Devin Saltiban stood at second base during an MLB Draft League game last month when he heard a greeting from the opposing team’s shortstop he wasn’t expecting in West Virginia.
“I hear this guy go, ‘Hoooo, braddah,’ ” Saltiban said. “I was like, ‘Oh, what?’ and he said he was from Hawaii. That was pretty sick.”
Saltiban, who just graduated from Hilo, met ‘Iolani alum Jacob Hinderleider, who played five seasons at Davidson College, in the middle of a game in which both were trying to achieve the same thing.
With the MLB First-Year Player Draft now held in July, an MLB Draft League is held in two phases, with the first taking place in the weeks leading up to this year’s draft, which begins today with Rounds 1 and 2.
Saltiban is one of two players from Hawaii on MLB.com’s list of the top 250 draft prospects.
The 5-foot-11, 180-pound outfielder is ranked No. 182 overall, and recent Punahou graduate Nolan Souza, an Arkansas signee, is ranked No. 222.
Both may end up hearing their names called today or Monday, when rounds 3-10 are completed. Rounds 11-20 will be held on Tuesday.
“I’m just chilling, spending time with my family,” Saltiban said Friday in a phone interview. “It’s just good going through this experience I’m having right now because I feel for me it’s once in a lifetime. I’m enjoying it.”
Saltiban, who helped the Vikings reach the quarterfinals of the state baseball tournament in consecutive years, is a Hawaii signee whose future could go either way depending on where he gets drafted.
Kaha Wong, the father of current Seattle Mariners second baseman Kolten Wong, has worked with nearly every prominent baseball prospect to come out of the Big Island for more than a decade.
Saltiban is no different.
“Coach Kaha is a big role model to me and someone I look up to,” Saltiban said. “He does a lot for the Big Island boys and Hawaii in general. He teaches you a lot about not just the game but your character and who you are as a person. He wants you to excel at everything in life, not just baseball.”
Wong also helps bring scouts to the Big Island to get his kids noticed. Saltiban said scouts began to show up at his high school games in his junior season.
It continued his senior year, but he didn’t feel like things really took off until he played in more than 10 games in the MLB Draft League last month, where he homered twice.
“It took a lot of work just trying to play well to make the Area Codes team, because my junior year I didn’t make the team,” Saltiban said. “I guess I had a lot of ‘ifs’ about me when I went to West Virginia, and then things started to blow up for me a lot more.”
In his write-up on MLB.com, “He has the chance to really hit, with a quick swing and excellent bat speed, which could point to decent power in the future. Challenging himself by competing in MLB’s Draft League ahead of the draft, Saltiban held his own, putting up some good exit velocities and punishing fastballs, albeit in a small sample.”
Saltiban has played baseball for as long as he can remember, going back to T-ball days. He’s always had aspirations of being selected in the MLB draft.
“I always looked up at guys like Mike Trout and Kolten Wong and always wanted to be a star like them and even better,” Saltiban said. “It just went from a dream to where we’re at now and I love this game. I wouldn’t want to play any other sport.”
Saltiban, Souza and another Hilo alum, Maui Ahuna, who spent two seasons at Kansas and hit .312 with 20 doubles, eight homers and 42 RBIs this past season in his first year at Tennessee, are the top prospects with Hawaii ties.
The Big Island has produced two players drafted in the top five rounds out of high school in the past five years, with Hilo’s Micah Bello selected in the second round by Milwaukee in 2018 and Waiakea’s Kala‘i Rosario going in the fifth round to the Minnesota Twins in 2020.
Saint Louis alum Aiva Arquette is the only Hawaii high school player selected straight out of high school in the past two drafts, but he opted to go to Washington after he was picked in the 18th round last year by the Arizona Diamondbacks.
