LOS ANGELES — Jackson Holliday, the son of seven-time All-Star Matt Holliday, was selected by the Baltimore Orioles as the No. 1 overall pick in baseball’s draft on Sunday.
Holliday, a high-school shortstop out of Stillwater High School in Oklahoma, is an elite hitter who made significant strides in several aspects of his game over the last year. The 6-foot-1, 175-pound left-hander hitter finished his senior season with a .685 batting average and was named Baseball America’s High School Player of the Year.
Holliday previously committed to Oklahoma State, where his uncle, Josh, is the head coach, but will now likely venture directly into professional baseball, where his improving quickness and arm strength is expected to keep him at shortstop. Holliday’s calling card, however, is his hitting.
The 18-year-old already has an advanced approach in the batter’s box and accumulated 89 hits in 41 games last season, breaking the high-school record that was previously held by Philadelphia Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto.
At No. 2, the Arizona Diamondbacks selected outfielder Druw Jones. Jones, the son of five-time All-Star Andruw Jones, is a Vanderbilt Commodores commitment and a premium defensive center fielder with five-tool potential, just like his father. The younger Jones stands 6-foot-4, 180 pounds, and is coming off winning Gatorade’s Georgia Baseball Player of the Year Award while leading Wesleyan School to the Georgia Class A private school state championship.
Jones is arguably the best defender, at any position, in this draft and has displayed both elite foot speed and bat speed on the showcase circuit. His swing still isn’t a finished product — he’s 18, after all — but he has continually improved upon his plate discipline, and more raw power will come as he fills out his frame. Jones batted .570 with 13 home runs, 32 stolen bases and a 1.702 OPS in his senior year.
Jones is only the second son of a major leaguer to go No. 1 overall, after Ken Griffey Jr. was famously selected by the Seattle Mariners in 1987. The last high-school outfielder to go No. 1 overall was Mickey Moniak to the Philadelphia Phillies in 2016.
At No. 3 overall, the Texas Rangers selected right-handed pitcher Kumar Rocker, who played at Vanderbilt, and was the 10th overall pick in the 2021 draft. However, he did not sign with the New York Mets after the team balked at the condition of his pitching arm. After shoulder surgery in September and a short stint in the independent minor leagues this season, he went to the Rangers.
In his final season at Vanderbilt in 2021, he was characteristically excellent, with 179 strikeouts in 122 innings and a 2.73 ERA, but his fluctuating velocity concerned teams at the top of the first round.
At No. 4, the Pittsburgh Pirates selected Georgia high school shortstop Termarr Johnson. He was followed at No. 5 by outfielder Elijah Green, of IMG Academy in Florida, who went to the Washington Nationals.
The Orioles had the No. 1 overall pick for the second time in three years, after drafting Oregon State catcher Adley Rutschman in 2019, and are just starting to emerge from a prolonged rebuild as players matriculate through their system.
The Orioles, with Rutschman now in the majors, recently went on a 10-game winning streak to vault into the American League wild-card race despite playing in the industry’s most difficult division. In five seasons prior, they lost a major league-worst 64% of their games. Each of their last four first-round picks were collegiate position players, drafting, in descending order: outfielder Colton Cowser (fifth overall in 2021), outfielder Heston Kjerstad (second in 2020), shortstop Jordan Westburg (30th in 2020) and Rutschman.
The draft will be only 20 rounds long for the second straight year, and the Orioles entered it with the second-largest bonus pool in history at $16.9 million. The New York Mets are the only team with two selections within the top 30, one of which is compensation for not signing Kumar Rocker last year, and the Los Angeles Dodgers are the only team with zero, a penalty for the amount at which they exceeded last year’s luxury tax threshold. This year’s No. 1 overall pick comes with a slot value of $8.84 million, but the Orioles, under general manager Mike Elias, have gone under slot with their last two first-round picks in order to use the savings elsewhere in the draft.
Each selection within the first 10 rounds of the draft comes with an assigned value. Teams can ration out the totality of their bonus pool as they please but face overage taxes if they exceed their allotted amounts. First-round picks begin to be taken away if teams outspend their allotted amounts by more than 5%. Teams have outspent their allotments 172 times in the 10 drafts with bonus pools, but never by more than 5%, according to MLB.com.