Since the Baltimore Orioles drafted Griff O’Ferrall No. 32 overall in 2024, the 22-year-old infielder has noticed stark differences between his time at the University of Virginia and his experience in Minor League Baseball.
One thing has remained constant, though. O’Ferrall and catcher Ethan Anderson are still teammates and roommates.
“It’s been great, this is Year 4 of us being roommates in a row. … We’re just kind of a married couple at this point,” O’Ferrall said on Glenn Clark Radio May 25. “There’s definitely some arguing, but other than that, we love hanging out together. It’s been nice to have a familiar face, going from the [Florida Complex League] to Low-A to High-A and a bunch of different locker rooms.”
O’Ferrall recognizes how rare it is for a pair of college teammates to be drafted to the same organization, let alone play together at several levels as he and Anderson have done in the FCL, Delmarva and Aberdeen.
“It was such a shock on draft day when we both got drafted to the same team. It’s definitely not something we take for granted,” O’Ferrall said. “We understand how cool it is to have a built-in friend in this process, a process that you have to go to a lot of unknown places with a lot of unknown faces. We definitely appreciate it, for sure.”
While his camaraderie with Anderson has eased the transition, the Richmond, Va., native struggled with consistency to begin the 2025 season. O’Ferrall hit just .171/.259/.368 in April.
“The stuff that these High-A pitchers have is legit. Every single guy they run out there has really legit stuff,” O’Ferrall said. “So for me, [the goal] is trying to create a more consistent body of work, which I’ve been really happy about over the past two and a half weeks. … Everything’s been trending upwards after kind of an up-and-down start.”
The 6-foot-1, 195-pound infielder is batting .260/.337/.286 in May, pushing his slash line to .216/.298/.327 for the season entering play on May 28. O’Ferrall mentioned the better depth of arms in the minors compared to college when discussing his struggles.
“In college you would face a guy, but then you would get to the [bullpen] and then the [reliever] wouldn’t be that good,” O’Ferrall said. “Or you’d have a midweek game where you could kind of get your feet back under you. That’s not really the case here. Every guy you face is kind of a Friday night college guy.”
Beyond preparing him for the on-field competition, O’Ferrall’s college experience has allowed him to step into a somewhat of a mentor role for the international prospects and players drafted out of high school.
“The college guys that came from my draft class, we’ve tried to help out in any way that we can, as far as just giving advice to high school guys or maybe some of our [Latin American] players who haven’t been a part of a college team or a team that’s trying to win a bunch of games and go to the playoffs,” O’Ferrall said. “In that aspect, we’ve definitely tried to step up and just kind of set the tone, set the attitude for the team.”
For more from O’Ferrall, listen to the full interview here:
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Aberdeen IronBirds