2024 Prospect Promotion Incentive (#32): Griff O'Ferrall - SS - (Jr) Virginia (VA)

[Sports Guy]

7 minutes ago, Go_Os said:

He was 32 in Keith Law's list.

 

O’Ferrall might have ended up in the first round if he’d stuck with his swing and approach from 2023, when he hit .396/.453/.495 for the Hoos while playing strong defense at short. Instead, he tried to get all launch angle-happy and pull the ball for more power, instead of using the whole field, losing 86 points off his OBP for the sake of four extra home runs (in a year when homers are up all over the place). The swing is very forced, like he’s trying to catch the ball and lift it out to his pull side, when he’s already shown strong contact skills and has enough strength to hit for average in pro ball with plenty of doubles. He can still play above-average defense and at least continued to make contact at a high rate, striking out just 7.4 percent of the time this spring, so there’s at least some floor here for a team that takes him and tries to restore his old swing.

Based off of different rankings, he doesn’t seem like a reach. He was drafted in the appropriate area, again according to rankings.

The question is, was he the best pick for the Os?  Obviously they feel he was.  

[Sports Guy]

19 minutes ago, Go_Os said:

He was 32 in Keith Law's list.

 

O’Ferrall might have ended up in the first round if he’d stuck with his swing and approach from 2023, when he hit .396/.453/.495 for the Hoos while playing strong defense at short. Instead, he tried to get all launch angle-happy and pull the ball for more power, instead of using the whole field, losing 86 points off his OBP for the sake of four extra home runs (in a year when homers are up all over the place). The swing is very forced, like he’s trying to catch the ball and lift it out to his pull side, when he’s already shown strong contact skills and has enough strength to hit for average in pro ball with plenty of doubles. He can still play above-average defense and at least continued to make contact at a high rate, striking out just 7.4 percent of the time this spring, so there’s at least some floor here for a team that takes him and tries to restore his old swing.

He has him higher than Honeycutt.

[Sports Guy]

Kiley McDaniel had him 26th…one spot below Honeycutt.

[Jammer7]

Any Cadyn Grenier comps are not accurate for me. He has much better bat-to-ball traits. A very different body type/athlete as well. I only saw O’Ferrall a few times, but give this one some time. He is the kind of player that grows on you for all of the things he does very well.

This is not a comp, but Bryce Turang comes to mind as a similar game type. It isn’t a sexy pick, no. 

[Jim'sKid26]

This kid is a gamer. Big time baseball IQ and a stellar "character guy." He was 5'11" and 165 LBs out of high school. Now listed at 6'1" and 185 LBs on the UVa website. Word out of the Cavaliers coaching staff is that he has an "off the charts," work ethic. I like the pick at the level they got him. 

https://www.perfectgame.org/players/playerprofile.aspx?ID=656671

He also won the award for the best SS in D1 college baseball. 

"The Brooks Wallace Award is an award given by the College Baseball Foundation (CBF) to the best college baseball shortstop of the year. The award has been given annually since 2004."

Previous award recipients:

2009	Ben Orloff	SS	UC Irvine	Senior	[9]
2010	Jedd Gyorko	SS	West Virginia	Junior	[10]
2011	Brad Miller	SS	Clemson	Junior	[11]
2012	Zach Vincej	SS	Pepperdine	Junior	[12]
2013	Alex Bregman	SS	LSU	Freshman	[13]
2014	Trea Turner	SS	North Carolina State	Junior	[14]
2015	Dansby Swanson	SS	Vanderbilt	Junior	[15]
2016	Sheldon Neuse	SS	Oklahoma	Junior	[16]
2017	Logan Warmoth	SS	North Carolina	Junior	[17]
2018	Cadyn Grenier	SS	Oregon State	Junior	[18]
2019	Grae Kessinger	SS	Ole Miss	Junior	[19]
2021	Cal Conley	SS	Texas Tech	Freshman	[20]
2022	Brooks Lee	SS	Cal Poly	Sophomore	[21]
2023	Matt Shaw	SS	Maryland	Junior

That's some pretty good players.

Edited July 15 by Jim'sKid26
added stuff

[LookinUp]

15 minutes ago, Jim'sKid26 said:

This kid is a gamer. Big time baseball IQ and a stellar "character guy." He was 5'11" and 165 LBs out of high school. Now listed at 6'1" and 185 LBs on the UVa website. Word out of the Cavaliers coaching staff is that he has an "off the charts," work ethic. I like the pick at the level they got him. 

https://www.perfectgame.org/players/playerprofile.aspx?ID=656671

He also won the award for the best SS in D1 college baseball. 

"The Brooks Wallace Award is an award given by the College Baseball Foundation (CBF) to the best college baseball shortstop of the year. The award has been given annually since 2004."

