Wehiwa Aloy, Golden Spikes winner from Arkansas, selected in 2025 MLB Draft
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Wehiwa Aloy was Hawaii’s gift to Arkansas baseball. Now, the Baltimore Orioles are hoping he can have the same level of success at the major-league level.
The Orioles selected the shortstop sensation with the 31st overall selection of the MLB Draft on Sunday night in Atlanta. All Aloy did in his final season in Fayetteville is capture the Golden Spikes Award and SEC Player of the Year honors while helping the Hogs get all the way to the College World Series.
Arkansas didn’t win that elusive first national title, but it wouldn’t have come as close as it did without Aloy’s magical bat. His projected slot value at No. 31 is $3.04 million, and the Orioles are hoping Sunday night is the very beginning of a much more lucrative marriage.
With right-hander Gage Wood being picked 5 spots earlier by the Philadelphia Phillies, Aloy became the 12th first-round pick in Arkansas baseball history. Aloy and Wood helped make Hogs baseball history, too, with this being the first draft that Arkansas has had 2 first-round picks.
Aloy’s selection was hailed by Arkansas baseball’s social media account with this post:
The 6-foot-2 Hawaiian was Arkansas’s 3rd Golden Spikes Award winner. He was the engine in the Hogs’ offense all season, leading Arkansas in slugging percentage (.673), OPS (1.107), hits (93), runs scored (81), doubles (19), triples (2), home runs (21), extra-base hits (42), multi-hit games (30) and total bases (179).
The Orioles are banking that some day in the near future, Aloy will show off that kind of production in Baltimore.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
