“Steal bases I guess, I don’t know,” first-round pick Ike Irish answered with a laugh. 

“Steal bases, the first thing out of the catcher’s mouth, huh?” I replied with a chuckle. I had asked Irish, the No. 19 pick in the 2025 MLB Draft, if he had any goals for the remainder of his first professional season. 

“Hit the ball hard and steal bases,” he doubled down. “And outside of that, have fun.” 

That element won’t be missing for MLB Pipeline’s second-best Orioles prospect. The catcher/outfielder/first-baseman hybrid is keeping things light after being drafted just a few months ago. 

It’s the message the organization has sent him, too. 

“I think it’s more of ‘let’s get your feet under you, let’s have some fun, let’s just see what you can do. No pressure here. We’re all new, we’re all growing,’” Irish said. “So it’s just having a lot of fun and then working on stuff off the field. As soon as we get on the field and start playing games, just be you and we’ll make adjustments in the cages or when we need to.”

Irish being Irish has brought him far. 

Considered one of the best prospects in the 2025 draft, most evaluators were surprised to see the Auburn product fall to the O’s at No. 19. In his junior year with the Tigers, Irish hit .364 and slugged .710, and his 19 home runs helped lift his OPS close to 1.200. 

You don’t need to be in a front office to see why Baltimore liked him. 

“They said they love the bat,” Irish said. 

The prospect didn’t love his first conversation with Mike Elias though. 

“You really don’t know how to respond in that moment, it’s kind of a shock, so I probably could’ve had a better conversation with Mike Elias,” he joked. “But outside of that it was super good.

Yeah, no pressure, it’s just the GM.” 

The Orioles’ selection of Irish bares a similarity to the recent extension of Samuel Basallo: it was an offense-oriented move for a player you hope can catch at the next level. If Basallo develops into a big league catcher, great. If not, you have a first baseman with an elite bat. 

There’s a similar hope for Irish, who boasts a high upside offensive profile with a balance of average and power ability. That’s rare for any player, catcher or not. 

But catching would certainly be a bonus. 

“I think we want to get good at all three (catching, outfield, first base),” Irish said. “With catching, we’re working on it every day. I haven’t caught since March, so we’re just getting the feet back underneath us there. Right field, just working on routes and reads. And then first base, I haven’t done that since my freshman year of college. 

So just getting back into the swing of things at all three, getting used to playing three.”

He and the team have already honed in on the biggest target area behind the dish. 

“It’s definitely the receiving part of it,” Irish said. “I can throw, I can catch and throw, but it’s the receiving part of it that I’m working on and gotta get better at. And we know that, we’re attacking that every day.”

Perhaps he’ll get some tips from catching prospect Caden Bodine, selected with the No. 30 pick in the 2025 draft. Bodine joins Irish and shortstop Wehiwa Aloy, the No. 31 pick, in Delmarva. Together, they’ve provided quite a jolt to the offense, all boasting impressive numbers in their first handful of games. 

Bodine led Coastal Carolina to the College World Series, and Aloy was the Golden Spikes Award winner at Arkansas. Their names were renowned in the college baseball world, and Irish was no stranger. 

“It was pretty sick,” Irish recalled about watching the O’s select the duo. 

“After getting picked, it’s a rush of emotions, but after that it’s like ‘alright, who are we picking next?’ Seeing Caden and Wehiwa get picked it was like ‘wow, those are really good players.’ 

To get Slater (de Brun), who’s gonna be a really good player, and then the two pitchers, J.T. (Quinn) and Joe (Dzierwa), it was just a cool night to see everybody get picked and happy for them.” 

Being a recent first-round pick in the Orioles’ organization carries some weight. Look no further than a lineup that features Adley Rutschman, Jackson Holliday, Jordan Westburg and Colton Cowser. 

But if Irish is feeling that weight on his back, he certainly isn’t showing it. 

There’s no pressure in his first professional season. He’ll get his feet under him, acclimate, find an offseason plan and come out firing in 2026. 

In the meantime, Irish just hopes his light will be green.