TORONTO – The Canadian class for the 2015 draft sets up as one of the deepest crops of players the country has ever produced, with top-end high schoolers like Josh Naylor, Demi Orimoloye and Mike Soroka leading the charge.
All three have been integral parts of the junior national team in recent years, and each had a strong showing during the squad’s recent tour of Dominican Summer League clubs.
Naylor, from Mississauga, Ont., led the team with five home runs, Orimoloye, from Orleans, Ont., added three while Soroka, from Calgary, threw 13 scoreless innings over three outings, allowing just one hit and one walk with 16 strikeouts.
"They’re all legitimate front-end talents," says Greg Hamilton, Baseball Canada’s director of national teams. "You don’t see it too often where you have three high school guys that are legitimately in the dialogue as first-round picks. That’s pretty impressive, and Ryan Kellogg, to me, has done nothing but win since the time he was 16, 17 years old."
Kellogg, from Whitby, Ont., has starred at Arizona State the past three years after being selected in the 12th round of the 2012 draft by the Toronto Blue Jays. Baseball America ranked the left-hander No. 131 on its top 500 list, with Orimoloye in at No. 41, Naylor next at 61, Indiana State lefty Jeff Degano of Surrey, B.C., at 83 and Soroka at 90.
Naylor gained some fame during the all-star game last year when he finished second to American Luken Baker in the MLB Select Junior Home Run Derby. The 17-year-old first baseman offers teams huge raw power and an advanced left-handed bat capable of hitting corner-to-corner.
"He’s a different animal," said Hamilton. "When you’re looking for a hitter, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better one on the planet in high school. He is a hitter, and you don’t see them like that, too often."
Orimoloye, 18, stands six-foot-four and 225 pounds, and while his game isn’t polished, he’s "that rarely seen plus-plus athlete on a baseball field," according to Hamilton.
"You see more of that on a football field or a basketball court in terms of the overall dimension and overall athleticism," he continued. "But his game is coming. He still has a ways to go, but he’s got the ability to do things that not a lot of guys can do in terms of pure athleticism. That’s the separator for him, the fact that he’s six-foot-four, a plus-plus runner and there’s plus power there and arm strength. If he can put it all together, it’s going to be pretty exciting and compelling."
Soroka, 17, offers teams a poised right-hander with increasing velocity.
"If you did a list of all the high-school pitchers to come out of Canada, you can put him there, he’s up there with anybody. He’s really good," said Hamilton. "He’s got three-pitch command, really knows how to pitch, got real good sink on his fastball, great composure, tremendous command and his velocity is up to 93, 94 now. You’re talking a six-foot-four right-hander who is pitching 90-93 with plus sink and the ability to work both sides of the plate. And to me, the intangibles are outstanding, composure, the ability to make pitches and win without his best stuff, he doesn’t panic – the sorts of things you try to teach young players he has a very good grasp of."
Kellogg, 21, is a former junior national team MVP who only added to his resume while with the Sun Devils.
"You go to Arizona State and start on Friday nights as a freshman, throw no-hitters in that conference, do it in the Cape Cod League and shut down the Americans as a high school player where you dominate and beat them 1-0, he’s pretty good," said Hamilton.
Other names to keep an eye on in a deep Canadian class include athletic outfielder Miles Gordon of Oakville, Ont., and Tristan Pompey of Mississauga, the younger brother of Toronto Blue Jays prospect Dalton Pompey.