This is the second straight pick in this draft where the Orioles grabbed a Virginia Cavalier.
The Orioles used their second draft pick on Sunday night on a University of Virginia player. They went right back to Thomas Jefferson’s home turf with the very next pick, taking catcher Ethan Anderson with their second round, #61 overall selection.
The Hawaiian-born Anderson doesn’t turn 21 years old until September. He’s been a consistently good performer for the Cavaliers in his three-year college career, batting a combined .341/.441/.560. If his junior season had gone as well as his sophomore one, when he hit 15 homers in 65 games, he might have been a higher draft pick. Instead, he lost some power, going down to only 8 homers.
Against his college competition, Anderson walked more than he struck out. This is not a guarantee of big league success by any means, but it’s never a bad starting point. Anderson struck out in 10.4% of plate appearances. That’s quite a contrast to the first rounder, Vance Honeycutt.
In terms of the assorted mainstream draft prospect rankings, the Orioles picked a player whose value was right around this area. Anderson’s biggest believer, Keith Law, had him at #45, while Baseball America put him 59th and MLB Pipeline 78th. Law on Anderson:
Anderson has shown above-average power in the past, but this year made a lot of weaker contact and put the ball on the ground more often. He does show plus bat speed and has good-not-great plate discipline, needing a better two-strike approach. He’s a 40 defender behind the plate now who probably should just move to first base and focus on getting to more in-game power
By the time you get to the second round, the scouting reports are thinner on exciting things. It’s more about flaws that players have, their probability of overcoming those flaws, and whether they have much ceiling if they do overcome the flaws. If Anderson can catch, his value is higher than if he plays first base, and he’s more valuable regardless of position if he finds some power when swinging wood bats as a professional.
Over the long history of the Orioles making second round picks, there are way more failures than smashing successes. By career bWAR, Gunnar Henderson (2019) is already the fourth-best Orioles second round pick and he could be third by the end of the season. He’s got a while to go to catch the top one, Cal Ripken Jr. The next two on the list below Gunnar are Mychal Givens and Nolan Reimold. Maybe some more Mike Elias picks will start to change this.
This marks another draft class where the Orioles do not use any pick in the second round or earlier on a pitcher. They’ve gone for college players with the first three picks this year. That’s an Elias pattern as well.
The slot value of this late-second round pick is about $1.4 million. The first two Orioles draft picks seemed to be more or less in line with their slot values and this one looks to be similar. The O’s aren’t heading for some kind of seven-figure overslot on day 3 of the draft. They could do like they did last year and toss a few hundred thousand dollars extra at a junior college player, or just play this whole thing entirely by the numbers.
The draft will resume on Monday at 2pm Eastern, when the teams will speedrun through rounds 3-10. Day 3 of the draft, beginning Tuesday at 2pm, covers rounds 11-20 to close out the festivities. Teams will then have until 5pm on August 1 to sign their picks.