With their second round pick in the 2026 draft, the Orioles chose outfielder Ty Head from North Carolina State. That follows on the heels of their first round pick going to a high school outfielder, Eric Booth Jr.
On MLB’s draft telecast after the pick, the analysts offered praise for Head as a player, describing his potential for elite contact rates along with “stick in center field” level defense, plus potential for speed and power as a 20 homer/20 stolen base guy.
Of course, if Head was a strong
probability to do all of those things, he would have been picked much higher than #46 in the draft. Head’s elite contact rates haven’t equated to a high batting average in his time with the Wolfpack; he posted just a .293 average this season. He walks a ton and doesn’t strike out much. I’m talking 59 walks and only 23 strikeouts. That’s a crazy ratio. It’s not uncommon to see a player praised for “more walks than strikeouts” in his college tenure and you look at those guys and it’s usually like, a handful more walks than strikeouts. Head is more than doubling up his number of strikeouts with walks.
The downside there is some pitches you don’t actually want to hit, and you will end up with a lot of not-great contact. Head has had his share of that while facing ACC level competition. It’s only going to get harder in the pros. Even Low-A pitchers are going to be better than a lot of the guys who are pitching for college teams.
The Orioles had to wait a long time to make this pick between their first round selection and this one. That’s because they traded the pick they would have had at #33 to the Rays as part of the Shane Baz trade. The Rays selected a South Carolina high school shortstop, Taj Marchand, with that pick. If any player selected in the 33-37 range pops, that’s going to hurt a little bit. That group includes the son of Hall of Famer and former (for a short time) Oriole, Jim Thome. The younger Thome, Landon, was taken from the Illinois high school ranks at #34.
The slot value of this pick is $2,181,600. There are some diverging opinions on Head among the draft prospect writers. At FanGraphs, Head ranks as high as #16, while at MLB Pipeline, this was the #60 player. He’s a draft-eligible sophomore, so he may have a little bit of leverage to ask for a modest overslot, but this could just as easily go more or less at slot.
FanGraphs on Head:
This is a projectable, well-rounded hitter who has already found ways to thrive with the skills he has and seems to be growing into more power. He plays a good center field and has a chance to be an average everyday player out there if the power keeps coming.
This seems like a good profile for a second round pick.
Go ahead and get all of the jokes about Head’s last name out of the way now. They will stop being funny after today.
