Entering this offseason, the Baltimore Orioles will have some important decisions to make when it comes to this team’s future at second base, shortstop and third base.
There are five players in the organization who could be considered options to start in the 2023 Opening Day lineup, with a potential addition of a free agent also looming. So, why not take a closer look at the options?
This breakdown will begin with Baseball America’s newly minted #1 prospect.
Gunnar Henderson
As I’m writing this, Gunnar Henderson is still at AAA for the Norfolk Tides and quite frankly, it’s becoming an insult to his ability to keep him there any longer.
Among hitters with at least 200 plate appearances, Henderson’s .925 OPS ranks sixth in the AAA International League. His .293/.400/.525 slashline represents a balanced hitter who can hit for contact, draw walks and provide power.
A quick glance at the age column in the above table also shows that Henderson is doing this while being younger than anyone else in the top ten. According to Baseball-Reference’s age difference stat, Henderson is 5.4 years younger than the average player currently in AAA.
Henderson’s .925 OPS also includes him recovering from a cold streak in spectacular fashion.
From July 1 to July 9, Henderson had a truly abysmal .325 OPS across eight games and 32 PAs. He struck out 15 times with just three hits and two walks. For over a week, it looked like AAA pitching had found a way to consistently get Henderson out.
Nope!
Starting on July 10, Henderson began a hot streak that is still going strong, producing a 1.002 OPS over the course of 24 games and 111 PAs.
As for his defense, Henderson currently has a perfect 50/50 split with 47 starts at shortstop and third base across AA and AAA this year. I will concede I’m not confident which position he’ll end up playing in the majors, but a nearly perfect balance of reps at two spots does bode well for his versatility on the major league roster.
Henderson is an absolute lock to be a part of the future and it’s becoming increasingly obvious he should already be in the majors.
Jorge Mateo
Out of all the options for 2B/SS/3B on the Orioles and Tides, there isn’t anyone with a more intriguing skillset than the speed and defense of Jorge Mateo.
According to sprint speed data from Statcast, Mateo is the fourth-fastest player in baseball with a sprint speed that puts him in the 99th percentile. Mateo’s speed is also evident without using Statcast by looking at his stolen bases. He leads the AL with 27 steals and only trails Jon Berti of the Miami Marlins for the MLB lead.
As for his defense, Statcast data says he’s in the 95th percentile for outs above average and the eye test certainly agrees with the advanced metrics.
While Mateo might have the best combo of speed and defense in the game, there’s just one problem: his hitting certainly needs some work.
Perhaps the most frustrating part of Mateo at the plate is he strikes out a ton. He strikes out in 28.8 percent of his PAs, the seventh-highest rate among 144 hitters qualified for the batting average title.
Mateo’s strikeouts are especially frustrating because it means he has no ability to impact the results of that at-bat with his speed. Mateo’s speed can turn grounders into singles, bloops into doubles and balls in the gap into triples, but only if he actually puts it in play.
It’s also not exactly surprising that someone who strikes out frequently ends up chasing pitches. Mateo’s chase rate on Baseball Savant sits at the 12th percentile, showing a major lack of discipline. Mateo’s discipline getting close to a league-average 50th percentile would be fantastic, but it seems highly unlikely at this point.
Now, in the interest of fairness, I want to highlight that Mateo has been a much more productive hitter since July began.
Since July 1, Mateo has produced an .899 OPS across 36 games with five homers and eight stolen bases. His OPS since the start of July is third among shortstops, only trailing a pair of established stars.
Mateo’s elite speed and defense combined with underwhelming hitting still makes him a net positive for value based on the two main sources of WAR. Baseball-Reference says he’s been worth 2.6 WAR this year, while Fangraphs has him at 2.2.
Ultimately, Mateo’s hitting will decide his future in Baltimore. A speedy defensive wizard with league-average offensive production should be a part of the future without question. However, if he’s a below-average hitter, it becomes harder to justify keeping him around with the other infield options available.
The Mateo decision feels like it should be one of the more fascinating moves the Mike Elias front office will need to make between now and next year’s Opening Day.
Terrin Vavra
Why is Terrin Vavra an option for the future?
Because he gets on base.
When Vavra got called up on July 26, he left Norfolk with a .435 OBP that led everyone in the International League with at least 200 PAs.
With the obvious caveat that we’re still looking at a small sample, Vavra has started his major league career by continuing to get on base. He owns a .395 OBP with ten hits and five walks in his first 38 PAs.
Vavra’s ability to get on base is his main strength, but there are certainly questions about how much power he’ll be able to provide.
His .127 iso power at AAA ranks 138th among 182 hitters in the International League with at least 200 PAs this year. To put that in perspective, Richie Martin’s iso power at Norfolk sits at a nearly identical .122. Could Vavra provide more power in the majors than Martin? I’d hope, but I wouldn’t feel particularly confident about it.
An interesting wrinkle to Vavra’s future is that he has started games in the outfield in the minors and the majors. He picked up 30 starts in center field in the minors and has already gotten two starts in left field since getting called up. Perhaps he won’t be the second baseman of the future, but an ability to handle the infield and the outfield will always increase your value as a player.
