by Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Baltimore Orioles. Scouting reports have been compiled with information from industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the third year we’ve defined between the two expected relief roles, whose abbreviations you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-shot relief shooters and SIRP for single-shot relief shooters. ETAs listed generally correspond to the year in which a player must be added to the 40-man roster to avoid qualifying for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but I use this as a rule of thumb.
A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.
All of the candidates listed below also appear on The Board, the site’s resource with sortable discovery information for each organization. It has more details than this article (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) and integrates the list of each team so readers can compare expectations on farm systems. It can be found here.
Reading Options
Location Filter
All
Other Expectations of the Grade
They are grouped by type and listed in order of preference in each category.
Bench Bottom
Luis Valdez CF
Donta’ Williams, CF
Cadyn Grenier, UTIL
Mark Kolozsvary, C.
Anthony Servideo, S.S.
Zach Watson, CF
This group has some form of transport and could reasonably play the role of a low-end bench in the right situation. Valdez is built like a sprinter and is a class 70 runner who needs to get stronger. 23 years old. So does Williams, who has 30 strength and 50 bats. If you squint, he’s the fifth outfielder candidate. It hit .538 during the draft spring in Arizona, which seems like a nice place to hit. Grenier was a high-profile amateur in Vegas and then Oregon State. He can run and play anywhere on the court, but the quality of contact knocked him off the list. Kolozsvary is a pretty standard third or fourth catcher in any organization, an athletic catch-and-throw man who doesn’t have much of a stick. Servideo and Watson were once top picks (Servideo was a one-year great on Ole Miss, which I thought was good) and haven’t been successful in recent professional seasons.
Grip and Break, No Feel
Ignacio Feliz, right right
Morgan McSweeney, right right
Juan De Los Santos, right right
Kade Strowd, Right Party
Yeiber Cartaya, RHP
Feliz is a transformed home player whose delivery delivers big extension despite his tiny build. It sits at 92-94 miles per hour, but plays fastball better than that. It also has an above-average slider, just having trouble walking. McSweeney is sitting 93-95 and will show you the occasional plus slider and a nasty high-80s cutter. He is more of a shooter than a shooter. De Los Santos is a 250-pound 20-year-old boy sitting 93-95 with a ton of effort. Strowd has been injured for most of 2022, but sits at a 95-angle while healthy. He was 20 on the Cartaya DSL, sitting at 93-95 – you guessed it – with very little control.
This Is A Neat Trick
Keagan Gillies, right right
Zach Peek, right wing
Daniel Lloyd, right right
Cole Uvila, RHP
Nolan Hoffman, Right Party
Gillies, 25, enlisted as a fifth-year student after altering his body and arsenal very late in his college career. He had reached 150 km/h in 2021 but struggled with rotator cuff strain in 2022. Peek (having TJ in 2022) and Lloyd each boast plus-plus crushing ball spin rates and sit in the sub-90s. A former 40th round pick, Uvila is a three-step assistant; The best offer is plus a change. Hoffman is a submarine that sits 88 years old and does a ton of attack. All of this group is in the up/down area, Peek is the depth starter, the rest is relaxing.
Helium Teens
Anderson De Los Santos, 3D
Alfredo Velasquez OF
Elis Cuevas, 3D
Isaac Bellony OF
Stiven Acevedo, LF
Braylin Tavera, OF
De Los Santos, 19, is a smaller framed third baseman who shoots from the right, has great batting skills and less body projection than most contenders. The 18-year-old Velasquez is a loose spinner with plus bat control and a very light build. He’s done more walking on DSL than K but needs to get stronger. The 18-year-old Cuevas had a fair 2022 in the DSL and is a highly physical key-stroke infielder with versatile offensive skills. Acevedo and Bellony are A-ball outfielders with a plus of raw power and intimidating hitting tools. Tavera is a new high-profile signature with a typical right field/power projection look.
Names You Know Have Gone Tough Situations
Michael Deson OF
Kevin Guerrero OF
Yaqui Rivera, RHP
Maikol Hernandez, SS
This entire group is still under 21 and all but Hernandez were trade targets in professional football. Deson (Colorado for Mychal Givens) and Guerrero (Miami as part of Tanner Scott and Cole Sulser) were predictable outfielders who achieved statistical success very early in their careers. They both stopped hitting. Rivera (also Miami, Scott and Sulser) is still 19 years old. It sits at 91-93 mph at an uphill angle and has a 77-80 mph shifter. He hit multiple hits per hit in 2022 but also ran an ERA around 6.00. Hernandez signed on for $1.2 million in 2021 and hit $0.155 in 2022.
system view
The Orioles finished the 2022 season as the top-ranked farm system in baseball and are poised to break into the top three by the end of that roster cycle. There are six Top 100 nominees and half a dozen nearly ready major league role players, most of whom are hitters. Deeper projection bats, such as Samuel Basallo and Frederick Bencosme, are in the system no. 5-10 range by the end of the year and not just because of graduation ahead of them. While much of the mix-up between the 50 and above FV candidates has resulted in little change in the overall valuation of this system, my continued hesitation to include everything in Jordan Westburg and the newly discovered cracks in Colton Cowser’s hit tool have resulted in Baltimore’s “only” overall ends near third.At least, that’s where a $325 million farm system (which is roughly what you looked at above) would line up at the end of last year.
There is an imbalance in this system. It’s extremely punchy heavy and there’s a 45 FV level excess, especially with regard to Norby and Westburg. Is the trading market liquid enough that the Orioles can balance their major league rosters as soon as they decide what they want? The team tended to buy back volume and volume in dealer trades under Mike Elias; The Dylan Bundy and Jorge López deals are prime examples of this. The Orioles seem to be casting a wide net in hopes that applying the development philosophies that have made Houston successful to enough athletes will help them build the pitching depth they really need to contend with. While it may seem like they do this with guys you’ll typically find at the bottom of the 40-man roster, they’re not as aligned with 45-degree arms as 45-degree bats. Some of these guys (like Dean Kremer, Kyle Bradish, and Félix Bautista if he can keep up) have already graduated, but at some point, there must be another wave of mid-staff to guard against the injury wear that usually happens. premier league shooting squad.
When is the right time to start trading prospects? It could be argued that the Orioles should already be doing this, or at least be acting like a team in the middle of the competitive spectrum, willing to make cohesion-based deals like Toronto and Arizona did with the Gabriel Moreno/Daulton Varsho trade. The Cole Irvin deal (Darell Hernaiz will be 40+ FV candidates on Oakland’s list) is a sign that they are moving in that direction. Are some of the Miami shots available for them in exchange for a nearly ready-made stick or two? Do teams like Cleveland and Milwaukee that hate paying their second and third year arbitration fees offer a deal opportunity in the next year? These are new areas of exploration for an Orioles franchise that stumbled upon the AL East basement perhaps a year or two earlier than they expected.
