Orioles’ Blood on draft: ‘Major league players come from everywhere’

After drafting seven players, and just two pitchers in Day 1 of the Major League Baseball draft, the Orioles selected shortstops with their first two picks in the draft’s second day, then sharply pivoted and chose 11 pitchers among their final 15 picks.

“Early on, we took different players we felt like were right there at the top of our board,” Orioles vice president of player development and domestic scouting Matt Blood said in a video conference call. “We usually go with the top of our board, but we also have to take into account that we have to have different types of players to fill out our rosters.”

On Sunday, the Orioles took two catchers, two centerfielders, two pitchers and a shortstop. Monday’s picks were 11 pitchers, four infielders, and two outfielders.

Only three of the Orioles’ 24 draft picks were high school players.

“There’s a lot of excitement in the room upstairs about the players we were able to get yesterday, and today as well,” Blood said. “A lot of players coming into the draft, we were targeting and hoping would fall to where we were comfortable drafting them, that happened, so there’s a lot of pretty excited people right now.”

The Orioles must move quickly to sign these players. The deadline for signing players is 5 p.m. on July 28^th.

Their two pitchers drafted on Sunday were from major college programs, Michigan State left-hander Joseph Dzierwa and Georgia right-hander JT Quinn. While some of the 11 pitchers selected on Monday were from top-shelf schools (Caden Hunter, USC and Braeden Sloan, Oklahoma State), the rest were from schools not known for producing big league arms.

They included right-hander Hunter Allen, their seventh-rounder from Ohio’s Ashland University, right-hander Dalton Neuschwander, the 10^th-round pick from University of West Florida, and left-hander Holden deJong, from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, the 11^th-round choice.

“We’ve done a lot of work across all the types of schools,” Blood said. “Major league players come from everywhere. Today for whatever reason, we ended up taking some guys from junior colleges and smaller schools. A lot of players we were excited about, and we were hoping to get, and they were there, and they were at the top of our board, so we took them.”

Five of the 13 pitchers are left-handers, an area of critical need for the Orioles. Only 18 of the team’s 95 games have been started by true left-handed starters. Left-handed reliever Keegan Akin has started three games as an opener.

“I think it just played out that those were the pitchers that we had evaluated to be the best one at the time,” Blood said. “It wasn’t, ‘Let’s make sure we take a lefty.’ It was a guy that the room was saying was the best guy, and let’s take him. And that’s what we did.”

Besides Dzierwa, Hunter, deJong and Sloan, the Orioles took Australian-born left-hander Kailen Hamson in the eighth round. He attended Kentucky’s University of the Cumberlands.

Their 14^th-round pick was another foreign-born pitcher, Brayan Orrantia, from New Mexico Junior College.

Hamson and KK Clark, from Mississippi’s Pearl River Community College, have interesting back stories. Clark transferred from traditional power Mississippi State to a junior college where he dominated with a 12-2 record, 1.84 ERA and 116 strikeouts in 88 innings.

“I can tell you that our pitching department and our scouts were very excited about the upside and stuff and the potential to work with them,” Blood said. “That’s really the most that I’ll get into. We identified some things about them that we felt gave them a unique chance, and we ended up taking them.”

While the second day of the draft was for unusual stories and longer odds to make the Orioles, it’s the first day that draws the most attention.

The Orioles were able to draft catcher Ike Irish with the 19^th overall pick, catcher Caden Bodine and shortstop Wehiwa Aloy 30^th and 31^st.

“I think we thought a few of them fell to where we were able to get — all of our kind of early picks, we were thrilled that they all got to us,” Blood said.

“That just sort of happens in the draft, especially when you’re picking where we pick at 19. It happened last year, too. It’s sort of a natural thing that happens in the draft. We scout makeup very heavily on all the players. We did Zooms with actually everyone that we drafted in the first couple rounds. We talked with their college coaches and their teammates. We do a lot of background work on makeup.”

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