Down on the Farm – June 28, 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

Yusniel Diaz – .368/.455/.579 (1.033), 4 R, 1 doubles, 1 HR, 1 RBI, 19 AB (AAA Norfolk)

Diaz started the season cold, as evidenced by showing up there in my inaugural article in this series, and then very quickly injured himself. He spent a week in Bowie and performed well there before returning to AAA Norfolk last week. He wasted no time getting his overall numbers back to a respectable place (.273 batting average, .781 OPS). As always it is just a matter of health for Diaz, who has slid down my prospect rankings this season due almost solely to the fact that he can’t stay on the field for an extended period of time. If he can I believe that he will be a solid if not spectacular corner outfielder in the major leagues. I’m thinking something along the lines of a .275 hitter with 20-25 homerun power and a great arm on defense. He is still just 24 years old for the entire season but the more his injuries pile up the more it is hard to imagine him playing consistently for many seasons. As we’ve seen with Austin Hays that can limit a players potential and its very frustrating to watch as a fan but it doesn’t mean a player like that can’t provide value. It just makes it tougher on a team to plan for the season as they have to have solid depth in place to support the inevitable missed time and hope its nothing significant when it does pop up.

Toby Welk – .300/.481/.600 (1.081), 10 R, 2 HR, 2 RBI, 7 BB, 6 K, 20 AB (AA Bowie)

When they announced the string of promotions prior to this past week I didn’t expect Toby Welk to be the player who most took advantage of the opportunity. He wasn’t alone either. Gunnar Henderson may have had a rough week (see below) but Kyle Brnovich had a great start (four innings, one run, six strikeouts), Kyle Stowers got on base and hit for some power (five walks, a double, and a homerun), and JC Escarra put up an OPS over 1.000 over 17 at bats. But it was the 24 year old third/first baseman who made the biggest impression (at least to me). Welk matched his homerun total from 36 games in A+ Aberdeen in one week with AA Bowie. He also walked more than he struck out and played good defense from the clips I saw. I’m still not sure how much of a prospect he is but he hasn’t done anything to tank his chances of making the big leagues. The good news for him is that he plays a position that is very thin at the top levels of the Orioles’ system (third base) with only Rylan Bannon and Patrick Dorrian ahead of him as far as players who will be in the organization past this year. His best skill is his hit tool combined with solid on base ability so if he can play good enough at third and hit 10-15 homeruns that is a valuable piece to have. If he is a first baseman long term then you would want to see more power than that but for someone I currently have barely inside my personal top 50 Orioles prospects he still has a viable path to the majors.

Zach Peek – 1-0, 1.00 ERA, 9 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 13 K, 0.67 WHIP (A Delmarva)

Peek is the last player the Orioles received in return for Dylan Bundy following the 2019 season to appear in this article this year. Kyle Bradish was shot out of a cannon in AA Bowie before being quickly promoted to AAA Norfolk where he holds a 4.32 ERA over 25 innings with 34 strikeouts. Kyle Brnovich dominated high A and was great in his first AA start as noted above. Isaac Mattson had a terrible May (which is what landed him on this list unfortunately) but has been very good in June despite admittedly not pitching very much (five appearances, 4.1 innings). Peek also had a bit of a rough start for A Delmarva. He gave up three runs over two innings on opening night, an outing which was shortened by a rain delay. He had a 4.80 ERA over 15 innings with 19 strikeouts and six walks for the month of May. This past week saw his final appearance for the month of June which leaves him with a fantastic 1.47 ERA over 18.1 innings with 27 strikeouts and 7 walks for the month. For the season he has a 2.97 ERA which is right in line with his FIP (2.88) and xFIP (3.59). He has only given up one homerun over 33.1 innings and has a 50% groundball rate. At 23 years old it would be best if Peek could spend some time in A+ Aberdeen’s rotation this season so that he is set up to start 2022 with AA Bowie at 24 years old. Bradish has rightfully taken the spotlight from the Bundy trade but don’t sleep on Brnovich or Peek who both profile to at the very least be effective relievers at the major league level.

