As the Orioles close out their first winning month since 2017, it can be easy to forget that they still hold the first overall pick in next month’s draft.
The class is headlined by a collection of elite high school position players, with a few college hitters sprinkled throughout the top half of the projected first round. It is also short on pitching, has no clear top guy and features a late riser who could be an intriguing wild card for the first pick.
With the ability to get whoever they desire most, the Orioles figure to be staring down multiple possibilities as the draft closes in. Orioles GM Mike Elias has been known to keep his thoughts close to the vest, and that’s no different this year.
“There are four or five players who I think you could fully justify taking with the first overall pick,” The Athletic baseball writer Keith Law said on Glenn Clark Radio June 24.
In Law’s latest draft board, Georgia high school outfielder Druw Jones ranks No. 1. Considering he is the son of five-time All-Star Andruw Jones, the comparisons are easy to make.
“The hope is he’s his dad,” Law said. “He can really play center. He does look a lot like his dad. It’s funny, it’s sort of like, ‘Oh, where have I seen that before? Oh yeah, his father.'”
The running and defense are Jones’ undeniable strong suits. The questions come with his bat, and for Law, that’s what’s keeping him from being the consensus top prospect in the draft.
“I don’t agree that Druw Jones is head and shoulders above everybody else,” said Law, who went on to say that he’d have “serious questions” if someone else had Jones that high above his peers. “There are questions about where the hit tool is.
“I know plenty of people … who say they all like him, but we’re not sure how advanced the hit tool is. If you could get one of those other players for $2 million less than Druw Jones and then spend that savings to get better prospects with subsequent picks, you should do that.”
The under-slot draft strategy is one that Elias has favored in recent years with the selections of Heston Kjerstad and Colton Cowser, both of whom signed for under-slot signing bonuses. The strategy allowed the Orioles to pick players with high price tags later in the draft because it had more money to spread around.
In a draft class like this year’s, Law likes the idea of the under-slot strategy. If the Orioles were to go that route, he could see it happening with junior college third baseman Cam Collier, whom Law ranks No. 2 in the class. Collier graduated high school early to attend Chipola College, one of the country’s top junior college baseball programs.
Collier, 17, hit .333/.419/.537 with eight home runs in 53 games while facing pitchers who were two to three years older than him. He has carried that success into the early summer months in the Cape Cod League, again facing more mature pitching than others his age.
“The Orioles … could walk away with a basket-full of high-ceiling guys,” Law said. “If they took Collier, gave him slot [for the third or fourth overall pick], they’re going to leave this draft with two more guys who were first-round-caliber players.”
Ultimately, any of the top high school position players are worthy of the top pick, Law said. It could be Termarr Johnson, a shortstop from Georgia who “has the best pure hit tool in the draft class,” Law wrote in his latest rankings update. Elijah Green has the rare combination of size, speed and power that any team would love to have. Jackson Holliday, a shortstop from Oklahoma and son of seven-time All-Star Matt Holliday, is right up there, too.
The two certainties, Law believes, is that the class lacks top-end pitching and that the Orioles will break the trend of taking a college bat.
The first pitcher to appear on Law’s big board is at No. 16. Law says this class is the “weirdest” he’s ever covered because of the lack of top hurlers. Elias has shied away from drafting pitching high anyway, but replenishing the system’s pitching depth won’t come from this class. The top college position players are Cal Poly’s Brooks Lee, Georgia Tech’s Kevin Parada, Texas Tech’s Jace Jung and LSU’s Jacob Berry, but none of them appears likely to go No. 1 overall.
If the Orioles break the mold and go with a high schooler, the player may not fit their rebuild timeline as well as a college player would. Sniffing .500 this late in the summer for the first time in years, the team appears to be on the verge of turning the corner. A college player would speed that up, while a high schooler may take more time.
But Law said he “would not use [the rebuilding timeline] to force a college player.”
“If there was a college pitcher sitting there who was worth taking 1:1, I might consider that,” Law said. “… You’re saying, ‘Do we take a college prospect who is inferior to these high school guys because the timeline matches up? Or do we just take the best player available?’ … I think that’s what you do.”
For more from Law, listen to the full interview here:
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