Braves Pick Ranney Alum AJ Gracia in 1st Round of MLB Draft

During his high school career at the Ranney School in Tinton Falls, A.J. Gracia was a trailblazer in Shore Conference baseball at a program that had no baseball notoriety before he arrived on campus.

Three years after graduating high school, Gracia is blazing a new trail for Shore Conference baseball players as the highest ever draft pick to come out of a school from Monmouth or Ocean County in more than 40 years.

In Saturday’s Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, the Atlanta Braves selected Gracia with the ninth overall pick, which is the highest selection by a Shore Conference baseball player in the draft since Middletown South alum Jeff Kunkel went No. 3 overall out of Rider in 1983. The ninth draft slot comes with an suggested signing bonus of $6.68 million.

Gracia, a native of Monroe, graduated from Ranney in 2023 and spent his three college seasons at two different schools: Duke for two years and Virginia this past spring. Gracia made his verbal commitment to Duke during the fall of his freshman year at Ranney and honored it until the head coach that recruited him, Chris Pollard, took the head job at Virginia after the 2025 season.

With his first-round selection, Gracia becomes the second Shore Conference alumnus in as many years to be selected in the first round of the MLB Draft, joining former Wall star Andrew Fischer, who was picked by the Milwaukee Brewers with the 20th overall selection a year ago. Prior to last year, the Shore Conference did not have a first-round selection since 2016, when both Barnegat left-hander Jay Groome and Virginia catcher Matt Thaiss (Jackson Memorial) went in the first round. Groome went No. 12 overall to the Red Sox, one spot ahead of former Toms River North right-hander J.M. Gold, who went No. 13 overall to the Brewers in 1998.

Gracia is coming off a spring season at Virginia in which he hit a career-best .354 with 14 home runs, 64 runs scored and 48 RBI while running an on-base percentage of .489 and a slugging percentage of .632 — both career-highs as well. His home run total remained consistent over his three college seasons: he broke Duke’s single-season freshman record with 14 home runs in 2024 and in his second year with the Blue Devils, Gracia slugged a career-high 15. The previous record-holder of the freshman home run record at Duke was Wall alum and 2025 Milwaukee Brewers first-round pick Andrew Fischer, who set the record just one year before Gracia broke it.

Prior to establishing himself as a first-round in college, Gracia produced what could reasonably argued as the most decorated Shore Conference baseball career of the last four decades. On the numbers alone, Gracia did it all for Ranney: In 282 career plate appearances, he hit .497 with 29 home runs, 121 runs scored, 106 RBI, 74 stolen bases, as well as robust on-base (.628) and slugging (1.052) percentages. Gracia hit 12 home runs in both his junior and senior seasons and as a junior, he also stole 40 bases while hitting .527.

Up until the spring of his freshman season at Duke, Gracia was a possibility to pitch at the college level and although his high school career was limited on the mound due to an elbow injury he suffered as a freshman, he still made an impact on the rubber as a Panther. He pitched 50 innings as a junior and posted a 2.94 ERA with 59 strikeouts, then went 5-1 with a 2.33 ERA and 46 strikeouts in 27 innings as a senior.

Beyond the individual numbers, to say Gracia was a program-changing player for Ranney would be an understatement. He was more like a program-establishing player. Prior to his arrival in the fall of 2019, Ranney had no history of baseball success and by the time Gracia debuted as a sophomore, Ranney was dominating the Shore Conference Class B Central division and gave perennial NJSIAA Non-Public B powerhouse Gloucester Catholic a scare in the South Jersey sectional semifinals.

In Gracia’s final two seasons, he took his game to another level and his team followed suit. With Gracia earning his first First-Team All-Shore selection as a junior in 2022, Ranney rolled to its first ever NJSIAA Non-Public B state championship, which included stunning Gloucester Catholic in the sectional final. In the state final vs. Immaculata, Gracia jump-started his team with a solo home run in the first inning and pitched 5 2/3 innings on the mound to earn the win in a 10-1 Panthers victory.

In 2023, Ranney moved out of the Class B Central division and into a far more competitive Class B North division, which hardly slowed down Gracia and his team. Following a 26-5 season in 2022, Ranney went 27-3 in Gracia’s senior year while achieving more program firsts. In addition to setting a new single-season record for wins, Ranney won its first ever Monmouth County Tournament championship by beating Red Bank Catholic, 6-5, in an epic championship game that ended with Gracia diving into home plate with the winning run in the bottom of the seventh. Ranney also made it to its first ever Shore Conference Tournament championship game, which the Panthers lost in a rematch vs. Red Bank Catholic.

The 2023 season ended with a loss at Gloucester Catholic, in which Gracia hit a mammoth inside-the-park home run at the Rams’ storied Barth Field for the 29th round-tripper of his career. The 29 home runs Gracia hit at Ranney left him two shy of the Shore Conference career record and while Gracia did benefit from playing his home games at Ranney’s home-run-friendly field, he also missed his entire freshman season due to the COVID pandemic and the first five games of his sophomore year due to injury.

In three seasons at Ranney, Gracia led his team to a cumulative record of 69-14 with at least 16 wins every year. Prior to 2021, Ranney had not won more than 11 games in a season since joining the Shore Conference in the 2012-13 school year.

Gracia’s amateur legacy ends with his final season at Virginia and will now start anew as a top prospect with the Braves. Most public scouting reports project Gracia to spend most of his professional career as a corner outfielder, but there is some belief that he start his Major League career as a centerfielder before moving to a corner.

“I want to stick in center for as long as possible,” Gracia said. “My whole life, people have been telling me I’m going to move to a corner and my coaches keep playing me in centerfield, so I feel like when teams get to see me every day, they will see I can handle it.”

Correction: The original version of this story made the claim that Gracia is the highest ever draft pick from a Shore Conference school, which is not accurate. Middletown South alumnus Jeff Kunkel was selected with the No. 3 pick in 1983. The story has been updated with that information.