Three players with European connections heard their names during Monday’s MLB Draft, with the Netherlands’ Tyriq Kemp and Great Britain’s Jamie Quinn-Irons and Wallace Clark all chosen by big league teams in the annual summer event. All three were taken in the top nine rounds of the draft, for which students at American or Canadian institutions are eligible after their senior year of high school, second year of community college (a two-year degree), or third year of an undergraduate degree.
Tyriq Kemp
Kemp was chosen in the sixth round by the Royals, capping a breakout senior season for the Baylor University shortstop. The Rotterdam native hit .358/.446/.542 across 55 games, stealing nine bases and walking (32) more than he struck out (27). The strong fielder also recorded a .962 fielding average and ranked eighth nationally with 11.45 defensive runs saved. Kemp was listed as a semifinalist for the Brooks Wallace Award, given annually by the College Baseball Foundation to the top shortstop at the university level. Other awards included spots on the All-Big 12 First Team and ABCA/Rawlings All-Central Region First Team.
As a junior, Kemp was the Bears’ everyday shortstop, hitting .238/.349/.325. He then returned home to play for his hometown team in the Honkbal Hoofdklasse, Curaçao Neptunus, slashing .292/.400/.417 with 11 stolen bases in 29 games. From 2022–23, Kemp played for Western Oklahoma State College, finishing with a .375 average, nine homers, and 25 stolen bases in the latter season and .394 with eight dingers and 15 swipes in his first season.
Prior to this, he was a regular for Dutch national teams and in the Hoofdklasse. He played for the Netherlands at the 2022 Under-23 World Cup, winning gold at the U23 European Championship a year prior. Similarly, he was on the Dutch squad that finished seventh at the 2019 Under-18 World Cup after taking gold at the U18 Euros in 2018. His first medal came in 2017, when the Netherlands finished second at the 2017 Under-15 European Championship.
Kemp began his career with Neptunus in 2019, playing regularly for the Oosterhout Twins from 2020–22, before returning to the Rotterdam club in 2023. His career line at the Netherlands’ top level is .279/.384/.353 with 35 stolen bases in 126 games, with 54 games at shortstop and 30 at second base. Kemp’s older brother is Dwayne Kemp, long-time Dutch national teamer and Neptunus legend, who played for two seasons in the Cubs’ organization (2008–09). Another brother, Urving Kemp, played parts of 11 seasons in the Hoofdklasse.
Jamie Quinn-Irons
Quinn-Irons caps a decorated career for George Mason University with a fifth round-selection by the Tampa Bay Rays. The junior outfielder hit a whopping .419/.523/.734 in 61 games, tallying 36 stolen bases en route to First Team Division I All-American honors from Baseball America, the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) and Rawlings, the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA), and D1Baseball.com. He was Atlantic 10 and Eastern College Athletic Conference Player of the Year and George Mason’s first-ever finalist for the Golden Spikes Award for the best amateur player in the U.S. Among NCAA Division I leaders, Quinn-Irons was second in hits (101), tied for second in RBI (36), tied for sixth in total bases (177) and doubles (24), seventh in average, and ninth in OBP.
Overall, Quinn-Irons hit .371/.459/.632 with 58 stolen bases across three seasons and 148 games for the Patriots. He earned Atlantic 10 All-Rookie Team accoldates in 2023 after leading the team with a .380 average. He hit .263/.399/.432 for Alexandria in the Cal Ripken Collegiate League last summer before joining Great Britain for the 2024 Under-23 World Cup in China, hitting. 280/.379/.520 in eight games.
Wallace Clark
Clark, a teammate of Quinn-Irons on Great Britain’s U23 squad, was taken four rounds later by the Diamondbacks after a strong conclusion to his university career. In his second year as Duke University’s starting shortstop, Clark finished with a .307/.478/.507 line in 60 games, walking 55 times with 19 hit by pitches and striking out just 34 times in 302 plate appearances. He was tabbed to the Brooks Wallace Award watch list and named Most Outstanding Player at the Athens Regional.
Over a four-year career with the University of Oklahoma—for whom he played third base—and Duke, Clark totalled a .276/.437/.413 line, earning Big 12 All-Freshman honours in 2022. After appearing in MLB’s Appalachian League in 2023, Clark had a strong campaign for Hyannis in the Cape Cod League last summer, hitting .304/.338/.457 before departing for Shaoxing, China, and the U23 World Cup. There, as Great Britain’s shortstop, he hit .280/.400/.400 and did not make an error in eight games.
Europeans in the Minors
Kemp will join a Royals system that has featured a number of Europeans in the last few seasons and already has two active Dutch players. This year, fellow Netherlands natives Brandon Herbold and Gijs van den Brink have pitched for the club’s Arizona Complex League team, while Spain’s Omar Hernandez has suited up in High-A. Neither the Diamondbacks nor Rays have any European players.
The trio of 2025 draftees continue a steady stream of players for European national teams taken in the Draft. Last year, Jurrangelo Cijntje—who was born in the Netherlands to a father who was a veteran of the Hoofdklasse Honbal—was taken with the No. 15 overall pick by the Mariners. In 2023, France’s Mathias LaCombe heard his name in the 12th Round, courtesy of the Chicago White Sox. A year prior, Cijntje was drafted as a high schooler, this time by the Brewers in the 18th Round, while Great Britain had two players tabbed, Gabriel Rincones Jr. (Round 3, Phillies) and Joseph King (Round 9, Cardinals). The 2021 Draft featured GB’s Jaden Rudd (Round 7, Blue Jays) and the Netherlands’ Kay-Lan Nicasia (Round 16, Brewers), while 2019 saw Slovakian Adam Macko, who also played youth baseball in Ireland, taken in the seventh round by the M’s. Of these, LaCombe, Rincones, Nicasia, and Macko all spent at least part of their development path in Europe. Our monthly “Europeans in the Majors and Minors” covers each of these and more [link to June update], and Kemp will soon join the list.