Ben Orloff

Ben Orloff

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 11", Weight 171 lb.

• School University of California - Irvine
• High School Simi Valley High School

• Born April 26, 1987 in Santa Monica, CA USA

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

Ben Orloff has played in the minors.

Orloff hit .463 with 27 steals as a high school senior. He set his school's record with 42 career steals and 111 games played. As a college freshman, he hit .217 but led NCAA Division I with 26 sacrifice hits and was named his team's Best Defensive Player. He led the Big West Conference and Division I with 34 sacrifices (he also led Division I with .52 sacrifices per game as a sophomore); he improved to .324 with 20 steals in 27 tries. One negative was that he had no hit further than a double. Irvine made the 2007 College World Series He was with the Brainerd Blue Thunder of the Northwoods League that summer.

As a junior in 2008, Orloff was down to 16 sacrifice hits (still 12th in Division I) but probably because he was hitting better - .344 with 17 doubles and 19 steals. He made All-Big West Conference at shortstop. He was again with Brainerd in the summer. The Colorado Rockies took him in the 19th round of the 2008 amateur draft but he returned for his senior year at Irvine. In 2009, he batted .358 with only 16 strikeouts in 254 at-bats. He was the 25th-hardest batter to fan in Division I. He was 8th in the Big West in average, tied for first in hits (81, tied with Christian Colon), ranked 4th in runs (62 in 60 games) and tied for 6th with 18 steals. He set school records for career games (241), runs (178) and hits (281) while finishing second with 61 steals. The lone negative was zero career home runs. As a senior, he was Jewish Sports Review All-America and third-team Collegiate Baseball All-Americans (behind Bryan Marquez and Jedd Gyorko). He won the Brooks Wallace Award as the nation's top shortstop and was named the Big West Player of the Year (beating out Colon, the 4th pick in the draft, for both honors).

The Houston Astros took Orloff in the 9th round of the 2009 amateur draft. The scout was Doug Deutsch. He struggled in his first summer as a pro, split between the Tri-City ValleyCats (9 for 60, 2B, 5 BB) and Greeneville Astros (7 for 37, 2 2B, 3 BB). In 2010, he batted .307/.405/.324 as a utility infielder for the ValleyCats, stealing 23 bases in 28 tries and scoring 52 runs in 63 games. He was 4th in the New York-Penn League in swipes, 4th in runs and 6th in OBP. He was the hardest batter to strike out in the league (12.53 AB/K). He won team MVP honors.

In 2011, the Californian hit .284/.359/.373 for the Lexington Legends, starting at short until Jiovanni Mier was called up to join the team.

Sources

• 2011 Astros Media Guide
• UC Irvine bio
• 2008-2011 Baseball Almanacs