Down on the Farm – August 9, 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 the Orioles top prospects.

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

On Fire

Michael Baumann – 0-0, 0.00 ERA, 6 IP, 1 H, 2 BB, 6 K, 0.50 WHIP (AAA Norfolk)

Baumann’s season is like a train that has to work incredibly hard just to get moving but once its up and running it is an unstoppable force constantly moving forward at a high speed. Orioles fans expected to see him start 2021 in AAA Norfolk’s rotation but he was slow played coming off of an arm injury at the alternate site in 2020. So those expectations shifted to “ok, he’ll get a few starts in AA Bowie to get his feet under him before getting promoted” but instead he struggled mightily. In his two starts for the Baysox in May he had a 12.27 ERA over 3.2 innings and it wasn’t much better in June – 7.62 ERA over four starts and 13 innings. July was much better, over four starts covering 22 innings he had a 2.05 ERA and 0.77 WHIP with 26 strikeouts and only four walks finally earning that promotion to AAA. His first start with the Tide started shaky with two runs coming in to score in his first inning but he shut the Durham Bulls down from there over the next four innings. He was dominant this past week in his second start for Norfolk only allowing one hit and two walks over six shutout innings with six strikeouts. The movement looks good on his mid 90’s fastball that can tick up a few notches when he really bites down and it pairs well with a great slider. It shouldn’t take much at this point to crack the Orioles rotation and make his major league debut. Keegan Akin is still getting starts for the O’s and you can’t tell me Baumann wouldn’t be more effective than him every five days.

Colton Cowser – .667/.700/1.111 (1.811), 4 R, 1 double, 1 HR, 5 RBI, 1 BB, 1 K, 1 SB, 9 AB (FCL Orioles)

The fifth overall pick in last month’s MLB draft made his professional debut in style hitting a single in his first official at bat and crushing a homerun pull side in his second. The hits just kept coming from there in the three games he was able to get in down in rainy Sarasota in the Florida Complex League. He did a little bit of everything – taking a walk, stealing a base, hitting for extra bases, driving in and scoring runs. I would fully expect him and a bunch of the other 2021 draft picks to quickly move up to low A Delmarva over the next couple weeks. Cowser is a polished college bat so it is no surprise that he found immediate success against teenagers in the FCL but it’s a good indication that he is in shape and ready to play a couple of months of minor league baseball before the season ends. Cowser should move quickly through the system. He’ll most likely finish 2021 with the Shorebirds and whether or not he starts 2022 in Aberdeen or Bowie he should be in AAA to start 2023 as long as everything goes ok and at that point can be added to the big league roster at any time. The offense is already at an advanced level but I am curious to read any reports on his defense in center field to get a better idea of if he can stick there long term or will have to eventually move over to a corner.

Jean Pinto – 0-0, 0.00 ERA, 6 IP, 2 H, 0 BB, 6 K, 0.33 WHIP (A Delmarva)

Pinto was the “throw in” in the Jose Iglesias trade to the Angels at least from an outside perspective. He was a 19 year old international signing that came along with Garrett Stallings, a college pitcher out of Tennessee with great control and an uptick in velocity out of the 2019 draft. Stallings has been solid for A+ Aberdeen despite some trouble giving up the long ball (8-3, 4.56 ERA, 75 IP, 11 BB, 68 K) but in a few years Orioles fans might be saying “can you believe we got Garrett Stallings in the same trade as Jean Pinto?”. Shout out to Koby Perez and the international scouts who have helped add high upside talent into the system in other ways other than the yearly signings that have taken time to ramp up after completely ignoring that avenue of talent acquisition. Guys like Mishael Deson, Isaac De Leon, Noelberth Romero, Elio Prado, Victor Gonzalez, and Pinto were acquired as final pieces in a deal or directly for lower value players (Richard Bleier, Andrew Cashner). Jean Pinto is electric and his upside is huge. He combines a mid to upper 90’s fastball (with room to grow at 20 years old) with a plus breaking ball and developing change-up that tunnels extremely well with his other pitches and induces many swings and misses. His 37.2% strikeout rate is fourth in the system behind only Grayson Rodriguez, DL Hall, and Felix Bautista. He was promoted to Delmarva after going 1-1 with a 1.80 ERA over 20 innings in the FCL with 28 strikeouts and only four walks and has picked up right where he left off with a 2.70 ERA and 14 strikeouts over his first 10 innings in low A. There is a lot of depth on the mound after the likes of Rodriguez, Hall, Michael Baumann, and Kyle Bradish but none of them have the upside that Pinto does.

