A lot of work goes into a Major League Baseball draft, but there’s a lot of luck, too.
Scouts spend years flying across the country, driving to ballfields, shaking hands behind dugouts, and talking at kitchen tables, all for the chance to draft a specific player. Scouting reports are crosschecked, player backgrounds vetted, underlying metrics analyzed, and financial demands considered as draft boards come together slowly.
They can fall apart the same way. Prime targets aren’t available. High-round picks get hurt or just don’t pan out. Some draft classes simply aren’t as talented as others.
But at the intersection of hard work and blind luck, a single draft can forever alter a franchise, and the 2019 draft is doing exactly that for the Baltimore Orioles.
“I think the Baseball Gods kind of smiled on us in 2019 when we really needed it,” general manager Mike Elias said.
Timing mixed with execution. Scouting followed by development. Preparation partnered with good fortune. It all came together five years ago when the Orioles took one of the game’s best young catchers, Adley Rutschman, with the first overall pick, then drafted the reigning Rookie of the Year and potential American League MVP Gunnar Henderson with the top pick of the second round. In the fourth round, the Orioles picked infielder Joey Ortiz, who was a key piece in their recent offseason trade for ace Corbin Burnes, and in the fifth round, they got shortstop Darell Hernaiz, whom they traded for swingman Cole Irvin. At No. 71, they drafted up-and-down outfielder Kyle Stowers, who has slugged .486 in part-time bench duty this season.
“It was just something that’s really launched our rebuild,” Elias said.
No longer doormats automatically selecting at the top, the Orioles won’t pick until No. 22 in Sunday’s draft. They had the most wins in the American League last year, and have had the same distinction so far this season. They’ve continued to draft well — Jordan Westburg in 2020, Colton Cowser in 2021, Jackson Holliday in 2022 — but 2019 was a launching pad. Rutschman just made his second All-Star team, Henderson leads the majors in WAR, and Burnes — acquired in no small part because of that draft — is back in the Cy Young Award conversation.
“I think you give credit for a lot of things,” manager Brandon Hyde said during spring training. “One is Mike drafting — his ability to draft and his ability to draft young, impact type of hitters — and a player development system (that) did a really great job of helping these guys.”
That 2019 draft has been a game-changer for a lot of teams. It was the class that sent Bobby Witt Jr. to the Kansas City Royals, Bryson Stott to the Philadelphia Phillies, and Corbin Carroll to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Three players from the 2019 draft won a World Series ring last season, and five are All-Stars this year. Ten of its first-rounders have already amassed at least 4.5 WAR, which is more such first-rounders than have come from the 2016, 2017 or 2018 drafts.
“The draft is probably first and foremost a luck-driven thing,” Elias said. “It takes repetitions and multiple picks and portfolios for your methods to bear out in time and multiple drafts. … There’s a ton of good fortune there, but just terrific work by our scouts and player development (team).”
Gunnar Henderson. (Nathan Ray Seebeck / USA Today)
The Orioles were in a bad place at the end of 2018. They’d suffered a franchise-record 115 losses that season. They’d traded away organizational cornerstone Manny Machado, fired head of baseball operations Dan Duquette, and hired first-year manager Hyde. In November 2018, they’d hired Elias, who had been with the Houston Astros since 2011 as a scouting director and assistant general manager. The amateur draft was one of Elias’s specialties, and the opportunity to pick first overall was front and center the moment he got the job. The upcoming draft wasn’t some down-the-road consideration.
“It was immediate,” Elias said.
Elias had seen first-hand the way a draft could transform a franchise. When he followed then-general manager Jeff Luhnow from the St. Louis Cardinals to the Astros in 2011, Houston was coming off a similarly bad season (106 losses), and they too had the first overall pick in the following draft. The Astros used that top pick in 2012 to select shortstop Carlos Correa, then grabbed starting pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. with their second pick. The Astros’ rebuild was accelerated such that, five years later, they won the World Series with Correa batting cleanup and McCullers starting Game 7.
That 2012 draft class, it turned out, had been a good one (Correa, Corey Seager, Matt Olson), and 2019 gave Elias a chance to catch similar lightning in a bottle for the Orioles. At the time, the draft class was seen as perhaps top-heavy, but that wasn’t necessarily bad news for the team with the top pick. Few doubted the potential of the biggest names in that class. With the Astros, Elias had been preparing for the 30th selection — where the possibilities would be inherently less reliable — but within a month of joining the Orioles, Elias said, he was already meeting with potential first-overall picks, including Rutschman.
The industry generally saw Rutschman as a consensus No. 1, though Witt — who ultimately went second — was also a prized commodity. Elias said he remembers answering questions about whether the Orioles were so far out of contention that they would be better off taking the high school shortstop (who likely would take longer to develop) over the college catcher (who might be ready before the Orioles could make the most of him).
Elias said the Orioles discussed that idea — “We went through debates that almost felt more like devil’s advocacy,” he said — but they kept coming back to Rutschman.
“I don’t know if wire-to-wire is the word,” Elias said. “But it kind of started with Adley and ended with Adley. He was the guy.”
In retrospect, there wasn’t really a bad choice between the two — both Rutschman and Witt are All-Stars this season — but the Orioles had another high school shortstop on their radar, and he has a chance to ultimately be the best player in the entire draft.
Elias had been scouting Henderson during his time with the Astros, thinking he might be a viable possibility at No. 30. When Elias got to the Orioles, he learned that interim scouting director Brad Ciolek was similarly impressed with the Alabama teenager. Henderson was a bit raw and there were some questions about his willingness to sign away from a commitment to Auburn, but the Orioles were light on infield prospects, and Elias felt confident that Henderson would welcome the opportunity to prove himself in an organization that offered both runway and upside.
“I really felt that the kid and his family and his camp knew in their hearts how good he could be,” Elias said. “And (they) wanted him to get into pro ball so he could focus 100 percent of his time and attention on baseball and get to the major leagues as soon as possible.”
2nd-rder Gunnar Henderson will sign with @Orioles for $2.3 mil (pick 42 value = $1,771,100). Alabama HS SS, one of best all-around prep hitters in @MLBDraft, solid runner with plus arm who may stay at SS. Auburn recruit.
— Jim Callis (@jimcallisMLB) June 24, 2019
The Orioles picked Henderson No. 42 overall. As measured by Baseball-Reference, he currently has the highest WAR of anyone in the class.
“At this time, it looks to me like a franchise-altering draft pick,” Elias said.
In January 2023, the Orioles traded 2019 fifth-round pick Hernaiz to the Oakland Athletics for Irvin. Hernaiz made his big-league debut this season, while Irvin has a 4.44 ERA across multiple roles the past two seasons in Baltimore. This winter, the O’s made an even bolder trade for Burnes, a former Cy Young Award winner who cost them fourth-round pick Ortiz and pitching prospect DL Hall. Ortiz has been good as the Brewers’ primary third baseman, but Burnes is once again an All-Star, leading the Orioles staff heading into break before heading into free agency in the offseason. Elias felt the Orioles were ready for such a short-term, win-now investment. The Orioles had been rebuilt into a contender.
“We keep evaluating opportunities in the moment,” he said. “And we try to do the right thing.”
Opportunities come and go. Some are better than others, but teams try to do the right thing with each and every one. In 2019, at a time of overwhelming transformation, the Orioles had an opportunity to jump-start their organizational rebuild with a single draft. The timing was good and their top picks were good. Five years later, it seems they could hardly have taken greater advantage.
“I definitely don’t want a do-over,” Elias said. “We’ll take it. I’ll leave it at that.”
(Top photo of Adley Rutschman: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
