'I'm a winner': MLB's No. 7 Draft prospect carries HR history, elite pedigree

PHOENIX -- The city of Perry, Ga., has earned the moniker the “Crossroads of Georgia” for its geographical significance. It’s produced everything from professional athletes in basketball and football to United States senators. It’s located more than 100 miles away from both Atlanta and Savannah, and it’s also the place that Drew Burress, MLB’s No. 7 Draft prospect, calls home.

Burress, an unabashed “south Georgia boy” who loves to hunt and fish, also happens to be one of the most decorated baseball players in the state’s history.

Burress’ dad, Andy, is the owner of 5 Star National Baseball, a travel baseball organization that now operates from coast to coast. A sixth-round Draft pick by the Reds in 1995, Andy spent seven seasons in the Minors, making it up to Double-A. After his playing days concluded, he brought his baseball-crazed son along to the ballpark, allowing him to serve as the bat boy.

“I've been in a dugout for as long as I can remember,” said Drew. “It’s all I've ever known, all I've ever wanted to do.”

That passion carried Burress to a storied high school career for Houston County High School (Warner Robbins, Ga.). He won two state championships. He crushed 31 homers his junior season. But the 5-foot-9 outfielder wasn’t considered a first-round pick to many big league organizations -- and that was a dealbreaker. Burress chose to honor his commitment to Georgia Tech.

“I felt like when I was in high school, I produced enough, put up the right numbers to be better or equal to a lot of guys that were selected in the first round of the Draft,” Burress said. “It's hard out of high school -- I get it -- to be a first-rounder, but I felt like I was being undervalued because of my size. And I think I've only gone to college and continued to prove that producing is just what I do. I mean, I've done it. You really can't argue that over the last three years of college baseball, there's been nobody to produce more than me. And, I mean, to me, nothing's changed. I'm the same player I've always been, and it's obviously great to kind of silence some of the doubters and be able to say, ‘I'm just gonna continue to do what I've always done.’”

What Burress has always done is rake. Eight games into his freshman year with the Yellow Jackets, he set the program’s single-game home run record with four roundtrippers. It was a precursor of things to come, finishing with 60 over his three seasons, becoming the school’s all-time home run king.

Burress has always had to battle the reality that he doesn’t look like a prototypical masher. But he has a compact right-handed swing that’s geared for loft, and maybe more importantly, an intrinsic understanding of who he is in the box and what makes him successful.

“I've always been taught since I was little that you're gonna have more success when you hit the ball in the air and hit the ball hard,” he said. “More than anything swing-wise, it's been more approach-wise since I've gotten to college baseball – learning how to really develop a game plan for each individual pitcher. A dude that's throwing 100 [mph] that throws all fastballs is a different approach than a lefty that's throwing 88 that throws 75 percent changeups. That's something that I think Coach [James] Ramsey and the Georgia Tech staff does better than anybody in college baseball is we’re able to build approaches and just kind of be ready to go and be most effective for each different guy.”

The list of accolades that Burress stacked up during his Georgia Tech tenure is staggering: National Freshman of the Year (2024), three-time Golden Spikes Award semifinalist (‘24, ‘25, ‘26), two-time First-team All-American (‘25, ‘26) selection. Over 179 games, he slashed .357/.484/.720 and walked (160) far more than he struck out (122).

But even with all the success that Burress found on the baseball field, he’s long carried an understanding that he needed to take care of business away from it as well. His mom, Dana, is a social studies teacher at Veterans High School in Kathleen, Ga., undoubtedly proud that her son was named a First-team Academic All-American, joining Nomar Garciaparra and Mark Teixeira as the only players in program history to earn both honors in the same year.

“Honestly, my mom set me up for a ton of success academically,” Burress said. “She's always kind of put an emphasis on the importance of that in my life. And on the other side, my dad always taught me, ‘How you do anything is how you do everything.’ So whatever I do, I do it to the best of my abilities and that applies not just to the baseball side of things, but the academic side of things.”

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When Burress was asked during the Draft Combine what fans of a big league organization should know about him, he didn’t hesitate: “I’m a winner.”

He went on to point out his track record, including earning a gold medal with the Team USA 12U club at the Pan-Am Championships in 2017 that took place in Mexico. He also played for the 15U squad in ‘19 and then twice for the U.S. collegiate national team in ‘24 and ‘25.

“Baseball is so beautiful,” Burress said. “The places that it's taken me has been so special. I feel so blessed every day to just think about not only the platform that I have but the places I get to go by playing this game. I like to travel. I like to see new places and I think that's something that's really exciting for me going into the pro ball is all these different cities in the Minor Leagues and all these different cities in the big leagues that I'll get to experience for the first time and I'm really excited to get to explore all of that.”

What started with Burress being a 3-year-old running around chasing a baseball has manifested in the 21-year-old embarking on a professional career in the game. He gave a pull of the lever and hit the jackpot by spending the past three years of his life mashing across both the Atlantic Coast Conference and the globe. But it’s what’s on the horizon that Burress looks to now -- a small boy who grew up at the crossroads of Georgia now has his path crystallized.

“The dream was always to play in the big leagues and play in the big leagues for a long time and be a Hall of Famer,” Burress said. “I am super blessed for everything that's happened in college baseball, and it's been a whole lot of fun, but at the end of the day, that's never been the goal.

“The goal is to play in the big leagues and do it for a long time and be great.”