North Atlanta High School’s baseball program has added another name to its growing list of student-athletes taken in the annual MLB Draft.
The Cincinnati Reds selected outfielder Eli Pitts (class of 2025) in the fifth round of the 2025 MLB Draft.
“Eli is a very special person,” North Atlanta head baseball coach Ricky Plante said. “He was obviously a great ball player for us, but he was a better person and teammate than he was a player. There was no doubt in my mind that he was going to be a player who was going to be drafted.”
North Atlanta baseball finished the 2024-2025 season with an 18-14 record and finished third in 6A Region 6 (12-9). Pitts had a .476 batting average in his senior season with five home runs, five doubles, two triples, 22 RBIs, and was 15-16 in stolen bases.
Atlanta Public Schools baseball has produced seven MLB draft picks since the 2019 draft, and five of them went to North Atlanta High School.
Marc Church (North Atlanta class of 2019) was drafted by the Texas Rangers and made his professional debut on September 28, 2024. Brett Roberts (North Atlanta class of 2019) was drafted by the Miami Marlins in the 16th round of the 2022 MLB Draft. Antonio Anderson (Boston Red Sox) and Isaiah Drake (Atlanta Braves) graduated from North Atlanta in 2023 and were both taken in the MLB Draft that summer.
“We’ve had the opportunity to get great players come our direction,” Plante said. “It’s great for the younger guys because they can see that [getting drafted] can happen at North Atlanta.”
“They all come back to North Atlanta,” he added. “They’ve come back to hit with our guys and talk with our guys. Eli is going to be the same way. Eli was up at North Atlanta all the way until the day before he left to go to Arizona. All these kids have been great, and they’ve given back to North Atlanta, to our future and our current baseball players.”
In addition to the stars coming out of North Atlanta, Mays High School has also been represented in recent MLB drafts.
Mays alumnus Xzavion Curry was drafted by the Marlins after attending Georgia Tech and made his MLB debut in 2022. Termarr Johnson was the highest APS draft pick, going fourth overall in the 2022 MLB Draft to the Pittsburgh Pirates.