Carmen Mlodzinski is a self-proclaimed “old timer.” He doesn’t play video games, doesn’t bother with any form of social media—heck, he didn’t have a cell phone until he was 16—and just wants to play baseball, golf and listen to music.

Even as he’s about to ink a multi-million-dollar signing bonus as the No. 31 pick in this year’s MLB Draft, he’s not even considering upgrading his iPhone 5 to something a little more stylish.

“I don’t know. I’ll see how long this iPhone 5 holds up,” he said, laughing. “As long as it’s not giving me any problems, I’ll ride with it.”

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But that’s just Mlodzinski and his attitude towards a lot of different things in life, and it’s the kind of mentality he’s ridden to being one of the best pitching prospects in the country and he officially became a first-rounder Wednesday night.

Mlodzinski committed to South Carolina before his sophomore season at Hilton Head High School fully believing he was a two-way player—pitcher and shortstop—once he arrived in Columbia.

“Funny how it works, I get to college and they say they just want me to be a pitcher,” he said. “I just took it from there.”

He was actually more of a shortstop in high school than pitcher, getting to college after telling teams not to draft him out of high school with roughly 50 innings on the mound under his belt.

Once he was moved full-time to the mound the unique personality coupled with some longstanding competitive juices forged by his family—he joked him and his siblings set timers on the microwave to see who could do dishes fast enough—took over.

He worked his way into a few starts as a freshman before becoming the team’s opening day starter his final two years on campus.

And, outside of a blip entering his sophomore season which he quickly corrected, he maintained his patented Mlodzinski personality.

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"I wasn’t really giving myself enough of a break from the game mentally and physically,” he said. “That led to not only the foot problem but felt like I didn’t have the greatest relationship with guys that I had before because I was so—I’m not going to say selfish—but I was so self-centered with what I was trying to do that I just probably burned some relationships I had.”

He corrected that, went back to the classic rock and golf-loving goof off (off the field, obviously) that got him to South Carolina in the first place.

That carried into a strong summer in the Cape Cod League where Mlodzinski went from a solid professional prospect to a projected top 10 pick all over the course of three months.

“I knew some good was going to come out of it,” he said of the injury. “I was positive throughout the entire injury. I had confidence going into the summer to go and pitch pretty well.”

Mlodzinski had a strong start to the year—2-1, 2.84 ERA and 22 strikeouts in four starts—before Coronavirus ended his season and more than likely his South Carolina career.

He was drafted No. 31 overall to the Pirates Wednesday, which carries a signing bonus of over $2.3 million, and he’s already drawing some comparisons to another hard-throwing Pirates draft pick in Gerrit Cole.

After not having a real sophomore or junior year, he’s ready to have a full baseball season sooner rather than later and show why he was a first-round pick.

“It’s always fun being a little bit of an underdog and claw my way up but I feel like I put myself in a position where I don’t have to do that any more hopefully going forward," he said.

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He said one of the biggest reasons he’s sitting where he is now is because of his time at South Carolina and in large part because of Gamecock pitching coach Skylar Meade.

“He’s helped me in ways I really can’t repay him. I went in there with pretty close to zero pitching experience and he was able to help me obviously getting me to the first round in three years,” he said. “It’s something I can never repay him for and I’m glad he was there for me.”