After not taking a pitcher among the first three selections on Sunday, the Orioles drafted four college pitchers, half of their eight picks, on the second day of the Major League Baseball draft on Monday.
The Orioles picked Auburn right-hander Chase Allsup in the fourth round, Florida State left-hander Carson Dorsey in the seventh, Illinois right-hander Jack Crowder in the ninth, and Cal State, Fullerton right-hander Christian Rodriguez in the 10th.
On Sunday night, the Orioles took North Carolina outfielder Vance Honeycutt with the 22nd pick in the first round, and two players from Virginia, shortstop Griff O’Ferrall and catcher Ethan Anderson.
Besides the four pitchers, the Orioles took two catchers, a high school shortstop and another college outfielder. Ten of their first 11 picks were from colleges.
“I think it’s just what the draft gave us this year,” Matt Blood, the Orioles’ vice president of player development and domestic scouting. “We’ll still be looking for high school players, and there’s still 10 more rounds tomorrow. It’s really not about a philosophy. It’s about a player pool and who was there. There were other high school players we were looking at, and they just didn’t quite land or they ended up not being signable, so the college guys were the ones who were there at those spots.”
USC outfielder Austin Overn was the Orioles’ third-round selection. Overn, a 21-year-old left-handed hitter, played center field and hit .270 with eight home runs and 32 RBIs and an .810 OPS in 59 games for the Trojans. He stole 17 bases in 22 attempts.
He’s playing this summer in the Cape Cod League and is hitting .314 with a.947 OPS in 23 games for Chatham.
“We liked him all year,” Blood said. “He was a target of ours coming into this draft season. I know his head coach very well, so I’ve been on him for a while, and seeing him perform in the Cape this summer has made it even more [comfortable] in being able to get him where we were able to select him.”
Allsup was 4-3 with a 5.63 ERA in 13 games, 11 starts. He struck out 74 and walked 16 in 62 1/3 innings and allowed 13 home runs.
“Big, strong guy from Auburn that throws hard, has above average stuff,” Blood says. “He’s a guy that our group identified as maybe an undervalued player in the industry, a player we felt like we could work with. All along we were targeting him in this range, and we were happy to see he was still available.”
In the fifth round, they took catcher Ryan Stafford from Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo. Stafford also plays the corner outfield and hit .368 with six homers and 46 RBIs and a 1.012 OPS this season. He stole 10 bases in 12 attempts.
Their first high school player was switch-hitting shortstop DJ Layton from Charlotte (North Carolina) Christian High in the sixth round. Layton, who’ll turn 18 on Sunday, hit .449 this year.
“He’s a great kid with a lot of tools,” Blood said. “We feel like there was upside to his game when it comes to coming to our organization and helping him get stronger and helping him offensively while attempting to build his defensive skill set, so where we got him, we felt like this was a really good bet for us.”
Dorsey was 8-4 with a 4.60 ERA in 23 games, 11 starts this season. He struck out 88 and walked 37 in 76 1/3 innings. Dorsey hit 10 batters.
While it’s sometimes easy to see from looking at stats why position players were taken, it’s not that way with pitchers. Their stats often don’t look impressive.
“It’s a combination of raw stuff, physical capacity, the athleticism, the way they move and then performance,” Blood said. “We have people that feel like with this adjustment or that adjustment or this improvement or this other thing that they’ll be better than maybe they have been in the past.”
Colin Tuft, a catcher from Tulane, was the eighth-round pick. The Vienna, Virginia resident hit 12 home runs and 79 RBIs with a .279 average and .946 OPS this season.
“Definitely not a particular focus,” Blood said of using three of the Orioles’ first 11 picks on catchers. “They were the ones on the top of our board each time, and we were happy to get them.”
Crowder was 8-2 with a 4.88 in 16 starts. He struck out 80 and walked 38 in 90 1/3 innings. Crowder threw 14 wild pitches and hit 14 batters.
Rodriguez was 3-8 with a 5.45 ERA in 15 games, 12 starts. He’s allowed 89 hits in 69 1/3 innings, striking out 58 and walking 29. Rodriguez has been playing for Frederick in the Major League Draft League and is 3-1 with a 3.92 ERA in eight games.
“He’s performed well there, and we recognized that,” Blood said. “It gave us more confidence to select him where we did.”
In the past, most college players had brief stints in the Florida Complex League after signing. That’s not likely to be the case this year since the FCL season ends on July 28th.
“We’ll get them to Florida,” Blood said. “We’ll probably have some practice games essentially. We’ll get some of them to Delmarva. We definitely want to get some of these guys out playing.”
Tuesday’s final day of the draft will feature rounds 11-20.