Prep Baseball Report is proud to officially welcome D.J. Svihlik to our team. A decorated baseball professional with 22 years of professional experience – most recently serving as the Miami Marlins’ Scouting Director for the last five years – Svihlik’s role as Senior Advisor, Draft HQ will help widen Prep Baseball’s draft expertise across the country. 

Working alongside VP of Scouting, Shooter Hunt, and College Scouting Director David Seifert, Svihlik will bring his wealth of draft room experiences from the Marlins and New York Yankees to provide the most in-depth third-party scouting information across high school, college and junior college levels.

“I couldn’t be more excited to welcome D.J. into the Prep Baseball family,” said Prep Baseball President Sean Duncan. “D.J. is an intelligent, team-first and dynamic professional who spearheaded the decision-making process that consistently led the Marlins to highly regarded draft selections. He equally values boots-on-the-ground scouting and analytics, which are the pillars in which we believe here. 

“His professional experiences, his level of organization and communication skills will serve as a massive asset for not only us internally, but also for all fans, coaches and organizations across the country.”

Prior to being elevated to the Marlins’ Amateur Scouting Director (2018-2023), Svihlik served as the Marlins’ special assistant, focusing on evaluations of the top international and organizational prospects, in addition to leading the assessment of scouting systems and processes within the International Department.

Svihlik also spent a year as the Recruiting Coordinator for Vanderbilt University (2016-2017), contributing to top-ranked recruiting classes that included Austin Martin, Anthony Volpe, Jack Leiter, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Robert Hassell, to name a few.

Before his brief stop at Vanderbilt, Svihlik spent 16 years with the New York Yankees. His last four years with the Yankees he served as a national crosschecker, focusing on Top-100 domestic prospects in addition to international evaluations. Svihlik began his scouting career in the Deep South as an area scout and also spent time as a player development assistant. Across his 22 years as a MLB scout, Svihlik has contributed to over 40 draft selections that went on to play in the Major Leagues. 

“I’m excited to bring my unique experience  to one of the most respected brands in the baseball multimedia space,” said Svihlik. “Prep Baseball’s data collection resources and talented staff are unique among independent scouting services. I look forward to utilizing my diverse skill-set to help them grow their Draft HQ platform as well as all of their scouting systems.” 

As a player, Svihlik played three years in the Yankees’ organization between 2000-2002 after a decorated career at the University of Illinois in which he went from a walk-on to a two-time All-American, Big Ten Player of the Year and three-time All-Big Ten honoree.

“Aside from D.J’s incredible career, what really called to me was his interest in developing scouting systems and processes,” said Duncan. “We collect so much amateur baseball data at our events and tournaments, and we have tens of thousands of reports on players across the country, and I believe that D.J. will help develop innovative ways to streamline information flow internally to ultimately provide the best experience for all our customers.”

Svihlik can be reached at [email protected].

---

RELATED CONTENT