his junior season, the 21-year-old appeared in 18 games for coach O’Sullivan, making 3 starts. The right-hander posted a 3.97 ERA in 34.0 innings, allowing 40 hits, walking 17, and striking out 48.
McNeillie is 6’3”, 200-pounds and has a slim, athletic build. He throws from three-quarters arm slot with a long arm action through the back. His mechanics are simple and present no obvious injury red flags, but he has a problem repeating them, specifically keeping his arm angle up and repeating his release point.
The right-hander’s fastball sits in the mid-to-high-90s, reportedly topping out as high as 99 MPH. The pitch does not have the best shape, generally showing low spin rates for a four-seam fastball. The right-hander has occasionally unintentionally thrown the pitch as a sinker, lowing his slot and giving the pitch more running action, and the pitch would almost certainly be better if converted into sinker, given its natural sink.
He complements the pitch with a mid-80s, high-spin slider that is almost certainly an above-average or better offering. With readings reaching 2,600 RPM, the pitch features sharp gyroscopic break with a bit of horizontal movement and good downward action. McNeillie uses the pitch against left-handers and right-handers alike, but also has a changeup that has been effective at neutralizing the platoon advantage of left-handed batters.
Over the course of his three seasons at Florida, the right-hander has a cumulative 38.2% groundball rate, 21.6% line drive rate, and 40.2% flyball rate. With 16 home runs over 122.0 innings, McNeillie has a perfectly manageable 1.2 HR/9 rate, but against professional hitting, he will likely need to do something to improve on his groundball-to-flyball ratio in order to thrive.
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