Southern Miss players drafted in the MLB Draft

It’s only fitting that a record-setting season for Southern Miss baseball is culminating with a busy second day of the MLB First Year Player Draft that saw two Golden Eagles off the board today.
First up was second-team All American Taylor Braley, who got picked up by the Miami Marlins in the sixth round at pick number 179 overall. The junior slugger hit 17 home runs as the everyday third baseman for USM, but was actually selected as a right-handed pitcher after posting a 7-2 record with a 3.40 ERA to go along with 78 strikeouts across 82 innings of work.
Braley becomes the highest drafted Southern Miss player since BA Vollmuth who got taken in the third round by the Oakland Athletics in 2011. His slot value for that selection puts him in the range of more than $250,000.
About an hour later, the Cleveland Indians called dibs on USM’s lefty ace Kirk McCarty with the 222nd overall pick in the seventh round. That makes the former high school teammates the first pair of Golden Eagles to get taken in the top ten rounds of the same draft since 2004.
In 2017, McCarty went 10-2 with an ERA of 3.52 and became the first Southern Miss pitcher to eclipse 100 strikeouts in a season since 2002. His slot value is just under $180,000.
Should either player choose to sign with their respective teams, they would forego their final years of eligibility in Hattiesburg.
Let’s recap some of the SEC guys getting scooped up in the first ten rounds starting with the day ones. LSU had a pair get drafted yesterday in Alex Lange and Greg Deichmann with Mississippi State’s Brent Rooker getting sandwiched in between them.
As for today, it was all about the Tigers as they had four more players get taken early and often. The inseparable double play duo of Kramer Robertson and Cole Freeman got selected nine picks away from one another in the fourth round. Then the same deal later with Jared Poche and Michael Papierski getting picked ten spots apart in the ninth round.
So far, Ole Miss and Alabama are the only two SEC schools left without having a player drafted.