Vavra isn’t a top prospect like Henderson or someone with two 80-grade tools like Mateo, but it certainly looks like he’s going to get regular playing time the rest of this year to make his case that he should be the second baseman of the future.
Ramon Urias
It’s increasingly looking like Ramon Urias should be a utility man and not an everyday starter.
Even after a .955 OPS in July, Urias still holds a .706 OPS for the year that is almost exactly at league average according to Baseball-Reference’s OPS+.
Urias is hitting for more power this year with his iso power increasing from .134 to .175, but it’s come at the cost of his OBP dropping from .361 to .287, thanks to his walk rate falling from 9.5 percent to 5.4 percent.
A roughly league-average hitter as an everyday third baseman is underwhelming, but it becomes much more useful as a utility man who can fill in at second, shortstop and third. Urias has at least 50 starts at all three positions, reflecting a valuable level of defensive experience needed for a utility man.
Urias feels like the most boring option here, just because he’s not a prospect and he doesn’t have any 80-grade tools. However, sometimes a boring utility man who can provide league-average offense is just what you need for a winning team.
I’d bet on Urias appearing on the Opening Day roster in 2023, but I’d be very skeptical he’ll spend next year as the primary starter at any position.
Jordan Westburg
The most notable thing about Jordan Westburg at AAA has been offensive inconsistency.
Westburg began his time with the Tides by ending June with a 1.077 OPS but then followed that up with a very rough July OPS of .561 and now he appears to be rebounding with a .814 OPS to start August.
A closer look at Westburg’s month-by-month stats reveals something new for this month: he’s taking walks. After just eight walks across June and July, he already has 11 walks in 12 games this year. An improvement in discipline is a positive development that should certainly increase his chances of being a successful hitter in the majors.
The fact that Westburg is a good prospect, but not a truly elite one, could make him the kind of player the Orioles consider including in a trade for established starting pitching.
MLB.com’s #87 overall prospect with an .823 OPS as a 23-year-old in AAA is a solid combination, but it could also be more appealing to a team that’s ready to sell and wants infield prospects who should be ready to debut in 2023. He’s not as good as Henderson and is lacking the MLB experience that other infield options are currently getting, which puts him in a bit of an odd spot for the future.
Westburg could be better than Mateo and/or Urias, but is the upgrade in the infield worth not including him in a potential deal for starting pitching? The 2023 and 2024 Orioles might be better by using Westburg as a trade chip for pitching, but we’ll have to see how the front office feels.
A free agent
When looking at external options for these positions, it’s pretty easy to pick the first person to highlight: Carlos Correa.
While Correa is not officially a free agent for next year, Jon Heyman says he’s expected to opt out of his deal with Minnesota Twins and return to the market this offseason.
If Correa is back on the market, it would certainly make sense that Mike Elias would want a reunion with his first draft pick from his time with the Houston Astros. The move would also make sense for Correa, giving him a chance to be the final piece for a team that’s ready to start seriously contending.
Correa has dealt with mild injuries thanks to a pair of stints on the 10-day injured list, but he has provided pretty decent offensive production when healthy, ranking sixth among shortstops in OPS with a .790 figure.
Perhaps the most noteworthy development is that Statcast data has soured on his defense, putting his outs above average in the 12th percentile after sitting at the 98th percentile in 2021. It’d be hard to know what has caused this decline unless you watched all of his Twins games this year and Astros games last year, but there’s certainly something the advanced data isn’t happy about. If his sharp defensive decline is for real, the Orioles could certainly explore a move to third or second.
The other biggest name for a free agent shortstop is Trea Turner.
It doesn’t feel like an especially bold take that Turner has been the best offensive shortstop in the sport since his first full season in 2016. His .852 OPS since 2016 only trails Corey Seager among shortstops with 2000 PAs and he’s the only shortstop who has stolen over 200 bases across the last seven seasons.
One of his position’s best hitters combined with his position’s best base stealer is someone that’d upgrade every lineup in the majors, including the Orioles.
Turner would be a slam dunk from a baseball perspective but he’d also be worth picking up in a business context.
With the Washington Nationals currently in a rebuild, it seems like a reasonable assumption that their casual fans won’t be actively following the team or attending games for the next few years. This would create an opportunity for the Orioles to steal both eyeballs and ticket money from the Nats by bringing in someone beloved by Washington’s fans.
Correa, Turner, or another option like Dansby Swanson would require spending we haven’t seen since Elias took over, but it seems like this will be the offseason when it begins.
If this is the year the Orioles begin seriously spending, you could do much worse than bringing in Correa or Turner.
BSL Analyst
Rose Katz is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland’s journalism school, where she worked for The Diamondback as the online managing editor and a sports blogger. As a student, she spent almost all of her time on campus in The Diamondback’s newsroom or at Xfinity Center, Ludwig Field and Maryland Stadium. Rose gained intern experience with the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN).