With the 52nd pick the Jays take Jeff Conine's kid, OF Griffin Conine
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Jeff Conine appeared in two All-Star Games and won two World Series in a 17-year big league career after signing as a 58th-round pick. His son Griffin has similar upside but won't have to wait nearly as long to hear his name called in June. After playing sparingly and going homerless as a Duke freshman in 2016, he broke out with 13 home runs last spring and led the Cape Cod League with nine last summer, when scouts named him the prestigious college circuit's top prospect. Conine came into 2018 with a good chance to join Marcus Stroman as the only first-round choices ever out of Duke, but a rough junior season means that probably won't happen. He's still one of the better power hitters available in the 2018 Draft, capable of driving the ball out to all fields thanks to his bat speed and the loft he generates with his left-handed swing. There already were concerns about his propensity to swing and miss, however, and they've been exacerbated this spring as he has tried to lift nearly every pitch he saw out of the park. With his power potential and solid arm strength, Conine fits the right-field profile. He can flash average run times but hasn't showed that kind of speed this spring. Even with modest quickness, he's a sound defender on the outfield corners.
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Jays love the kids of former MLBers