Ice Cold

Gunnar Henderson – .000/.364/.000 (.364), 8 BB, 10 K, 14 AB (A+ Aberdeen)

Orioles fans who follow the minor leagues (and for those who don’t I am so sorry) have been clamoring for Henderson to get promoted from A Delmarva to A+ Aberdeen since about the third week of the minor league season. They kept him down while they promoted players like Jordan Westburg around him and he just kept raking. Finally he got the bump up before last week and it was exciting to see what the meteoric prospect could do against the next level. Well… he had a really strange week. No hits and 10 strikeouts over 14 at bats tells the story of a player who is pressing and maybe putting too much pressure on himself to live up to the billing. At the same time he walked more than half as much in five games as he did in 35 with Delmarva (8 to 14) in about 10% of the at bats which shows a ton of patience. I don’t think his 36.4% walk rate is sustainable but I know hes also going to eventually record a hit and lower his 45.5% strikeout rate. Short sample sizes can be fun (or at the very least interesting) but once he gets that first one out of the way and can breathe again we’ll see his true talent play out. Its important to keep in mind that he has been 19 years old until this week (June 29^th is his 20^th birthday) which is easy to forget by how mature he looks at the plate. Henderson will probably be in AA Bowie in a few weeks since it seems like every time I write about a player on a cold stretch they quickly turn around and make me look stupid (which actually makes me happy, ironically) with the most noteworthy examples being Cadyn Grenier early on and Patrick Dorrian a couple weeks ago.

TT Bowens – .095/.240/.238 (.478), 6 R, 1 HR, 5 RBI, 21 AB (A Delmarva)

The Orioles’ 2020 undrafted free agent class has been looking as perfect as could be expected for what it is. Obviously the talent is going to be better in a free agent class following a five round draft rather than a 40 or the upcoming 20 round drafts but you still have to convince them to sign with you rather than locking them in to negotiating with one team. I’ve talked about JD Mundy on here who is clubbing his way into prospect discussion. Shane Davis, Brandon Young, Ryan Watson, and Thomas Girard have all been pitching great and showing promise for A Delmarva. Dylan Harris hasn’t really hit but was still promoted to A+ Aberdeen due to his patience at the plate and I can only assume solid defense in the outfield. The only one we haven’t seen is Isiah Kearns who was the Shohei Ohtani of the University of Pitt-Johnstown. Finally getting to Bowens, he started the season in extended spring training but was added to Delmarva’s roster when Mundy got promoted. He started off strong by batting .290 and hitting three homeruns in his first eight games for the Shorebirds but only has three hits over his last 42 at bats. He does have seven walks over that stretch and two of his three hits were for extra bases (one double, one homerun) but that is a small positive over such a tough stretch. Its clear Bowens can hit the ball a long way when he makes contact but he has to prove that he can do so enough to take advantage of that. Like Mundy he is a first baseman so all of his value is in his bat.

Zac Lowther – 0-1, 11.25 ERA, 4 IP, 3 H, 3 BB, 5 K, 1.50 WHIP (AAA Norfolk)

Lowther had been pitching much better for AAA Norfolk after settling into the routine of a starting pitcher. He made his major league debut in late April, was called back up for a start right before he was about to make his AAA debut in early May, and then was called up for one more appearance in early June. Before this past week’s start he had given up zero runs over his last nine innings with 10 strikeouts and going back a little further – two runs over his last 13.2 innings with 15 strikeouts. If Orioles fans are wondering why they’re seeing “one hit wonders” as it were such as Mickey Jannis and Konner Wade instead of getting a look at guys with a real chance to be on future good teams in Baltimore its because you typically don’t want to yo-yo those guys and disrupt their season/development. It also can limit their innings that the team is trying to build up and who knows what kind of stresses an irregular schedule can cause on a pitchers arm. (No, seriously I have no idea.) On the season as a whole Lowther has an ERA of 5.18 over six starts with 28 strikeouts in 24.1 innings and a 1.56 WHIP. He isn’t capitalizing on an opportunity to steal a spot in the Orioles pitching staff just yet but the biggest hurdle may now be that Alex Wells made his major league debut on Saturday, tossed two scoreless innings, and appears to be in line to make Tuesday’s start for the birds. His fellow lefty without eye popping stuff also started off slow due to being stuck in Australia for all of 2020 and a minor injury in spring but was able to return to the success he saw in 2019 for the month of June. The Orioles pitching is in shambles so its almost a guarantee Lowther will get another shot but he’ll need to be closer to the pitcher we had been seeing before this start.