Baseball players in navy uniforms high-fiving on the field before a game.

Gracia On Deck: Former Ranney Star Awaits His Fate in Saturday’s MLB Draft

Matt Manley|July 10, 2026|Last Updated July 10, 2026

When it comes to baseball, A.J. Gracia values consistency. Whether it is his surroundings, his approach to the game or the coach he plays for, the Monroe, N.J. native has not sought change for change’s sake as a standout amateur player. Despite playing during the era of widespread transfers and NIL (Name, Image and Likeness), Gracia played for just two head coaches during his seven combined years of high school and college baseball.

By the end of his first freshman semester at Duke University, however, Gracia was finally forced to change. The same routine in the batter’s box that produced one of the best hitting careers in recent Shore Conference Baseball history was failing him during a fall period in which Gracia struggled to hit against Division I talent.

With that, Gracia decided to change his batting stance in the spring. What was trending toward a year to learn the ropes in his first college season became one the of the great freshman campaigns in Duke program history and the jumping off point for a college career that has Gracia waiting to hear his name called early on Day One of the 2026 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft on Saturday in Philadelphia. The first round starts at 1 p.m. and the first 10 picks will be aired on NBC and Peacock, followed by picks 11 through 40 on MLB Network.

“It’s been a good process,” Gracia said. “The thing is nobody really knows anything: the other players don’t really know where they are going, the agents don’t know what’s going to happen and most teams aren’t even sure what they are going to do yet. There are so many moving parts that there is not much you can really do. At this point, it’s out of my hands, so I’m looking forward to getting the call.”

Internet draftniks have projected Gracia anywhere from the back-end of the top 10 selections to the supplemental first round, which is a range of approximately 30-to-35 draft slots. On average, six different baseball sites that rank draft prospects – MLB.com, Baseball America, ESPN, Over-Slot, The Athletic and FanGraphs – ranked Gracia, on average, as the No. 19 player in the draft class, with Baseball America ranking him most favorable at No. 14 and ESPN the low mark at No. 24.

Gracia, himself, said he anticipates he will be picked in the range of Nos. 7-through-16 based on the conversations he has had with his advisor, Elvin Soto of the Ballengee Group. Even with that expectation, Gracia knows those expectations and the mock drafts flooding the internet are not worth much on draft day.

“I have my dad and my advisors and I am going to listen to what they tell me but at the same time, I think I have a pretty good idea of what I’m worth,” Gracia said. “If I have thoughts, I share them. I don’t have control over who drafts me but I still have some input in the process.”

A.J. Gracia in action at Virginia.(Photo Courtesy: Olivia McLucas/Virginia Sports) - AJ Gracia Virginia

A.J. Gracia in action at Virginia.(Photo Courtesy: Olivia McLucas/Virginia Sports)

 

Stand-Up Guy

When Gracia stepped in the batter’s box for the first time as a varsity player in the Ranney School baseball program, he had already been verbally committed to play at Duke for more than a year-and-a-half.

Gracia envisioned himself patrolling the outfield and scorching line drives for the Blue Devils, but after his first fall in Durham, Duke head coach Chris Pollard had a different vision: bullpen weapon.

A rough fall swinging the bat and eye-opening performance on the mound during the same period set up Gracia as a potential relief pitcher heading into the fall – a surprise given Gracia’s staggering hitting performance as a high school player for Ranney, where he also stood out on the mound.

“Deep down, I always envisioned myself as a hitter,” Gracia said. “But I had a terrible fall in my first year at Duke and at my fall exit meeting, coach (Pollard) said he wanted to use me on the mound as like an opener or long man out of the bullpen during the mid-week games. I was throwing the ball great – probably the best I have ever thrown it – so I was thinking my first season was going to be as a pitcher.”

When he returned for preseason camp in early 2024, Gracia was ready to pitch, but had one more chance to show his new teammates and coaches the swing that produced prodigious numbers in just two-and-a-half seasons at Ranney.

By the end of his senior year of high school, Gracia had settled into a low crouch with a wide base during his set-up in the batter’s box with his hand’s elevated well above his shoulders. The batting stance served him well while he hit .497 with 29 home runs and a slugging percentage over 1.000 in 282 career high-school plate appearances, but against other Division I pitchers in the fall of 2023, it was not translating to hits.