Previous award recipients:

2009	Ben Orloff	SS	UC Irvine	Senior	[9]
2010	Jedd Gyorko	SS	West Virginia	Junior	[10]
2011	Brad Miller	SS	Clemson	Junior	[11]
2012	Zach Vincej	SS	Pepperdine	Junior	[12]
2013	Alex Bregman	SS	LSU	Freshman	[13]
2014	Trea Turner	SS	North Carolina State	Junior	[14]
2015	Dansby Swanson	SS	Vanderbilt	Junior	[15]
2016	Sheldon Neuse	SS	Oklahoma	Junior	[16]
2017	Logan Warmoth	SS	North Carolina	Junior	[17]
2018	Cadyn Grenier	SS	Oregon State	Junior	[18]
2019	Grae Kessinger	SS	Ole Miss	Junior	[19]
2021	Cal Conley	SS	Texas Tech	Freshman	[20]
2022	Brooks Lee	SS	Cal Poly	Sophomore	[21]
2023	Matt Shaw	SS	Maryland	Junior

That's some pretty good players.

I appreciate the list, but there's different profiles on it. How many of the big names were drafted really early? There were elite prospects and there were great college SS's who fell some. The latter haven't exactly torn up MLB.

[Sports Guy]

I’m sorry but using words like gamer and scrappy don’t do players justice.

It’s like when you see pics of a house that is for sale and all the pics are of the outside but nothing on the inside.  There is a reason for that..because the inside sucks.

I get the point of using some of these terms but when you say them, it takes focus off of their strengths and makes them more of the little engine that could type guy.

 

[Sports Guy]

 

[Just Regular]

This pick does make me wonder about CF Jackson Holliday perhaps being a thing this off-season.

O'Ferrall seems to match the low strikeout Nori Aoki, Adam Frazier kind of thing.     Gunnar would be awfully young to move off SS if O'Ferrall is Mike Bordick.

It seems like O'Ferrall's overall value can't get close to surfacing unless he defends SS, so maybe he is just draft day trade bait.

[Rbiggs2525]

People that are associating picks with moving players have this draft all wrong. If you get 3 MLB contributors in a draft then you’ve had a great draft. Drafting a catcher and shortstop have nothing to do with Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutchman. This has to do with trying to find a MLB contributor which is a very low percentage after round 1. Remember Westburg, Cowser and Kjerstad all came up at 24 years old. These kids have 3 more years of development before we will see them. 

[Sports Guy]

18 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

This pick does make me wonder about CF Jackson Holliday perhaps being a thing this off-season.

O'Ferrall seems to match the low strikeout Nori Aoki, Adam Frazier kind of thing.     Gunnar would be awfully young to move off SS if O'Ferrall is Mike Bordick.

It seems like O'Ferrall's overall value can't get close to surfacing unless he defends SS, so maybe he is just draft day trade bait.

Of course you have also taken 2 true CFers the last 2 first rounds.

But they will need to figure out something, that’s for sure.

[RZNJ]

25 minutes ago, Just Regular said:

This pick does make me wonder about CF Jackson Holliday perhaps being a thing this off-season.

O'Ferrall seems to match the low strikeout Nori Aoki, Adam Frazier kind of thing.     Gunnar would be awfully young to move off SS if O'Ferrall is Mike Bordick.

It seems like O'Ferrall's overall value can't get close to surfacing unless he defends SS, so maybe he is just draft day trade bait.

Getting way ahead of yourself.   I would guess O’Ferrall has nothing to do where Holliday plays the next 2-3 years.   

[ChosenOne21]

1 hour ago, Jammer7 said:

Any Cadyn Grenier comps are not accurate for me. He has much better bat-to-ball traits. A very different body type/athlete as well. I only saw O’Ferrall a few times, but give this one some time. He is the kind of player that grows on you for all of the things he does very well.

This is not a comp, but Bryce Turang comes to mind as a similar game type. It isn’t a sexy pick, no. 

The Cayden Greiner comp is a bit harsh, I'll admit.

Greiner was an excellent defensive shortstop who could really get into a ball. The problem was, he ended up with about a 30 hit tool.

O'Ferrall is kind of a reverse Greiner, but overall a better package. He's got plenty of hit tool, the question mark is power.

Greiner was a third round talent the O's drafted in supplemental first. O'Ferrall is basically a supplemental first round talent.

[Just Regular]

16 minutes ago, Rbiggs2525 said:

People that are associating picks with moving players have this draft all wrong. If you get 3 MLB contributors in a draft then you’ve had a great draft. Drafting a catcher and shortstop have nothing to do with Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutchman. This has to do with trying to find a MLB contributor which is a very low percentage after round 1. Remember Westburg, Cowser and Kjerstad all came up at 24 years old. These kids have 3 more years of development before we will see them. 

I get the Talent Accumulation aspect - it is most of what we have watched since Elias was hired.

Kjerstad is a major outlier for medical reasons, and Jordan Westburg sits next to Ryan Mountcastle as a prominent MLBPA member who may feel like theirs and their friends' competitive capabilities were constrained due to club circumstances.

I agree 3 contributors any draft is a favorable outcome, but if on Day 1 you can't forecast a high pick as a backup catcher and 5th infielder...

[MurphDogg]

It is interesting that Cadyn Grenier is our go to example as a bust, when of the 10 players drafted around him (five before and five after), five never reached the Majors, three had sub-1 WAR careers to this point (Jackson Kowar, Daniel Lynch IV and Xavier Edwards), and the other two are Kris Bubic (1.8 career rWAR) and Jake McCarthy (5.0 rWAR).

The draft is such a crapshoot, and the median expectation after pick 35 or so is not to reach the Majors at all.