Matt Shaw becomes Maryland baseball’s highest draft pick

Maryland baseball shortstop Matt Shaw ends his illustrious Maryland career by becoming the program’s highest-drafted player after the Chicago Cubs selected him with the 13^th overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft.

Shaw becomes the highest pick since John Hetrick, who was selected 17^th overall by the Detroit Tigers in 1967, and first first-round pick since Brett Cecil went 38^th overall to the Toronto Blue Jays in 2007. Shaw also becomes the program’s sixth first-round draft pick.

Shaw was a standout for the Terps over the course over the last two seasons, being named a first team All-American and winning both the Brook Wallace Award and Big Ten Player of the Year.

Shaw started every game throughout his career, batted .320 with 53 home runs and drove in 166 RBIs. Shaw had a career high in every hitting statistical category in the 2023 season leading to his plethora of accolades. While Shaw was a major threat on the offensive side of the plate, he was an even bigger threat on defense coming away with web gems game after game. Shaw only finished with eight errors on the season giving him a career low in 2023. Shaw broke Maryland’s all-time home run record (53) and was named a first-team All-Big Ten following both his sophomore and junior seasons.

“He’s the most diligent human I’ve ever met,” new head coach Matt Swope said of Shaw. “Just a savage when it comes to attention to detail. There’s a lot of good college baseball players, who, when they get to pro ball, they don’t have that diligence.”

Shaw also stole the show last summer after being named the Cape Cod Player of the Year where he led the league with a .360 batting average while hitting five home runs and stealing 21 bases, leading the Bourne Braves to the CCBL Championship.

Shaw ends his career inside the top ten in career slugging percentage (.578), career home runs (29) along with single-season home runs (22), RBIs (67), total bases (148), at-bats (245) and extra-base hits (33).

Maryland could see a number of key contributors selected over the course of the draft with Luke Shliger, Jason Savacool, Nigel Belgrave and Nick Lorusso among those in the draft pool.

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