Orioles take high school outfielder Eric Booth Jr. in first round of MLB draft

For the fourth straight year, the Orioles chose an outfielder with their first pick in the draft. The difference this year? He’s a high schooler.

Baltimore selected Eric Booth Jr., from Oak Grove High School in Mississippi, with the No. 7 pick of the draft in Philadelphia. In doing so, they added elite speed to their farm system in the form of an 18-year-old who hits left-handed and plays center field.

Booth, the son of a running back and kick returner for Southern Mississippi in the mid-1990s, turned 18 on July 4. He is committed to Vanderbilt, but with a slot value of $7,327,200 for the No. 7 pick, the Orioles should feel relatively confident in their ability to sign him.

Baltimore’s previous three top picks also were outfielders: Ike Irish (2025), Vance Honeycutt (2024) and Enrique Bradfield Jr. (2023). Those three were college players. Booth is the third high school player drafted in the first round under president of baseball operations Mike Elias, joining Slater de Brun (No. 37 in 2025) and Jackson Holliday (No. 1 in 2022).

Baseball America ranked him the sixth-best prospect in the draft, giving him 80-grade speed — the highest possible on a scout’s 20-to-80 scale — along with 55 hitting, 50 power, 55 fielding and 45 arm strength.

Baseball America’s scouting report indicates Booth’s swing mechanics need improvement, but the 6-foot, 205-pound teenager has a feel for the strike zone and an opposite-field hitting approach.

The last time the Orioles drafted a pitcher in the first round was right-hander Grayson Rodriguez in 2018 under general manager Dan Duquette. Had right-hander Jackson Flora fallen to them, they may have been open to breaking that streak of position players under new vice president of domestic scouting Will Robertson, who’s running his first draft.

“I wouldn’t classify myself as particularly different than our organizational philosophy, but I will say that there has always been openness to pitching early,” Robertson said ahead of the draft. “We’ll see how the board shakes out this year, but I promise that we are discussing pitchers at all levels of investment and certainly have done the work to feel prepared to take a pitcher — or position player — earlier than the small sample of drafts that this administration has had.”

The Orioles also have picks Nos. 46, 82 and 110 on the first day of the draft. They may select a pitcher with one of those.

Baltimore chose a few pitchers last year earlier than it ever had. In the second round, the Orioles selected left-hander Joseph Dzierwa, the highest-drafted pitcher of the Elias era. They added right-hander JT Quinn at No. 69 in Competitive Balance Round B.

There may be natural comparisons between Booth and Bradfield, beyond the fact their initials are both EBJ. They’re plus defenders with a lot of speed. But Booth appears to have more power potential than Bradfield.

Booth won the home run derby at the Perfect Game All-American Classic in July 2025. And he was selected to the 2026 Clarion Ledger Dandy Dozen and Large Class All-State team. Booth hit .481 with a .922 slugging percentage as a senior.

Orioles manager Craig Albernaz said he pays attention to the draft, even though most of these players won’t debut in the big leagues for years. When asked what intangible skills are necessary in a prospect, Albernaz pivoted away from power or speed.

“You always want to bet on the person,” he said. “That’s why baseball is so much different from other sports. It’s not the biggest, fastest, strongest that make it. You have to have some mental resiliency. You have to be a good person. You’ve got to be able to navigate the clubhouse every day and be able to have honest, truthful conversations.”

That includes being coachable and asking the right questions.

“The sooner guys take ownership of their career, the better it is, and that’s how guys, in my estimation, get to the big leagues and are more apt to stay,” Albernaz said.

That’s why, no matter how much data becomes prevalent, there’s always the human aspect.

“Everyone has to acknowledge and love and use [the advanced data available], but you also have to acknowledge that the players on the field create that data,” Albernaz said. “That’s never going to change. The person that’s out there, the scouts, they have a huge part of this game because they do a great job of kind of doing a 360 holistic view of the player, how they treat other people, how they treat their parents. All that factors in, not only what they do on the field, because they’re going to go up against adversity.”