Knowing he had one more chance to convince the Duke staff he could handle a starting job in the batting order, Gracia completely revamped his set-up in the box, drastically narrowing his stance, climbing out of his low crouch into an upright position that straightened out his 6-foot-3 frame while relaxing his hands near shoulder level. The change worked and Pollard scrapped plans to use Gracia out of the bullpen so his talented freshman could play centerfield and occupy a spot in Duke’s batting order.

“I rolled into the fall ready to go and I was hitting just like I hit in high school — with the wide stance,” Gracia said. “I hit about .080 in the fall and was just having terrible at-bats. When that happens and you’re potentially going to lose at-bats, you’ve got to change something. After the fall was over, I scrapped the wide stance, tried to be more upright and relaxed in my set-up. Other than that, I tried to keep all the other principles I have always leaned on, so I really didn’t change much other than how I stood pre-pitch. For some reason, it just clicked and I ran with it.”

Gracia’s stance change did more than just win him a starting job; it earned him a place in Duke’s record book. One year after Wall High School graduate and 2025 Milwaukee Brewers first-round pick Andrew Fischer set Duke’s single-season home run total by a freshman, Gracia broke it by swatting 14 homers while hitting .305 with a .440 on-base-percentage and a team-high 48 walks for the 40-20 Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Tournament champions.

Even a noteworthy change in batting stance was made with consistency in mind. Gracia maintained his refined approach as one of the country’s most selective power hitters and in his sophomore year at Duke, he put up nearly identical numbers. He followed up his 14-homer season with 15 in 2025, his batting average dropped slightly to .293, his on-base percentage increased slightly to .449 and his slugging percentage was practically identical (.559 to .558).

Like many rising juniors positioning themselves for the MLB Draft, Gracia entered the transfer portal following his sophomore year, but it was not to chase a bigger NIL payday or to play against more prominent competition. Pollard accepted the head coaching job at ACC rival Virginia and Gracia decided to follow his coach north.

It should come as no surprise that this past spring, Gracia’s lone season with the Cavaliers looked a lot like his two seasons in Duke blue. He launched 14 home runs in four fewer games while setting new college career highs in batting average (.354), on-base percentage (.489) and slugging percentage (.632) while earning Third-Team All-American honors from D1 Baseball.

“Hitting is always challenging, so your principles always have to stay the same even when you are struggling and you feel like you have to change,” Gracia said. “You go through so many ups and downs so naturally, you make adjustments, but you don’t want to change your foundation. I have stayed pretty consistent my whole career and I think it shows in the numbers. In college, I hit 14 homers, then 15, then 14 again. In high school, I think I had 12 homers in both my junior and senior year and pretty similar numbers across the board.”

 

‘The Best Baseball Player I Have Ever Coached’

As the longtime coach at Monroe High School, the eight-year coach at Ranney and the owner of PRD Baseball, Pat Geroni has seen and worked with more amateur baseball players than most. He has known Gracia since Gracia was Little League age and even at age 10 and 11, Geroni knew he was a Division I player.

Geroni took the Ranney job ahead of the 2019 season and Gracia enrolled there the following year. Within his first week of classes, Gracia gave his verbal commitment to Duke.

Upon his commitment, neither Gracia, Geroni nor Pollard knew if Gracia would wind up on the mound or at the plate as an outfielder but at Ranney, he was slated to do it all. Before he could get started, however, Gracia encountered an elbow injury that would have knocked out his freshman year had the COVID pandemic not eliminated the entire 2020 spring season anyway.

A.J. Gracia during his senior season at Ranney. (Photo: Tom Smith | tspsportsimages.com) - Ranney vs Bishop Eustace-3

A.J. Gracia during his senior season at Ranney. (Photo: Tom Smith | tspsportsimages.com)

Gracia’s recovery from the elbow injury carried into the spring of 2021 and after missing the first three weeks, he finally made his high-school debut. He only played designated hitter, but still made his impact felt by hitting .500 with five home runs and 30 RBI in just 46 at-bats.

