As one of the projected top picks of the 2024 Major League Baseball draft, which begins Sunday night, Nick Kurtz will be taking in the life-changing moment where his journey first began.
Kurtz will be surrounded by family at home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, when his name is called by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred in Fort Worth, Texas, the site of this year’s draft that begins at 7 p.m. Eastern and be broadcast by MLB Network, ESPN and MLB.com.
The 6-foot-5, 240-pound Baylor School and Wake Forest University star, who grew up a diehard Philadelphia Phillies fan, is projected to go fourth overall to the Oakland Athletics by The Athletic’s Keith Law. If that proves to be the case, Kurtz will become the highest-drafted former Chattanooga-area prep baseball player since Ringgold High School flamethrower Kenny Henderson was selected fifth in the 1991 draft.
USA Today and MLB.com each project Kurtz to go sixth overall to the Kansas City Royals, while Pitcher List has him ninth overall to the Pittsburgh Pirates and Bleacher Report predicting the star first baseman to go 13th to the San Francisco Giants.
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Baylor grad Nick Kurtz projected to go in early in Sunday’s start to the 2024 Major League Baseball Draft
The No. 4 overall pick in this year’s draft is slotted for $8,370,800, which is not far off from last year’s first overall pick for the Pittsburgh Pirates, which was slotted at $9,721,000. The first 14 picks of the first round are valued at over $5 million.