BALTIMORE—On July 10th, the Orioles surprisingly traded reliever Bryan Baker to the Tampa Bay Rays, and they received a Competitive Balance Round A pick, the 37th overall, in exchange.
The Orioles, who already held the 19th, 30th and 31st picks, added a fourth top selection.
After taking three top college players, the Orioles chose Oregon high school outfielder Slater de Brun and convinced him with a $4 million bonus to bypass Vanderbilt and start his professional career.
de Brun didn’t play with an affiliated team after signing, and he’s eager to begin.
“It’s been a life change, but a life change that I wanted, a life change that I was ready for, and so I’m extremely happy,” de Brun said on Tuesday when he and other top choices — Ike Irish, Caden Bodine and Wehiwa Aloy — took batting practice at Camden Yards.
de Brun was ready to go to Vanderbilt and play for coach Tim Corbin.
“It was extremely hard to say no,” he said. “The deciding factor was that I wanted to be a big leaguer, and I wanted to start that process as soon as possible, and I felt this was the best route to do that.”
de Brun said he thinks he compares to Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Corbin Carroll.
“There’s no perfect player for anybody, but the closest that I like is Corbin Carroll,” de Brun said. “I’ve been watching him for three years. When I started wanting to be like Corbin, I was a JV baseball player. Coming full circle and being a pro but not being a big leaguer yet, that feels like step one and then trying to get closer and closer.”
After going to the Instructional League in Sarasota, de Brun has a goal.
“Add a little more size, maybe get to 200 pounds and impact the ball harder — want to be that speed/power combination,” he said. “It comes down to calories, looking at the menu, picking what has the most calories on it and eating that every day, three square meals.”
de Brun is hoping that can improve his game.
“Hope that I can put [more muscle] on my legs,” he said. “I don’t want to get too tight in my upper body, so legs that can give me more power, use the ground more, hopefully that transfers up to my batted ball.”
He has enjoyed bonding with Aloy, Bodine and Irish.
“They’re like my big brothers. They look down on me. I look up to them,” de Brun said. “They keep me in check, and they tell me when I’m doing too much, when I’ve got to tone it down. They help me be a man, so I really respect them.”
Working out in Sarasota, de Brun said there’s a difference between the players he dominated in high school and the pros he sees each day.
“The big jumps to me were on defense,” he said. “In high school and amateur baseball, you think they’re good at defense. You’re playing a different game speed.
“The game speed is way slower in amateur baseball. Here, the baserunners are looking to take an extra base. Your transfers have to be faster. Your throws have to be more pure. Everything is just faster. I thought I was good at defense going in, and I was not, so I worked on all the little things on defense … speeding up, getting better grips on the baseball.”
Slater became a cult figure on draft day when fans recognized his other passion, music. He’s known as Lil Slayyy, and he loves talking about music as much as baseball.
“Music is like an outlet for me,” he said. “It’s a creative outlet for me, and it helps me get my thoughts down on paper, but out of my head. That’s why I like music. I like when people listen to my music. It shows that I’m vulnerable person, not just a baseball player. I’m more than that. It brings people around me.”
de Brun’s mother made sure he had piano lessons as a child, and his sister sings well, and he finds that music fulfills him.
“We have time on our hands in the afternoon in Sarasota,” he said. “There’s a lot of extra time in professional baseball. You have to fill that with productive things.”
He’s unusually retrospective for a young man who’s just a few months out of high school.
“I’m an 18-year-old kid, living by myself, trying to learn how to live life as an adult,” he said.
de Brun’s two favorite artists are country singers Morgan Wallen and Zach Bryan, but he knows he’s not in their category.
“I can’t compare myself to Morgan Wallen because that’s a whole different level,” de Brun said. “When I listen to Morgan Wallen and Zach Bryan, I pull bits and pieces from their lyricism, and I try to implement that into my music. I’m in that pop/country crossover. It’s probably more Morgan Wallish, but I like to experiment with a lot of different stuff.”
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