The voices were loud in the background, and Michael Ohlman could hardly hear on his cell phone.
So the question was asked again.
“How are the negotiations going with the Baltimore Orioles?”
And Ohlman, a former Lakewood Ranch High star catcher who was drafted by the Orioles in the 11th round (326th pick) of the 2009 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft last month, said firmly talks are ongoing.
“Each pick has a different money amount that the team wants to pay them,” Ohlman said Wednesday from outside a restaurant in Alpharetta, Ga. where he’d just finish playing a game with the Florida Bombers, his travel ball team, “but they know I won’t sign unless I get the amount I want.”
Ohlman wouldn’t say how much he wants, but he appears dead-set on not settling for less.
Ohlman was named the Herald’s 2009 Spring Athlete of the Year after batting .550 with three home runs, 28 RBIs and 23 stolen bases,
“I set a premium for myself, and I won’t lower that instead of going to college,” the 6-foot-4, 215-pounder said. “I won’t give in.”
Ohlman said no decision will probably be made until August if he’ll go pro or head to the University of Miami, where he signed to play last year.
Standing toe-to-toe with the Orioles seems like it would be tough, as playing Major League Baseball has always been a dream of Ohlman’s, and it’s not guaranteed he’ll get drafted again if he makes the choice to play for the Hurricanes.
But Ohlman said this isn’t an arduous decision.
“It’s not hard,” he said. “I told myself that I wasn’t going to lower myself, before all of this even started. I didn’t want to lower what I thought of my value.”
Ohlman isn’t the only one of the six players from this area drafted last month still debating what to do.
Star catcher John Ryan Murphy of The Pendleton School at IMG Academies, who was selected in the second round (76th pick) by the New York Yankees, is still engaged in talks with the team that owns 26 World Series titles.
“No decision has been made,” Murphy’s mother, Carolina, said Wednesday.
It didn’t take Jonathan Rodriguez long to decide what he was going to do.
Rodriguez chose to make his leap to the pros five days after the draft.
The former standout third baseman at Manatee Community College, which is now known as The State College of Florida Manatee/Sarasota, was chosen in the 17th round (519th pick) by the St. Louis Cardinals and signed with the team on June 15. He is off to a hot start playing with the team’s Gulf Coast League affiliate in Jupiter.
Rodriguez, who’s playing first base in rookie ball, leads the team in hitting with a .400 batting average, four RBIs and a .520 on-base percentage.
“He doing extremely well,” SCF coach Tim Hill said. “He’s looking to be moved up soon. He got enough money to make it worthwhile for his situation. They are going to pay for the rest of his schooling once he decides to go back to school, so he’s happy with it.”
The dollar amount of Rodriguez’s contract is undisclosed.
Hill said Rodriguez’s teammate, Taylor Wrenn, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ 25th-round draft choice (756th pick), likely will not sign with the Diamondbacks but will transfer to the University of Southern California.
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