Five Ducks started their pro seasons this past week as Major League Baseball kicked off its season on Thursday, March 26. That number is soon to skyrocket, with recent drafts featuring numerous Oregon selections thanks to the Ducks\u2019 savvy approach in the NIL era and transfer portal, as well as the program\u2019s overall rise under head coach Mark Wasikowski.<\/p>\n
While this year\u2019s Ducks\u2019 team isn\u2019t generating quite as much buzz in MLB circles as in years past (mostly due to a lack of home runs), there\u2019s still a good number of players likely to take the next step and see their names called at the draft in July.<\/p>\n
Drew Smith is the team\u2019s biggest riser, with the outfielder slashing 0.427\/0.525\/0.841 through 82 at-bats, and walking nearly one time for every strikeout. He\u2019s also seen his power numbers skyrocket, blasting a team-high nine homers that have him close to the top of the conference leaderboards.<\/p>\n
Dominic Hellman is the Ducks\u2019 other main power hitter, who projects to have an interesting draft profile. For as limited as Hellman is as a fielder (he is either a designated hitter or a defensively-limited first baseman), his bat is special. He\u2019s had an average start to the season by his standards, and is still batting over 0.300 with nine homers thus far. Hellman\u2019s best draft profile might just be his former teammate Jacob Walsh, who blasted 19 homers in his draft year. Despite similar defensive limitations, Walsh was drafted in round No. 15 by the Washington Nationals. As is the case with all players, a mid-season hot streak would do wonders for Hellman\u2019s draft odds.<\/p>\n
Perhaps Oregon\u2019s most MLB-projectable player, Maddox Molony, is a sure-fire selection after the season or next year, should he elect to return. The Springfield athlete has been on scouts\u2019 watchlists since his breakout freshman year, and although limited as a quick-twitch athlete, Molony is a smooth defender and could stick at shortstop at the next level. Despite having a slow start to his junior year, Molony\u2019s six-foot-two-inch frame is extremely translatable.<\/p>\n
The pitching side of things for Oregon is much more complicated, as most of the Ducks\u2019 top arms, headlined by Cal Scolari, have options to return to school for another season. Despite being effective, most of Oregon\u2019s relievers likely do not throw hard enough to stick at the next level, and may be intriguing undrafted free agent signings for clubs. Walsh; Mason Neville, (Cincinnati Reds, round No. 4); Jason Reitz, (Minnesota Twins, round No. 4); Grayson Grinsell, (Detroit Tigers, round No. 6) and Anson Aroz, (Los Angeles Dodgers, round No. 19) were the five Ducks selected in the 2024 MLB Draft.<\/p>\n
The 2026 MLB Draft will take place from July 11 to 13, 2026, in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five Ducks started their pro seasons this past week as Major League Baseball kicked off its season on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2276],"tags":[5,2291,4,1586],"class_list":{"0":"post-659396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-draft","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-major-league-baseball-draft","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-mlb-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116336783947597179","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}