​This year’s MLB Draft kicks off tomorrow at 1 p.m., with the White Sox on the clock. After a disappointing season, the Orioles drew a touch of bad luck in the draft lottery and ended up with the No. 7 pick. They had the fourth-best odds to claim the top spot, but that didn’t come to fruition, so the consensus top three prospects—Roch Cholowsky from UCLA, Grady Emerson, a Texas high school shortstop, and Vahn Lackey, the Georgia Tech catcher—will be out of reach for Baltimore. So who could the Orioles select? It’s impossible to say for certain for several reasons. One is that the Orioles’ front office keeps things tight-lipped, and draft-related leaks are rare. When it comes to mock drafts, they’re typically educated guesses based on what other teams think Baltimore might favor.
Another complicating factor is the six picks ahead of Baltimore, which creates a wide range of permutations. The players available to the Orioles—and therefore their potential choices—could shift dramatically depending on who slides to No. 7 and who doesn’t. Baseball media do their best to speculate about the Orioles’ preferences and likely selection, but certainty remains elusive.
Across five national baseball outlets, there are four different mock outcomes for the Orioles at No. 7, a range that offers a useful set of names to consider. Some outlets might update their projections on draft day itself, but here are the most recent mock drafts from the prospect-writing sphere. Notably, Baseball America and MLB Pipeline have converged on the same candidate, a choice that seems to reflect a broader consensus within the industry.
Those outlets appear to have settled on Burress as the pick for Baltimore, often presenting him as the most Orioles-like choice in this era of Mike Elias. Burress is described as a strong college outfielder with power potential, a profile Baltimore has leaned into in five of the last six drafts, undeterred by the mixed results at the major-league level so far. In terms of college performance, Burress shows advantages relative to some recent Orioles selections. He demonstrates respectable power and a lower strikeout rate than some peers, traits that contrast with Enrique Bradfield’s tendencies and Vance Honeycutt’s higher strikeouts. Burress also displays solid plate discipline, walking more than he strikes out in every year of his college career. Listed at 5’9” in some scouting reports—a height that evaluators sometimes consider generous—Burress stands as the No. 7 prospect in MLB Pipeline’s ranking for the draft class. Pipeline describes him as a high-quality athlete with a strong baseball IQ and work ethic, noting his speed helps him steal bases and track balls in center field, where many scouts believe he can handle the position professionally.
Other mock drafts in this compilation project Burress to come off the board before Baltimore’s turn, with potential landing spots at No. 5 for the Pirates or No. 6 for the Royals. The overarching takeaway is that Burress has captured significant attention from several draft analysts and could be Baltimore’s most likely target at No. 7, according to these projections.
As the draft approaches, scouts and analysts will refine their evaluations, and the Orioles’ decision-makers will weigh the probabilities of different scenarios. While Burress emerges as a prominent candidate in multiple mock drafts, the eventual outcome will hinge on a complex mix of player availability, organizational fit, and the evolving evaluations of late-breaking signals from minor-league and college performances.