University of North Carolina baseball head coach Scott Forbes has coached a plethora of big leaguers, including former No. 2 overall pick Dustin Ackley and former All-Star Kyle Seager, but Orioles 2024 first-round pick Vance Honeycutt tops them all in his eyes.
“I’ve been in this league, in the ACC, and coached against a lot of really, really good players that were really good big leaguers and All-Stars, and I’ve never coached a kid with these types of tools,” Forbes said on Glenn Clark Radio July 19. “Vance can change the game defensively anywhere, and I’ve never seen a kid [like him].”
Forbes, 49, has been the head coach at UNC for four seasons, but spent 1999-2002 and 2006-2020 as an assistant with the program.
He is about as high on Honeycutt as anyone, and for good reason. During a three-year career with the Tar Heels, he tallied the most career home runs in program history with 65 while stealing 76 bases. Honeycutt is also the first two-time ACC Defensive Player of the Year in league history.
Forbes was high on Honeycutt before just about anyone, first seeing him play for the South Charlotte Panthers, a youth travel baseball team. Forbes offered Honeycutt a scholarship — his only offer from a big school at the time, Forbes said.
One of the first things Forbes noticed about Honeycutt was his athleticism. He was tall, skinny and fast with the potential to play multiple positions. Honeycutt was also the starting quarterback on his high school team that won a state championship in North Carolina.
Honeycutt could rely on his natural abilities as an amateur, which is one reason why Forbes believes his strikeout rate was so high at UNC (26.2 percent). The coach thinks Honeycutt will cut down on the swing-and-miss as the right-handed hitter gains more experience.
“Coaching the kid for three years, you see how much better he got every year. I got to see it. I got to see his work ethic. I got to see his adjustments,” Forbes said. “But the character makeup of Vance Honeycutt, I would just bet on him. I think going into the draft, I thought it was a bigger risk to not take him than to take him, because he can play center field today in the major leagues for any team.”
While Forbes was one of the first to notice Honeycutt’s talent, MLB teams kept tabs on him the past three years with an eye on the 2024 draft. Yet Honeycutt remained committed to his team and focused on winning.
UNC finished the 2024 season with a 48-16 record and beat out reigning national champion LSU for a regional title and West Virginia for a super regional title before losing in the College World Series in Omaha.
“He catches the last out against LSU to get us to the super [regional], and you see him flying in when we celebrate to get to Omaha,” Forbes said. “You watch that and you realize, ‘OK, that kid’s a winner, the last thing he’s thinking about is the draft.'”
Forbes compared Honeycutt’s playing style to multi-time All-Stars Andruw Jones and George Springer, both of whom were power-hitting outfielders. Jones was also a 10-time Gold Glove recipient.
“He is extremely coachable … and open to everything,” Forbes said of Honeycutt. “And he’s also a coach on the field. He’ll tell you what he sees. He’s the first one to say, ‘I made a mistake there, that was stupid,’ and then we all move on. Y’all are getting a really special one.”
For more from Forbes, listen to the full interview here:
See Also:
• Carlos Collazo: If Orioles First-Rounder Vance Honeycutt Hits, ‘He’s Going To Be A Superstar’
Photo Credit: Courtesy of UNC Athletics