Down on the Farm: May 24, 2022

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

Kyle Stowers – .480/.567/1.200 (1.767), 11 R, 3 doubles, 5 HR, 10 RBI, 5 BB, 6 K, 25 AB (AAA Norfolk)

I wrote about Stowers two weeks ago when he was going through a very cold stretch. He has since warmed up, to say the least. Since May 14 he has an eight game hitting streak where he has batted .438 with a 1.651 OPS, four doubles, six homeruns, and a 313 wRC+ over 38 plate appearances. That spiked over the weekend when he went 9-15 with three singles, two doubles, four homeruns, two walks, and only three strikeouts over 17 plate appearances. This stretch has boosted his total numbers to a .926 OPS and 144 wRC+. Its like saw Adley Rutschman promotion and decided he needed to force the issue for himself as well. I’ve talked about how he has cut his strikeout rate down significantly before and that continues to be the case. It is sitting at a career low 22.8% after 145 plate appearances which is down from 34.4% in his 93 plate appearances with AAA Norfolk last season. His walk rate is a little bit down as well (about 1% from his time in AA and AAA in 2021) but it still sits at a strong 11.7%. This latest power surge has pushed him to a career high .306 ISO and has him tied with A+ Aberdeen’s Coby Mayo for the organizational lead in homeruns with nine. All this with a slightly below average .280 BABIP which points to luck not being a factor. The expectation has been that Stowers will make his major league debut around the time at least one of Trey Mancini or Anthony Santander are traded but if he is starting to put things together maybe that timeline shifts up a bit, especially if there is an injury that requires a trip to the injured list. Interestingly he has played more centerfield already this season than he did in all of 2021. He is a plus defender in the corner outfield but maybe they want to see if he can handle centerfield in a pinch the way Austin Hays can to have more flexibility in the outfield as time goes on.

Grayson Rodriguez – 2-0, 1.59 ERA, 11.1 IP, 7 H, 4 BB, 20 K, 0.97 WHIP (AAA Norfolk)

Now that Adley Rutschman has finally made it to the majors, naturally Orioles fans will turn their attention to the next top prospect they can clamor for to get the call. They might not have to wait long to get to see top pitching prospect in baseball and now number three overall according to MLB Pipeline after Bobby Witt Jr, Julio Rodriguez, and Spencer Torkelson recently graduated pitch in an Orioles uniform to the aforementioned catcher. General Manager Mike Elias talked with Orioles media members over the weekend and mentioned that he has looked like vintage Gray-Rod over his last first starts after still getting into the swing of things early on (which is a scary thought since he was still very good during that stretch) and that he is close to being ready, they just need to make sure he is built up enough that he doesn’t need to be shut down before the season comes to a close. It looks like the goal for both Rodriguez and Hall (who we will get to later) is to make sure their workload is managed to where they can throw all season long but not be pushed too hard. Elias talked about letting them loose starting next year as they look to turn the competitive corner. But at a certain point there is going to be nothing left to accomplish in AAA for Rodriguez other than potentially wasting bullets. Now with Spenser Watkins placed on the IL after being hit with a line drive, and just not being effective much at all after a solid start, there is a very big, obvious hole in the Orioles starting rotation and Rodriguez’s turn to pitch just so happens to line up with that vacant spot at the moment. There is a small chance he makes his debut in Boston over the weekend but I would bet we have another exciting major league debut on our hands during the next homestand. My money is on June 1.

Gunnar Henderson – .278/.435/.833 (1.268), 6 R, 1 double, 3 HR, 5 RBI, 4 BB, 3 K, 18 AB (AA Bowie)

Mike Elias described Henderson as the “flagship of what the player development group is doing on the hitting side” during his press for the Adley Rutschman promotion this past weekend. For good reason. I have noted his incredible improvements in strikeout and walk rates and that has only continued. He has actually increased his already elite walk rate in the two weeks since I last wrote about him taking it from 21.1% to 21.9% and lowered his strikeout rate from 18.3% to 16.9%. And now the hard hit balls we were seeing when watching AA Bowie’s video feed are starting to show up in the stat sheet. He has hit two doubles, a triple, and three homeruns over the past two weeks, raising his ISO 50 points from .198 to .248. The consistency from the 20 year old is almost as impressive as everything else. We’ve seen ups and downs from almost everyone already in 2022, including Kyle Stowers and Jordan Westburg, and that hasn’t changed the overall outlook of those players. The fact that Henderson hasn’t bottomed out for a short stretch even while having a completely different approach at the plate tells me the improvements he has made are sticking. With Monday’s announcement of infielder Cesar Prieto being promoted from A+ Aberdeen to AA Bowie the countdown is on for Henderson’s (and Westburg’s) imminent promotion to AAA Norfolk. The Baysox will have one of the best collection of infielders in all of minor league baseball even if it is for a very limited amount of time.

