Down on the Farm – July 12, 2021

Welcome to ‘Down on the Farm’, a minor league spin-off of my weekly article ‘3 Up, 3 Down’. Every week I will highlight the three hottest and three coldest players in the Orioles minor league system from the previous week. Hopefully this will help in keeping track of the progress of the prospects playing for the Norfolk Tide, Bowie Baysox, Aberdeen Ironbirds, and Delmarva Shorebirds. Also be sure to check out my threads on the message board that are tracking both pitching and hitting statistics for our prospects.

(You can discuss this on the BSL board here.)

On Fire

Gunnar Henderson – .320/.346/.760 (1.106), 6 R, 2 doubles, 3 HR, 6 RBI, 25 AB (A+ Aberdeen)

It was only a matter of time before Henderson broke through and showed high A pitchers why he is a top 100 prospect in baseball having just turned 20 years old. Following his promotion from A Delmarva he started off 1-31 over his first two weeks. We had Matt Blood on our podcast, ‘On the Verge’, last week and he said what is happening is good for his development as they always want to push their prospects to not be too dominant so they can learn from their struggles and make adjustments. Well adjustments were made. Henderson started last week going 8-17 with a double and three homeruns (including his first career multi-homer game) in the first three games of the Ironbirds’ series against Hickory. He cooled off a bit in the second half of the week but had to be a big relief for the confident infield prospect to stop pressing and just play his game. His BABIP is still only .207 with Aberdeen so you can expect his batting average to continue to climb (it currently sits at .161). Despite a .671 OPS over 70 plate appearances he is still approaching league average with the bat (91 wRC+). When I saw him in the field a couple weeks ago he had a rough night with the glove with a couple balls that looked fieldable getting under his glove but it seemed like a timing issue more than anything to do with his range. As long as he continues to adjust to high A he is setting himself up to start 2022 in AA Bowie and could be looking at a major debut sometime in 2023 at 21/22 years old.

Kyle Stowers – .474/.615/.684 (1.300), 2 R, 1 double, 1 HR, 3 RBI, 7 BB, 3 K, 19 AB (AA Bowie)

Stowers has been one of my most pleasant surprises this season. He clearly had the power in his bat that could play in the major leagues but there was a lot of swing and miss in his game and he didn’t seem to have a great approach at the plate in 2019 after being drafted. This season he started in A+ Aberdeen and he doubled his walk rate (8.8% to 16.8%) before being promoted to AA Bowie where that has maintained itself (16.4%). The power has been there all season (.221 ISO in Aberdeen, .262 in Bowie) and the strikeouts, while still high, have improved as of late (34.2% with the Ironbirds, 30.1% with the Baysox). Most encouraging this past week was not the nearly .500 batting average or two extra base hit but the fact that he walked seven times and only struck out three times over 26 plate appearances (11.5%). As a good fielder on the corners with a solid arm and the ability to play center field I’m starting to think he could have a role on the next contending Orioles team. Outfield is a deep position in the Orioles farm system, especially with the team taking Colton Cowser with the 5^th overall pick in the major league draft this week, and he’ll need to keep reigning in the strikeouts but his stock is rising.

Alexander Wells – 0-0, 0.00 ERA, 6 IP, 2 H, 0 BB, 6 K, 0.33 WHIP (AAA Norfolk)

Over his past six starts covering 29.1 innings Wells has a 1.53 ERA with 29 strikeouts and only two walks. That brings his ERA for the season down to 4.19 with a 3.84 FIP over 43 innings. He got off to a very rough start but it was absolutely forgivable if not expected after he was stuck in Australia for the entirety of 2020 and dealt with a minor injury in spring training. But he is settled in now and I would love to see him be a part of the Orioles rotation coming out of the all-star break. Brandon Hyde has said that Matt Harvey will continue to get starts, John Means is returning to the team in a week, and Jorge Lopez has been competent enough to keep his spot. Means will most likely take Tom Eshelman’s turn but perhaps we could see Keegan Akin transition to the bullpen and Wells get a chance to pitch in the big leagues consistently every five days. Akin is much better one time through the lineup and can give you multiple innings out of the pen. If nothing else Wells would provide Orioles fans with less aggravation because he works fast, barely walks anyone, and gets a lot of weak contact when he is on his game as he has been lately. If it doesn’t happen immediately coming out of the break then it won’t be long. There just aren’t many other options at the moment.

