Young Orioles well-positioned to make it big

During baseball’s amateur draft in 2003, Young Harris College coach Rick Robinson received a call from a Baltimore radio station. Robinson’s ace starter and star outfielder, Nick Markakis, had just been selected seventh by the Orioles after a fantastic second season at the Georgia junior college.

Most teams projected Markakis as a pitcher. The Cincinnati Reds had taken him each of the previous two years with the intention of using him on the mound, and Robinson was told 29 teams graded Markakis as a first-round pitching prospect.

Much to Robinson’s surprise, the radio hosts said Baltimore planned to develop Markakis as a position player.

“And I go, ‘No, you must mean pitcher - the left-handed pitcher,’ ” Robinson said. “And they go, ‘No, they drafted him as an outfielder.’ And I go, ‘No, that’s not right - not as the seventh pick.’ ”

After all, Markakis went 12-0 with a 1.68 ERA that year, striking out 160 batters and allowing only 65 hits in 96 2/3 innings. Lefties who throw 96 mph with what Robinson called “a power, major league breaking ball” don’t come along often.

But Markakis also batted .439, slugged 21 home runs and drove in 92 runs - even though he was initially recruited as just a pitcher before injuries to a few regulars forced him into the lineup the previous season. Hitters like that aren’t very common, either.

“I knew Nick was a really good hitter, but it was just hard to believe that somebody was going to pass up a power left-handed arm,” Robinson said.

That’s exactly what the Orioles did. Robinson said he thinks they were the only team to have Markakis rated as a first-round hitter, and now they’re looking pretty smart. Six years later, he is one of the game’s best young outfielders, hitting at least .291 every season of his major league career and smacking 20 homers twice.

Markakis, along with center fielder Adam Jones and catcher Matt Wieters, will be counted on to anchor a formidable offense during the next decade. But - like Markakis - Jones and Wieters also had the potential to go in the first round as pitchers.

For Joe Jordan, Baltimore’s director of scouting, the versatility and experience of those players are especially attractive because of their potential once they start concentrating on hitting or pitching.

“They really get to look at the game from both angles,” Jordan said. “When you’re going to move a guy that’s been pitching strictly to a position player [or vice versa], he should be ahead of a lot of guys.”

Georgia Tech coach Danny Hall said the number of college players capable of pitching and hitting at a high level has been on the rise.

“I think you’re seeing more and more, particularly in college, where scholarships are limited,” Hall said. “Anytime you can find somebody that can be a two-way player, it’s basically like getting two players for the price of one.”

Jones batted above .400 as a high school senior while going 3-3 with a 2.71 ERA and roughly 1.5 strikeouts an inning. He threw in the mid-90s with an above-average curveball, but play at shortstop made him an appealing prospect as a position player.

Jones preferred to play every day. Seattle, which drafted him with a compensatory first-round pick in 2003, obliged.

Story Continues →