Down on the Farm – May 24, 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

Kyle Stowers – .455/.519/.818 (1.337), 4 R, 3 doubles, 1 triple, 1 HR, 7 RBI, 22 AB (A+ Aberdeen)

Stowers put up these numbers even with an 0-4 on Sunday. Coming into the season I had him just missing my personal top 30 but he was still a guy I’ve been monitoring closely at the start of the minor league season. The Orioles took the outfielder out of Stanford with a competitive balance pick between rounds two and three of the 2019 draft. He’s a left handed power bat but only hit .216 with a .667 OPS in 204 at bats in short season Aberdeen that summer. With a year off due to Covid he returned to Aberdeen, now classified as high A, and started slow until really breaking out this week. A good sign that he has taken the 20 months since he last played a professional game to improve (or at least get comfortable) is that he has almost as many walks as strikeouts (16 to 21). The approach is good, its just a matter of tapping into the power in games. I saw him in person on Thursday and he just missed two opposite field homeruns, one was foul and the other traveled to the warning track. Between him, Adley Rutschman, and Gunnar Henderson the first three picks of the 2019 draft have a chance to be really special.

Jordan Westburg – .526/.625/.789 (1.414), 5 R, 2 doubles, 1 HR, 5 RBI, 2 SB, 19 AB (A Delmarva)

The Delmarva offense continues to be a force of nature with a new face of the onslaught each week. This time its Westburg leading the way. He has two hits in each of the last eight games that hes played in giving him a wRC+ of 218 which means that he is providing more than double the production of the average player in the league. In all reality he appears to be too advanced for low A and should be promoted to high A Aberdeen before too long. The issue is the logjam created by the lack of a season in 2020. It might be a domino effect where Jahmai Jones is promoted to Baltimore (when healthy), Terrin Vavra is promoted to AAA Norfolk, Joey Ortiz is promoted to AA Bowie, and then Westburg (and/or Gunnar Henderson) to Aberdeen. Speaking of Henderson, he also had another week with an OPS over 1.000 (1.107 to be exact). Outfielder Hudson Haskin broke out with a .500 average and 1.386 OPS over 18 at bats. JD Mundy had a 1.208 OPS and Anthony Servideo held his minor league lead in walks leading to a .480 on base percentage despite a .235 batting average.

Kyle Bradish – 0-0, 0.00 ERA, 4 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 10 K, 0.75 WHIP (AA Bowie)

AA Bowie is just a pitching factory right now. DL Hall rebounded from one rough start to continue his dominance (2.81 ERA, 31 strikeouts in 16 innings), Kevin Smith is making it look like he should’ve started in AAA Norfolk (1.38 ERA, 17 strikeouts in 13 innings), and Ofelky Peralta is making me feel dumb for wanting to move him to the bullpen (2.25 ERA, 19 strikeouts in 12 innings). Most impressive of all has been Bradish who is finally pitching for the Orioles after headlining the return from the Angels in the Dylan Bundy trade. He impressed everyone at the alternate site last year and we can finally see why. He leads all of minor league baseball with a 50% strikeout rate and has yet to give up a run. The most exciting thing is that he was promoted to AAA Norfolk over the weekend. Its an aggressive move from a team that has been conservative in that regard under the Mike Elias regime. That speaks to his dominance but also to the fact that they think its sustainable and he needs to be challenged. At this point he is an injury away from making his major league debut.

Ice Cold

Rylan Bannon – .083/.083/.083 (.167), 24 AB (AAA Norfolk)

Bannon and Jahmai Jones were widely expected to be the first two position players to get called up to the major leagues not too long into the season. Well Jones injured himself and Bannon has been dreadful at the plate. On the season he is batting .181 with a .543 OPS, good for a wRC+ of 41. Hes not hitting, hes not walking (5.3% walk rate), and hes not hitting for power (.139 ISO). At this rate he might get passed in the pecking order by Mason McCoy who is playing well to start the season (119 wRC+) and can play really good defense all over the infield. The only thing he has over him at this point is already being on the 40 man roster. Stevie Wilkerson just got a chance to split second base duties with Pat Valaika for the Orioles, if Bannon was performing that could’ve very easily been his chance. Its still less than 100 at bats on the season and he does have some pedigree but its especially disappointing in a season where the Orioles offense was making it easy for the guys in AAA to force the team’s hand and it just hasn’t happened.

Robert Neustrom – .154/.154/.154 (.308), 1 R, 2 RBI, 1 SB, 26 AB (AA Bowie)

Neustrom started the season on an 11 game hitting streak and has a hit in 13 of 16 games but somehow his batting average for the season is only .254 and his OPS is at .601. He was a college outfielder known for his bat when he was drafted in the fifth round of the 2018 draft out of Iowa but injuries have slowed him down since he entered professional baseball. He performed fairly well at Delmarva in 2019 but struggled at high A Frederick when he was healthy enough to be on the field. There is plenty of power potential but he hasn’t been able to tap into it at all (.060 ISO) so far at the AA level. Hes only walking at a 5.5% rate so he is basically a singles hitter with a poor approach. He is capable of being much more than that but he is running out of time to prove to an Orioles front office that has a slew of outfielders on the come up below him. The good news for him is that there isn’t much competition in the Bowie outfield at the moment so even if some of those guys join him in AA he should still carve out a role. But he needs to have a good season or else be at risk of quickly becoming organizational filler.

Gray Fenter – 1-1, 10.80 ERA, 6.2 IP, 9 H, 5 BB, 4 K, 2.10 WHIP (AA Bowie)

It was surprising when the Chicago Cubs took Fenter in the rule 5 draft over the offseason. Not because Fenter isn’t talented or doesn’t have potential, quite the contrary, but the highest level he had pitched at to that point was low A as a 23 year old. He had a 1.81 ERA with 123 strikeouts over 94.1 innings but was old for the league and wasn’t taken in the rule 5 draft the year before. So it wasn’t a surprise when he was returned to the organization before spring training ended but I was happy to see it. I think he could have a future role as a one or two inning reliever in the major leagues if he puts everything together. I mentioned the dominant Bowie rotation earlier and unfortunately Fenter hasn’t been a part of that so far. He has started and pitched out of relief but is mostly pitching multiple innings when he takes the mound. It looks like he just doesn’t have a feel for his command yet with seven walks over 11.1 innings on the season. The way the new coaches in the minors have been able to develop pitchers and maximize their effectiveness (especially in the younger, less established guys) I have to feel like they’ll be able to figure something out with Fenter at some point in the season.