With the pick they received for Gunnar Henderson winning the American League Rookie of the Year Award, the Orioles selected shortstop Griff O’Ferrall out of Virginia at No. 32 overall in the 2024 MLB draft Sunday night.
O’Ferrall, 21, hit .324 with five home runs, 17 stolen bases and an .821 OPS this past season, winning a Gold Glove Award and the College Baseball Hall of Fame’s Brooks Wallace Award as the nation’s top shortstop. While he doesn’t boast any plus tools that jump out of the scouting report, O’Ferrall struck out only 24 times in 324 plate appearances last season.
MLB Pipeline ranked the 6-foot-1, 195-pound Richmond, Virginia, native as the No. 38 overall prospect in the draft class. O’Ferrall, the 2020-21 Virginia High School Gatorade Player of the Year, hit the ground running with the Cavaliers as one of four true freshman to start at shortstop on opening day for the storied program since 2002. Batting primarily at leadoff, he hit .303 in his first season and .396 as a sophomore, the best season of his college career.
Heralded for his makeup and leadership attributes, O’Ferrall holds Virginia single-season records for runs and hits and has the most hits of any three-year player in program history.
“He’s a gamer,” Orioles vice president of player development and domestic scouting Matt Blood said in a news conference. “He’s a really good baseball player. He can impact the game defensively, on the base paths and he just wreaks havoc with his bat — ton of line drives, a ton of contact, he’s a really tough out. He’s the kind of guy that fans are going to love, and I think that’s what you see when you see him play.”
After helping lead the Cavaliers to back-to-back College World Series appearances in 2023 and 2024, O’Ferrall joins an Orioles organization that has drafted a shortstop with a first-round pick three of the past five years. Jackson Holliday (first overall in 2022) and Jordan Westburg (30th overall in 2020) both have played for the Orioles in the majors this season; Westburg was selected to the All-Star Game while Holliday is a consensus top-two prospect in the sport.
Baltimore received the additional selection, placed between the first round and free agent compensation picks, as part of MLB’s newly installed prospect promotion incentive program.
Introduced in the collective bargaining agreement signed between MLB and the players union in 2022, prospects ranked in at least two of the preseason top 100 lists produced by MLB Pipeline, Baseball America or ESPN who are promoted to the majors within two weeks of opening day and go on to either win the Rookie of the Year Award or place within the top three for Most Valuable Player or Cy Young can earn their organization a draft pick.
The Orioles and Arizona Diamondbacks, who received the No. 31 overall selection for outfielder Corbin Carroll winning Rookie of the Year in the National League, were the first teams to benefit from the new program. Arizona used its pick to draft outfielder Ryan Waldschmidt out of Kentucky.
O’Ferrall was the second player to land in Baltimore on Sunday after the Orioles drafted North Carolina outfielder Vance Honeycutt at No. 22 overall.
Orioles pluck another Virginia product in second round
The Orioles didn’t go far for their next pick — their third and final of Day 1 — as they selected Virginia catcher Ethan Anderson at No. 61 overall in the second round.
Anderson, 20, is a switch-hitter who plays both catcher and first base. The 6-foot-2, 215 pound Honolulu native posted a .341/.441/.560 slash line across his three seasons with the Cavaliers, landing high on the Orioles’ draft board for his plus-hit tool and ability to get the barrel to the baseball. Ranked the No. 78 prospect in the draft by MLB Pipeline, Anderson also has solid gap-to-gap power, which tends to show through more when he hits from the left side.
“He has a very interesting and exciting offensive profile — gets on base a ton, makes a lot of quality contact,” Blood said. “He’s a switch-hitter and can do a lot of things to impact the game on the offensive side. The defensive side, he wasn’t able to catch as much this year as he probably would’ve liked, and we’re looking forward to helping him develop into that role with us.”
Each of Baltimore’s three picks Sunday were college hitters who play up-the-middle defensive positions. The Orioles still have yet to select a pitcher in the first round under executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias, who took over the front office ahead of the 2019 draft.
“We’re extremely excited about this group,” Blood said. “We’ve got three guys that are quality baseball players with a lot of skills and also incredible makeup. All three of these guys are players that their coaches rave about on and off the field. And so not only did we get some high level baseball players, but we also got some really good people.”
This story might be updated.