Ice Cold

Dean Kremer – 0-1, 21.60 ERA, 1.2 IP, 5 H, 1 HR, 2 BB, 2 K, 4.20 WHIP (AAA Norfolk)

Kremer was sent down to AAA Norfolk to try and get himself right after struggling mightily with the Orioles over 12 starts covering 49.2 innings. He had a 7.25 ERA, 1.61 WHIP, and only averaged four innings per start. There is no saving grace either. His FIP was 6.53, his xFIP was 5.50, and his xERA was 5.96. It hasn’t been much better in AAA especially after his most recent outing. He has a 6.75 ERA over 16 innings although his xFIP is 2.91 if that means anything to you. Kremer has easily been the biggest disappointment of 2021 for me. I had hopes after a solid debut in 2020 that he could be a back end of the rotation starter as soon as this year with the potential to be a mid-rotation starter in the long run. Most of his issues seem to be confidence related so I haven’t completely given up on him figuring it out, pitching development is not linear a lot of the time, but my expectations have certainly been adjusted. He can still strike batters out (8.15 K/9 in the majors this year, 14.06 K/9 in the minors) but he has been walking batters much more over the past couple years. Perhaps he can earn his way back to the back end starter projection but the depth of pitching prospects is rising closer and closer to the majors. That competition is great but I am starting to wonder what he would look like as a reliever. If his fastball can tick up a notch or two in short stints then maybe he can be a back end of the bullpen reliever. At the very worst you could imagine him in an Adam Plutko type role. But that is all dependent on him getting his head on straight.

Leonardo Rodriguez – 0-0, 22.50 ERA, 6 H, 3 BB, 0 K, 4.50 WHIP (A Delmarva)

A Delmarva Shane Davis was an obvious option for this spot after he gave up nine runs over 1.2 in his start last week but I wanted to highlight his teammate Rodriguez who has been under the radar a bit as far as biggest disappointments go this minor league season. Rodriguez was pretty impressive in 2019 with the GCL Orioles (4.34 ERA over 47.2 innings) and in a taste of low A ball (0 runs over 2.2 innings in one appearance). I saw his name pop up in some top 30 lists towards the back end or in honorable mentions. It was a surprise to me when the full season affiliate rosters were announced before the season and he was on Delmarva rather than A+ Aberdeen. I assumed it was a number crunch and he would get promoted after a month or two of starts. But then he didn’t show up in Delmarva’s rotation and wasn’t even piggybacking anyone. He was pitching two innings at a time to start but it has been one inning or less in his last eight appearances and the results have not been good. He has a 7.47 ERA over 15.2 innings with nine walks and 18 strikeouts. His FIP is 5.34 and xFIP is 4.61. He is 23 years old so its not like he is young for the level. There were plenty of red flags just with the way the Orioles have handled him this season but they did something similar with Adam Stauffer and he has been great. For now Rodriguez has fallen off of the prospect radar for me but I’ll keep one eye open to see if he makes any adjustments.

Brett Cumberland – .000/.267/.000 (.267), 1 R, 2 BB, 2 HBP, 11 AB (AAA Norfolk)

The most obvious case for this list was Norfolk outfielder Yusniel Diaz who went 0-16 last week and is 1-30 in the month of July with a single and three walks. His name has popped up on both sides of this article this season so I don’t really have much more to say about him. If hes healthy I still think he makes his major league debut this year assuming he will eventually break out of this terrible slump (hey, Gunnar Henderson did) but his prospect stock has definitely taken a hit. As for the player I put in his place, Cumberland didn’t have a hit last week either but at least he has been consistently good (and healthy) all season and still found a way to get on four times. He continues to be the king of getting hit by a pitch with it happening 22 times now this season and 99 times in his professional career. Hes never going to be a high batting average hitter but he will get on base (by any means necessary) and has some real pop in his bat. He might not make his major league debut in 2021 but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was added to the 40 man roster over the offseason with a good chance to start 2022 on the active 26 man roster. Pedro Severino and Austin Wynns will most likely be non-tendered.