A look at the O's lone high school pick and other notes from Day 2 of the draft

There was a lot for the Orioles to like about their second day of draft picks. They saw third rounder, USC outfielder Austin Overn, move up some draft boards when he produced a .947 OPS in the Cape Cod League.

They saw Auburn pitcher right-hander Chase Allsup, their fourth rounder, sit mid 90s with his fastball in the SEC and touch 100 mph.

They like the three catchers they selected but did not set out to draft three, it just worked out that way. They had some high school players they liked on their board but have only selected one thus far.

But the O’s sure do like that young man, DJ Layton, a sixth round pick shortstop from Charlotte Christian High School. Layton, who has a college commitment to Southern Miss, turns 18 in a few days.

“DJ is a young, very athletic, switch-hitting shortstop from Charlotte, North Carolina,” said O’s vice president of player development and domestic scouting Matt Blood. “He’s a great kid with a lot of tools and we feel like there is upside to his game when it comes to coming into our organization and helping him get stronger and helping him offensively while continuing to build his defensive skill set. Where we got him, we felt like this was a really good bet for us. I’ll give credit to our scouting department and people put a lot of work in on this kid to get to know him and his family and the coaches at his high school. The whole room was ecstatic when we were able to get him in that round.”

Layton pitched at times in high school, but he won’t do any two-way work for the Orioles.

“He’s going to be a position player, but the pitching sort of tells you about his arm strength,” noted Blood. “He can throw, and he can run and we’re going to give him every chance to play shortstop. He’ll move around, just like we do with all our players. You know he’ll get some time at other positions, but we’re definitely going to develop him as a middle infielder, and he’ll be playing shortstop.”

The Orioles have drafted four pitchers thus far: Allsup in round four, Florida State lefty Carson Dorsey in round seven, Illinois righty Jack Crowder in round nine and Cal-State Fullerton right-hander Chrisitan Rodriguez in the 10^th round.

In college some of these pitchers had unimpressive ERAs. So what led the O’s to these players with sometimes modest stats?

“It’s usually a combination of raw stuff, physical capacity, the athleticism, the way they move and then performance. It’s some sort of combination of those things. We have people that feel with this adjustment or that adjustment or this improvement or this other thing, that they will be better than maybe they have been in the past. It’s a combination of all those things,” Blood stated.

In the case of Rodriguez in round 10, the O’s saw him play this summer for the Frederick Keys in the MLB Draft League where he posted better numbers than in college. He went 3-1 with a 3.92 ERA in the Draft League.

“He performed well there, and we recognized that, and it gave us more confidence to select him where we did. I would say for some players, going to the draft league and playing well, helps their visibility. Helps the teams collect more reliable data and ultimately be more comfortable with selections.”

If you missed the draft coverage from yesterday, click here to see a packed entry with information on each pick for the club in rounds three through 10 plus other quotes posted last night from Blood. 

Check back here this afternoon for info on O's picks in rounds 11 through 20 to wrap up the draft for 2024.

Check this out: Looking at his X feed, Layton has already run the bases at Camden Yards. Click here for that.