Going, Going, Gone
Number-one MLB prospect Adley Rutschman launches TopGolf nuke in greatest Orioles highlight since 1983
With the first pick in the 2019 MLB Draft, the Baltimore Orioles selected Adley Rutschman, power-hitting Oregon State catcher, 2018 College World Series champ, and 2019 Pac-12 Baseball Player of the Year. They subsequently awarded him an $8.1 million signing bonus, the largest ever MLB Draft signing bonus at the time. Needless to say, great things were (and continue to be) expected from Rutschman, now 23 and the top-ranked prospect in all of baseball. Rutschman slashed .271/.392/.508 with 18 homers and 55 RBIs in Double A last summer, before being promoted to Triple A in August. If that trajectory continues, we could very well be talking about Rutschman as a Big League player sometime in 2022.
For now, that’s all on hold due to yet another MLB offseason work stoppage, but that’s not stopping Rutschman from working on the finer points of his game … golf game that is.
The fact the TopGolf nets are set at 200 yards can make anybody’s grandma look like Bryson, but we know a nuke when we see one, and this is a NUKE. And to make things even more impressive, he did it all in loafers and jeans, per the time-honored tradition of Adleys everywhere.
Most importantly, however, Rutschman is rounding himself out as a professional ballplayer. In the minors, it might be enough to simply show up, hit some dingers, and crawl back to the studio apartment you’re sharing with three guys for some Top Ramen. In the majors, however, you gotta be a superstar. You gotta be on every night. You gotta sign millions of autographs and have millions of followers on IG. But most of all, you gotta love golf. Just like Smoltz, Trout, Cespedes, and McNeil before him, Rutschman looks like he has that base covered.