In his final two years at Ranney, Gracia made his case as the best player in the state and one of the best Shore Conference players of the last several decades. As a junior, he hit .527 with 12 home runs, 46 runs scored, 43 RBI and 40 stolen bases while also throwing 50 innings with a 2.94 ERA on the mound. That 2022 season ended with Ranney capturing its first ever NJSIAA Non-Public B state championship and in the state final vs. Immaculata, Gracia set the tone with a first-inning home run.

As a senior in 2023, Gracia and Ranney faced a considerably more difficult schedule and the increase in competition hardly impacted Gracia’s statistical impact. For the second straight year, he crushed 12 home runs while hitting .467 with 49 runs scored, 33 RBI and 12 stolen bases. Gracia thew only 27 innings on the mound, but they were dominant: 46 strikeouts, seven walks and a 2.33 ERA.

Ranney’s 2023 highlight was its first ever Monmouth County Tournament championship and first ever trip to the Shore Conference Tournament final. In the MCT victory, Gracia ran through Geroni’s stop sign at third base to score the winning run with a slide into home plate. Gracia’s dash to the plate capped a thrilling, 6-5, win over Red Bank Catholic and prompted Geroni to sum up his superstar’s baseball acumen.

“If A.J. Gracia runs through the stop sign, it probably shouldn’t have been a stop sign. He is almost always right.”

For his Ranney career, Gracia hit .497 with a .649 on-base percentage, a 1.077 slugging percentage, 29 home runs, 121 runs, 106 RBI and 74 stolen bases in 282 career plate appearances. The 29 home runs were two shy of the all-time Shore Conference record and Gracia compiled them despite missing half his sophomore year and losing out on his entire freshman year.

Watching Gracia operate prompted Geroni to call his former star the “Best baseball player I have ever coached.”

A.J. Gracia on the mound during his senior season at Ranney. (Photo: Tom Smith | tspsportsimages.com) - image2 2

A.J. Gracia on the mound during his senior season at Ranney. (Photo: Tom Smith | tspsportsimages.com)

 

Draft Day

While the MLB Draft is conducted a little more than an hour southwest in Philadelphia, Gracia will spend Saturday at his family’s house in Monroe, which will be the site of a gathering of extended family and friends ready to celebrate hearing MLB commissioner Rob Manfred say the name A.J. Gracia.

Leading up to Saturday, Gracia attended the MLB Draft Combine in Phoenix to participate in the interview process with multiple teams. Like many projected high picks, Gracia did not participate in the on-field portion of the combine.

“You have 30 teams getting ready to potentially spend millions of dollars and a high draft pick,” Gracia said. “They want to make sure they know what they are getting. Obviously, I want to show them what kind of person they are getting on top of the player they scouted, but it was also a great opportunity to get to know some of the people that go into making decisions. You can kind of tell just talking to everybody which teams have the values that would probably match up with who I am and how I play.”

Whichever team selects Gracia will be betting on his character and baseball acumen that he displays both in conversation and on the field. His strengths are clear: Gracia chases pitches outside the zone as infrequently as almost any player in the draft and rarely misses pitches that he swings at inside the zone. It also does not hurt that he owns a picturesque left-handed swing that generates a high percentage of fly balls.

Gracia’s future team is also likely to be one that is optimistic about his ability to play centerfield during the early part of his career. Most public scouting reports project Gracia to play a corner outfield spot at the Major League level but the man himself sees himself as a centerfielder until his new employer tells him otherwise.

“I think everybody likes my hit tool,” Gracia said. “The discipline, the low chase (rate), the in-zone swing – that’s the stuff that points to future success. I think teams think there is more power in the tank. Defense is where it’s more up in the air. I want to stick in center for as long as possible. 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.”

As he showed by making a critical adjustment in the batter’s box and the move to Virginia, Gracia can handle change. The conditions around him continue to change, but if his history is any indication, the pro-baseball version of A.J. Gracia will look a lot like the version that set records at each prior level.

Until then, he will keep himself busy before it’s time to celebrate the next step toward the Big Leagues.

“I will keep myself occupied,” Gracia said. “We’ll have people over to celebrate, but I’ll be on the phone most of the day, just laying low, staying informed. Once I get picked, I’ll join the party and make sure I celebrate before it’s time to get to work.”

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