FTB Spotlight – Riley Greene

High School – Hagerty High School

Grad year – 2019

FTB – He is entering his 2nd season with FTB

 

Growing up playing baseball in Oviedo takes a different type breed.  There is a sense of pride that you only realize if you have to go through the process.  Oviedo is just over 15 square miles.  Until 2006 it only had one high school.  A small spot on a big baseball canvas.  Being so small is what makes the pride so large!  Over the last 20 years Oviedo has produced 22 drafted players.  Here is a more defining fact, in the last 20 years Oviedo has produced more top 10 round picks than four in-state (FL) Division 1 Colleges!  Really the pride goes back to 1987 when Mark Merchant was taken #2 overall behind a guy named Ken Griffey Jr.  In the last 6 years it has even picked up with 11 players drafted from the City of Oviedo, including 2 in the first round.  Again, “Growing up playing baseball in Oviedo takes a different type breed.”

 

Riley Greene showed up to a Hagerty High School youth camp after finishing his sixth grade year.  At that age he was already tall for his age, a very good athlete, and had a loose left handed arm and swing.  At that camp when the evaluations were given Riley threw the hardest, ran the fastest and won the home run derby.  Other players at the camp also gravitated to his personality. 

 

Two full years later Riley stands at 6’2 with a wiry athletic body.  As a left handed pitcher he sits comfortably in the low 80s and peeks in the mid 80s.  He has good feel for 3 pitches and locates his fastball well to the glove side.  He has a great work ethic that will help him fill out his projectable frame.

 

Riley has a very high ceiling as a position player.  He takes long strides and now that he is improving his strength his foot speed is coming along nicely.  He could easily fit in the center field mold as he continues to grow.  His bat will be his carrying tool, however.  He has a smooth left handed swing with loose wrists and the ability at a young age to drive the ball to all fields.  To put his capability into prospective; one day this Fall a Major League team had a workout at Hagerty with some of the best players in Central Florida.  Riley got going during a practice just before the workout and started lifting balls well out of the ball park.  When the 8 to 10 prospects showed up for the MLB workout there was only one player total to hit more balls out then Riley had.  Very impressive for a kid that is four years younger than most of them.

 

FTB is very happy to have Riley suiting up over the next 4 years.  He looks to be the next player Oviedo becomes very proud of!  He is, without question, a “different type of breed.”