Virginia baseball's MLB Draft hopefuls are 'really excited' for what's to come (2024)

He’s embraced the reward and the hopefulness that coincide at this moment in his baseball career.

The one that officially caps his time spent in college and catapults him into the pro ranks.

“There’s a ton of anticipation. There’s a ton of excitement that I’m feeling,” Virginia outfielder Casey Saucke said. “It’s going to be special. It’s going to be a really special moment. I’ve worked my whole life for this, so it’s hard not to be really excited.

“I’ve had a bat in my hand since I can remember,” he continued, “I was probably two years old, and this is what you dream of, this is what you work for, so I can’t wait.”

He is one of handful of Cavaliers — along with shortstop Griff O’Ferrall, catcher/first baseman Ethan Anderson, outfielder Harrison Didawick and pitcher Jay Woolfolk — expected to be selected during the Major League Baseball Draft, which begins Sunday with the first two rounds, continues with the third through tenth rounds on Monday and concludes on Tuesday with the final 10 rounds.

O’Ferrall, a potential first-rounder, said he tried to ease his own anxiety over the last week by spending time with family and friends, sneaking in some extra rounds of golf and, of course, keeping himself in baseball shape while waiting to learn what’s next.

But, “it’s getting to the point where it’s pretty much all I think about,” O’Ferrall, the Richmond native, said with a chuckle.

On O’Ferrall

He won the Brooks Wallace Award, which is given to the top shortstop in college baseball annually. And O’Ferrall, who earned All-ACC first-team accolades for the second straight year while helping UVa reach Omaha in consecutive campaigns, said he interviewed with about 20 big-league teams — front office folks particularly — during the MLB Combine at Chase Field in Arizona on the heels of the College World Series.

O’Ferrall, Saucke, Anderson and Didawick all attended the event at the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“I thought it went well and thought I handled their questions well,” O’Ferrall said of those conversations with scouts, general managers and other front office personnel, “so that was really all I could ask for. I felt pretty solid about all of them and felt pretty good.”

What isn’t as clear, according to O’Ferrall, is how long it’ll take for him to hear his name called on Sunday.

“The day of the draft is so fluid and if a team really wants a guy and that guy gets picked,” O’Ferrall said, “that really changes their way of thinking and list and who is up next. It’s really hard to gauge.”

Most mock drafts project O’Ferrall as a late first-round choice or a second-round selection. MLB Pipeline ranks O’Ferrall as the 38th best prospect in this draft class and the second-best shortstop coming out of college this year.

“If he goes in the first round, it’ll be the kind of thing where the team picking really wants him and they know he’s not going to be around in when they pick the next time,” said Jonathan Mayo, who covers prospects and the draft for MLB Pipeline and MLB Network, about O’Ferrall.

“What he brings to the table is he’s a really high-floor, college-performer type,” Mayo said. “I think that people know he’s going to come out and give them solid at-bats, a lot of contact and a lot of ability to play the infield well. There’s nothing that screams in terms of tools, but he does everything pretty well.”

O’Ferrall hit .344 with a .408 on-base percentage across his three years with the Hoos. He was the toughest hitter to strike out in the ACC this past season and won a Rawlings Gold Glove Award as the top defending shortstop in the country in 2024.

“Being a winning player is really big, too,” O’Ferrall said, “to professional baseball, the scouts and thankfully we had some really great winning seasons at UVa during my time there, so that’s definitely one of the aspects that I’d think is attractive.”

On Saucke

Mayo said Saucke, a three-year starter in right field for the Cavaliers who batted in the three-hole this past season, helped his stock with his consistent performance this go-around.

Saucke hit .344 with 14 homers, 18 doubles and 65 RBI.

“He made a lot more contact [in 2024],” Mayo said. “Teams like the fact that his miss and chase rates went down. He was doing more damage and there could be a little more power to come.”

Saucke, a 6-foot-3, 210-pounder that ranks 127th on MLB Pipeline’s list of top prospects, agreed.

“There’s a lot of juice in my tank,” said Saucke, who had a memorable game-tying home run with two outs and down to his last strike during a March matchup with Wake Forest.

“I can definitely put a big swing on the ball at any point in time,” he said, “and home runs can change the game, and that’s important. I think I’ll be an average and power guy, and being able to do both of those things is pretty lethal.”

Mayo said some clubs believe Saucke is athletic enough to play center field even though he never played the position at UVa.

“The concern for a guy like Saucke is if he’s a tweener,” Mayo said. “If he can’t play center or he doesn’t have the tools to stay in center, will he impact the ball [as a hitter] enough to be an everyday [player] as a corner outfielder?

