Monday night saw the first two rounds of Major League Baseball’s 2019 draft get underway. The Baltimore Orioles got this underway with the selection of Oregon State catcher Adley Rutschman with the first overall pick.
Rutschman was seen as the clear-cut top prospect in this draft, hitting to a .408 batting average for the Beavers. He gained a ton of notoriety over the weekend when he was intentionally walked at the plate with the bases loaded and nobody out against the Cincinnati Bearcats.
With the second overall pick, the Kansas City Royals selected Bobby Witt Jr. A shortstop out of Heritage High School in Colleyville, TX. Witt Jr.’s dad, Witt Sr., was selected as the third overall pick by the Texas Rangers in the 1985 MLB Draft, making the pair the highest selected father-son combination in MLB history.
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With the third overall pick, the Chicago White Sox selected Andrew Vaughn, a first baseman out of the University of California-Berkeley. After hitting to a .402 batting average in 2018, Vaughn logged a .381 batting average in 2019. It should come as no surprise that Vaughn won the 2018 Golden Spikes Award.
The first pitcher selected was left-hander Nick Lodolo with the seventh overall selection from the Cincinnati Reds. MLB writer Keith Law describes this pitching class as one of the weakest that he has covered in his professional career, so it should not come as a surprise that no pitcher was selected before No. 7. This is the second time in the last three seasons that the Reds have selected a starting pitcher with their first pick. In 2017, the Reds drafted Hunter Greene with the second overall pick out of Notre Dame High School. While Lodolo’s a hard thrower, many people have questions about whether or not his career will be mostly as a starter or a reliever for Cincinnati.
Then, with the 30th overall pick, the New York Yankees selected shortstop Anthony Volpe, a project player out of Delbarton High School in Morristown, New Jersey. Volpe projects to be an above-average hitter in the MLB, but it will take a lot of work and minor league service time for him to get there. At just 18 years old, and with Didi Gregorious currently occupying the starting shortstop job in the Bronx, the Yankees are in no rush to get Volpe out to Yankee Stadium anytime in the near future.