Ice Cold

Dylan Harris – .091/.130/.273 (.403), 3 R, 1 double, 1 HR, 3 RBI, 1 BB, 10 K, 22 AB (AAA Norfolk)

Harris went from putting up non-descript numbers in the low minors in 2021 to breaking out with a surprise assignment to AA Bowie early this season and responding by posting a .941 OPS and 160 wRC+ over 63 plate appearances. With Yusniel Diaz hurt once again, re-aggravating his hamstring injury, Ryan McKenna called back up to the majors, and Johnny Rizer being placed on the development list at the beginning of the month the Orioles needed to promote an outfielder from AA Bowie to help fill the void and Harris was tasked with the assignment. Hudson Haskin is a center fielder with a high ceiling and having a great start to the season but the organization has shown they will not rush their upper tier prospects and he falls firmly inside of the Orioles top 20. Zach Watson was a breakout player in 2021 showing a great mix of power and speed while playing great defense in center field but has been ice cold to start the year. That left Harris as the pick and unfortunately it seems like the jump was too much at this point for the 25 year old undrafted free agent signed following the 2020 MLB draft out of North Carolina. Over 31 plate appearances for AAA Norfolk he has a .103 batting average, .403 OPS, and a wRC+ of 4. His walk rate fell from 9.5% with the Baysox to 6.5% and his strikeout rate nearly doubled from 23.8% to 45.2%. It was cool to see him hit a homerun over the weekend and his BABIP is an incredibly low .143 so I’m sure he will bounce back a bit if he remains in Norfolk but I would assume he will be returned to Bowie as soon as a more suitable option is available.

DL Hall – 0-0, 12.00 ERA, 3 IP, 5 H, 1 HR, 3 BB, 3 K, 2.67 WHIP (AAA Norfolk)

While Grayson Rodriguez has now been worked up to 85+ pitches and recently finished six innings, the plan for Hall most likely closer resembles that of Tyler Wells with the major league team. He did get up to 69 pitches (nice) in his last start but I wouldn’t expect him to throw more than 80 at any point this season. An eventual tandem of Wells and Hall is tantalizing (tandemlizing?) and the different looks they provide should give major league hitters fits but we’re not quite there yet. Elias mentioned that Hall is ahead of schedule as far as what they expected from him coming back from injury and despite the poor outing on Friday I would still expect him to make his major league debut in a month or two. As has been typical for him this year he looked better than the results would indicate. The first inning was a breeze, striking out two in a perfect frame. A walk and a single scored a run in the second and he gave up an RBI groundout in the third. A single and a homerun led off the fourth and that was it for him. He still threw 61% of his pitches for strikes but the command wasn’t there the way it had been in his previous starts of his season as evidenced by the three walks. We had AAA pitching coach Justin Ramsey on our podcast Monday night and he said even though the walks are still a little high for Hall over the past two seasons that the misses are much more competitive and serve more of a purpose. The stuff is still incredible, his fastball averaged 97.8 mph on Friday which is higher than literally every starter currently in the majors (and it comes out easy, he isn’t overthrowing), combine that with a nasty change-up and plus breaking balls… He is striking out over 13 batters per nine and even though his ERA sits at 6.52 over 9.2 AAA innings his xFIP is 4.39. I can’t imagine a more uncomfortable at bat for a hitter, especially a lefty.

Jean Pinto – 0-1, 18.00 ERA, 3 IP, 7 H, 1 HR, 3 BB, 3 K, 3.33 WHIP (A+ Aberdeen)

A guy who broke out in a big way in 2021, Pinto got the season started off on the wrong foot giving up four runs over two innings with three walksin his first start of the year for A+ Aberdeen. The 21 year old right handed pitcher was signed out of Venezuela in 2019 by the Los Angeles Angels and then was acquired by the Orioles along with RHP Garrett Stallings in the Jose Iglesias trade, a move that looks better and better all the time. In his first season with the Orioles he dominated both the FCL and low A ball. Between the two levels he pitched to a 2.30 ERA and 0.86 WHIP over 66.2 innings with 84 strikeouts and only 17 walks as a 20 year old. If you take away his first outing and this most recent start he had a 3.75 ERA and 1.25 WHIP with 33 strikeouts and eight walks over six starts covering 24 innings. Watching him pitch either in person or on MiLB TV for most of his starts, he has pitched much better than his overall numbers indicate. He has been an extreme ground ball pitcher to go along with a 12.1 K/9 with a groundball to flyball ratio of more than three to one. Only 18.2% of balls put into play against him have been flyballs that reached the outfield yet an incredibly high 28.6% of flyballs have been hit for homeruns. HR/FB percentage is something that has been proven to be largely outside of a pitchers control and should hover between 8-12% with enough sample size. That explains why he has a 3.48 xFIP despite having a 6.21 ERA. Pinto is incredibly fun to watch as he works super fast on the mound and pounds the strike zone with a fastball that should play up as he matures physically. He is only 5’11’’ but definitely has room to add some strength. His biggest weapons are a plus change-up and slider that play really well off of each other as well as his fastball. He may have to spend the whole season with the Ironbirds but my confidence in his potential hasn’t changed a bit.