Ice Cold

Kyle Stowers – .091/.125/.091 (.216), 1 R, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 13 K, 1 SB, 22 AB (AA Bowie)

Stowers was due for a slump after basically matching Adley Rutschman beat for beat since he was promoted from A+ Aberdeen in June. The bad week isn’t concerning but the fact that he only walked once and struck out 13 times, more than half of his plate appearances, does cause some concern after seeing some improvements in walk rate and strikeout rate of late. In our interview with Ryan Fuller he mentioned that Stowers is a guy who makes adjustments based on what he has working for him on any given night so that would leave me to believe he may just be a little out of whack mechanically at the moment. He doesn’t get cheated when he swings so I would imagine that is a little tougher to be consistent with. The power is legit, the plate discipline improvements are real, its just a matter of how much can he improve his strikeout rate to allow his hit tool to shine. Keith Law recently commented on his live chat that he sees Stowers as a fourth outfielder type despite his great start in AA and I don’t think that’s wrong. His splits between left and right handed pitching are pretty similar so he doesn’t exactly profile as a platoon option but a fourth outfielder that can play all three positions competently and has power from the left side can be valuable. And if he can cut down on the strikeouts then he could surpass that ceiling.

Gunnar Henderson – .143/.182/.143 (.325), 2 R, 1 RBI, 21 AB (A+ Aberdeen)

After rebounding from his infamous 1-31 start with A+ Aberdeen Henderson is in the midst of another slump with the Ironbirds. His BABIP is more than .100 points lower in high A than it was in low A so if you balance that out his batting average would look a lot better but that isn’t the only issue. He isn’t hitting for the same power since moving up a level, his ISO dropping from .262 to .146. He is striking out a little bit more (29.3% K rate to 31.4%) but he is walking a good bit more as well (8.9% BB rate to 14.5%). He is still a top 100 prospect despite these struggles (and number four on our updated top 50 list) because he is only 20 years old and holding his own against much older competition after dominating the level below. As a left handed hitter he is struggling to hit against pitchers from the same side. With Delmarva he had a 1.064 OPS against RHP with 17 of his 20 extra base hits coming against righties compared to a .654 OPS against left handed pitching. Its pretty similar with Aberdeen as well with a .699 OPS against righties and a .589 OPS against lefties and nine of his 11 extra base hits against RHP. The defense continues to need work and its looking less and less like he will be able to stick at shortstop. His movements aren’t very smooth and while he has a strong arm, the accuracy needs some work.

Griffin McLarty – 0-0, 67.50 ERA, 0.2 IP, 5 H, 2 HR, 1 BB, 1 K, 9.00 WHIP (A Delmarva)

McLarty was the first pitcher taken by the Orioles out of the 2019 MLB draft in the eighth round and pitched really well in short season ball following the draft. As a reliever to limit his innings following a college season he had a 2.78 ERA over 22.2 innings with 25 strikeouts and only five walks. Coming into 2021 he started with low A Delmarva pitching out of their rotation and he has stayed there all season with very mixed results. He hasn’t thrown more than 4.2 innings in any appearance and has been lit up in five of his last six starts leaving him with a 5.53 ERA on the year over 53.2 innings. He has struck out 67 batters over those 53.2 innings so the stuff is pretty good but he has also walked 23 batters and given up 12 homeruns. I wonder if a move to the bullpen is not only inevitable but could help his velocity tick up a bit and allow him to work more in the zone to limit his walks. Four of McLarty’s fellow starting pitchers have been promoted to A+ Aberdeen (Zach Peek, Ignacio Feliz, Ryan Watson, Brandon Young) and two more are poised to join them (Houston Roth, Noah Denoyer) while he has been stuck in second gear and it doesn’t look like he is going to make the jump in 2021.