Cubs stick with usual plan of college hitter with No. 17 pick

The Cubs pulled a mild surprise with the No. 17 pick of Sunday's MLB draft, selecting Wake Forest outfielder Ethan Conrad.

But maybe Conrad was under the radar because shoulder surgery limited him to 21 games this spring, when he hit .372 with 7 home runs. It was a small sample size, but he had more walks (18) than strikeouts (14) at Wake Forest this season.

Conrad described the injury on a Zoom call with Chicago reporters, detailing how he dove for a flyball in the outfield and suffered both a dislocated left shoulder and torn labrum.

“Once I went down, it was a really stressful time,” Conrad said. “I didn't know what was going to happen with the draft, and I was really upset not being able to help my teammates out.

“Three and a half months out now (from surgery), so I have full range of motion. I'll be at full strength, hopefully, in a month and then I'll be able to swing and hit around that time as well. So we're nearing the end of it, for sure.”

A left-handed hitter, the 6-foot-3 Conrad hit .385 in the Cape Cod League in 2024, which is something the Cubs typically value. Cape Cod features the nation's best college players and wood bats.

“That summer in the Cape was really the turning point in my career,” he said. “I was able to be around great coaches. Then also just being around the players on my team being able to learn from them.”

Conrad is a native of Saugerties, N.Y., a town on the Hudson River, roughly halfway between Manhattan and Albany. He stayed close to home and spent his first two years of college at Marist University before transferring to Wake Forest.

This is the third straight year the Cubs have taken a college hitter in the first round, joining Matt Shaw from Maryland and Cam Smith from Florida State, who both reached the majors quickly.

“That's extremely exciting,” Conrad said. “That's definitely the goal for me is just to get up there as quickly as possible

“The only time that I talked to (the Cubs) was at the combine. It was a great meeting, I really enjoyed it, great people. I walked out of that meeting thinking like, 'This could definitely be a possibility because it went really well.'”

In the second round, the Cubs chose 5-foot-8 outfielder Kane Kepley from North Carolina. He hit .291 with 45 stolen bases for the Tar Heels this spring. The Charlotte-area native began his college career as a walk-on at Liberty.

In the third round, the Cubs took right-handed pitcher Dominick Reid from Abilene Christian. The scouting report says Reid, an Oklahoma State transfer, throws his fastball in the mid-90s and his best pitch is the change-up. He had 112 strikeouts in 88 innings for Abilene.