Maryland baseball second baseman Nick Dunn was selected by the St. Louis Cardinals in the fifth round in the 2018 MLB draft Tuesday.
A first team All-Big Ten selection this year, Dunn hit a team-high .330 with 10 home runs, 17 doubles and 39 RBIs in a resurgent junior campaign. That production convinced the Cards to select him 153rd overall.
The Sunbury, Pennsylvania, native started all 172 games of his Terps career. After hitting six home runs combined over his first two seasons, he tweaked his approach over the summer and easily surpassed that total in year three.
Dunn broke out in his freshman year, in which he hit .300 with one homer and held down the second base role. But he regressed as a sophomore — while he went yard five times, his average dropped to .261. This year, after changing his hitting approach in the Cape Cod League, he was better than ever before, leading Maryland in numerous offensive categories.
While Dunn couldn’t prevent the Terps from missing the Big Ten tournament for the first time since they joined the conference, his success didn’t go unnoticed — Baseball America named him a second-team All-American after he began the season on the magazine’s third team.
Throughout his time in College Park, Dunn showcased superb plate discipline. In his three-year Maryland career, he struck out just 67 times in 684 plate appearances, while earning 85 walks. As a junior, he averaged 11.2 at-bats per strikeout, which ranked 50th in the country and third in the Big Ten among qualified hitters.
This is the fifth straight year Maryland has had a player drafted in the top five rounds. Dunn follows in the footsteps of right-hander Jake Stinnett (45th overall in 2014), second baseman Brandon Lowe (87th in 2015), left-hander Alex Robinson (140th in 2015), right-hander Mike Shawaryn (148th in 2016) and shortstop Kevin Smith (129th in 2017).