“But I think there’s more sense there’s more to come from Saucke,” Mayo said, “and he’s got the frame that should allow him to get bigger and then he would fit in a corner.”

On Didawick, Woolfolk and Anderson

Like O’Ferrall and Saucke, the trio of Anderson (78), Didawick (125) and Woolfolk (250) all rank on that MLB Pipeline list of top prospects.

Didawick, a left-handed slugging outfielder, matched the school’s single-season record for homers with 23 this year during a breakout sophom*ore campaign.

“It’s a power-over-hit profile,” Mayo said. “I know there are some scouts who are a little worried about the contact with [Didawick’s] hit tool. You could have all the raw power in the world, but if there’s too much swing and miss, can you get to the power?

“In today’s game,” Mayo said, “teams will live with some strikeouts if he barrels the ball up enough to get to that power. And he showed more ability to drive the ball to all fields this year, so that was a big step forward for him.”

Didawick and Woolfolk, who Mayo said rebuilt some of his stock with the strong postseason he had on the mound, are projected as Day 2 picks.

Woolfolk struggled during the first two and a half months of the year, was demoted from the rotation to the bullpen but found his command again in mid-May. He returned to the rotation for the NCAA tournament and earned wins in the regional against Mississippi State and super regional against Kansas State as he combined to throw 14.1 innings and struck out 14.

Mayo said Woolfolk is likely a reliever in the pros and said, “the good thing is in shorter stints his fastball and slider combination will play up.”

Anderson could be chosen as early as the second round. How Anderson projects, though, Mayo said, depends on the position he ultimately plays moving forward.

“If he can’t catch, then he’s a first baseman,” Mayo said, “and then he really has to hit. Now you’re talking about a guy who switch hits and there’s raw power there, and if you saw him as a sophom*ore, you think he can get back to that. Those are all good tools and he has a chance if he can profile as that at first, but there’s a lot more pressure on him to hit if he can’t catch.

“So, if I’m taking him, at the very least, I’m exploring [him at catcher] this summer and in instructs,” Mayo said, “because you need to get a closer look and work with him and see what you have because you don’t want the work it’ll take behind the plate to slow the bat down if you think he’s the kind of guy who can hit his way to the big leagues rather quickly like a lot of UVa guys do.”

On the commits

There are also four high schoolers committed to UVa — Pennington School (New Jersey) pitcher Bryce Meccage, Coronado (Colorado) pitcher Trey Gregory-Alford, Ramsey (New Jersey) pitcher William Kirk and PDG Academy (Virginia) infielder Aiden Harris — who appear on MLB Pipeline’s Top 250 prospects list.

Mayo said Meccage, a right-hander ranked as the 51st best prospect, could sneak into the first round and that Gregory-Alford performed well enough at the MLB Combine for clubs to want to draft him and pay him now.

“But if you don’t see them go by the third round, then there’s a good chance they’ll end up in Charlottesville,” Mayo said.

On the moment

O’Ferrall, the former St. Christopher’s star, said he’ll watch the draft from home in Richmond surrounded by family and friends.

Saucke said he’ll be doing the same with his family and extended family up in his hometown of Rochester, New York.

“I’m going to be emotional,” Saucke said. “I don’t know which kind of emotional, if I’ll be excited or if I’ll cry. I’m not sure, but it’s been a lifelong process, so to see it all come true is going to be a special moment for sure.”

Said O’Ferrall: “I think this is just as much for [my family] as it is for me. They deserve this moment, too, with everything they’ve done for me to be in this position and have this opportunity.”

O’Ferrall and Saucke said they’re thankful for they went through their years at Virginia together, with Anderson, Woolfolk and Didawick as well, and mentioned how neat it is that they’ve gone through the MLB Draft process as a group.

Under Cavaliers coach Brian O’Connor, who just finished his 21st season in charge, the Hoos have produced 97 MLB Draft picks. O’Ferrall, Saucke and the rest of the bunch will make that number reach triple digits.

“He built his foundation,” Saucke said, “and everything that we do at practice, during game days, it’s so intentional and there is a plan and reason behind it. And that’s what him and [assistant coach Kevin McMullan] are good at. They are incredible coaches and incredible men, and I think they want to develop us as men before they develop us as players and that in turn helps us be better players and men on the baseball field.

“That’s what it takes,” he said. “It takes a team effort to win games, and they’ve produced a factory while developing incredible position players and pitchers and I feel blessed to be part of it.”

O’Ferrall added: “It’s surreal. Growing up I was such a big UVa fan and if I would’ve told my younger self that I would’ve gotten to accomplish the things I did at UVa then, I’m not sure I would’ve believed me. It’s really cool to look back on and admire because I had such a great time there with those coaches and those players, and it’s something I never took for granted.”