After the 2004 amateur draft, many scouts, like Arizona Diamondbacks scouting director Tom Rizzo, said they were impressed with the Ivy players’ baseball sense and “coachability.”

“That is part of our MO—we like those kind of guys,” said Rizzo, who oversaw the Diamondbacks’ selection of Harvard senior Trey Hendricks and Ohlendorf, to mlb.com. “There are very few players in the draft that are ready to go right to the big leagues. They need to be coached and our development people do a great job with guys who can absorb information and put that information into practice. It’s no coincidence that we look at those kinds of schools. We’ve found those kind of guys do absorb and learn and are coachable.”

Ohlendorf is one such player. Described as “a bulldog” in his scouting report, Ohlendorf has been clocked at 97 mph and threw a two-hitter against Virginia in the only game Princeton won in the NCAAs.

The native of Austin, Texas also scored a 1580 on the SAT—and was accepted to Harvard in 2000, only to choose Princeton.

“I was surprised he didn’t get taken higher,” Walsh said of the fourth-round Diamondbacks pick.

Along with Venable and Szymanski, Lahey is another Princeton player whose numbers fail to correlate with his high draft status. A 20th-round selection by the Minnesota Twins, Lahey batted only .263 this season—25 points fewer than undrafted Crimson catcher Schuyler Mann—and struggled last season in the Cape Cod League. But he is 6’4, a height that Walsh said “you can’t teach,” and scouts tend to prefer tall catchers.

Of course, Lahey may have been drafted high for an altogether different reason. One scout told ESPN’s Peter Gammons that Lahey is “worth taking because in 15 years you’ll either have your big league manager or orthopedic surgeon.”

This should not come as a surprise. Ivy Leaguers ballplayers really are “thinking men”—and they certainly have a place in baseball.

—Staff writer Alex McPhillips can be reached at rmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.