Down on the Farm – July 5, 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

TT Bowens – .545/.630/1.045 (1.675), 10 R, 2 doubles, 3 HR, 6 RBI, 4 BB, 3 K, 22 AB (A Delmarva)

Well Bowens turned that around in a hurry… I’m developing a track record of writing about how poorly someone is performing and then they turn around and have a resurgence like they’re trying to prove me wrong. First of all, I know that’s ridiculous and it is just the natural ebbs and flows of a baseball season. But I also love how much it is happening, like clockwork. Bowens might’ve had the best week of anyone in the system to date for the season so far. He hit over .500, walked four times, and had five extra base hits including three homeruns. On Sunday July 4th he went 3 for 3 with three walks, ironically saving the fireworks for earlier in the week (three homeruns in four games from Tuesday to Friday). In six games he raised his batting average from .169 to .253 and his OPS from .628 to .866. He now has a 136 wRC+ in low A and is proving to be one of the biggest power bats in the Orioles system. He is second isolated power (ISO) in the system among players with more than 100 plate appearances at .263 behind only fellow undrafted free agent following the 2020 draft JD Mundy (.309). Bowens is sitting at an 11.4% walk rate and 23.7% strikeout rate which are definitely workable numbers if he can maintain them or improve upon them going forward. As much as real first base prospects are few and far between the Orioles all of a sudden have a few interesting ones in the system between Bowens, Mundy, and Tyler Nevin who was acquired in the Mychal Givens trade last summer.

Jordan Westburg – .417/.517/.542 (1.059), 4 R, 1 double, 1 triple, 4 RBI, 24 AB (A+ Aberdeen)

After dominating in A Delmarva for the first month to the tune of a .366 batting average, 1.076 OPS, and 193 wRC+ Westburg got off to a slow start after being promoted to A+ Aberdeen, batting .206 over his first nine games with a double, a triple, and five walks. He then hit .268 over his next 10 games with four doubles, a homerun, and five walks. Since then, over his last nine games, he has batted .387 with two doubles, a triple, a homerun, and five walks. Its very encouraging that he is showing an ability to adjust to another level of competition given the time to do so. (And can maybe serve as a template to the still struggling Gunnar Henderson.) Westburg had a .500 BABIP with Delmarva so take his high batting average with a grain of salt there but he has maintained his solid walk rate (13.2% in A, 12% in A+) and lowered his strikeout rate (26.4% in A, 24% in A+). Based on the information we have from the 2020 draft Westburg has high exit velocities and good raw power but has to continue to work on translating that to in game power. Defensively he has been splitting time with Henderson at shortstop since Gunnar was promoted and he looked good at third base in the game I saw live on Saturday. He has a good arm and showed easy range towards the line. No matter where he ends up on defense the bat should be able to play as he continues to climb the ladder.

Garrett Stallings – 2-0, 2.77 ERA, 13 IP, 7 H, 1 BB, 11 K, 0.62 WHIP (A+ Aberdeen)

I’m having a hard time getting a good read on Stallings in his first season in the Orioles minor league system. The control he was purported to have has been there the whole season with just five walks over 54 innings for a 0.83 walks per nine innings. He has a 22.3 strikeout percentage which is plenty good for a guy who walks so few and his 1.09 WHIP is really solid. The problem for him has been giving up the long ball. He has allowed 11 homeruns over those same 54 innings despite having a 56.9 groundball percentage leading to his 4.83 ERA for the season. His xFIP is 3.35 which is a full run and a half lower than his actual ERA most likely due to his unsustainably high 31.4% homerun to flyball percentage. In the big leagues the major league average is usually between 13-14%, less than half of Stallings current rate. Less walks means less pitches per inning and Stallings is taking advantage of that as he leads Orioles minor leaguers in innings pitched. He had a six inning start on Tuesday where he gave up three runs on four hits (one homerun) and a walk with six strikeouts. Then on Sunday he had the best outing of his young career pitching seven innings in relief of a rehabbing John Means and only allowing one run on three hits (no homeruns!) with no walks and five strikeouts. We’ve seen a lot of promotions to AA Bowie from the Ironbirds rotation (Grayson Rodriguez, Blaine Knight, Kyle Brnovich) with Stallings and Drew Rom (5-0 with a 3.14 ERA and 53 strikeouts over 48.2 innings) are the only two left from the opening day rotation. I could see them both being promoted before the season ends but at the same time there is a bit of a log jam in Bowie so it would have to be in tandem with some of those guys going up to AAA Norfolk.

Ice Cold

Johnny Rizer – .048/.048/.048 (.095), 0 BB, 9 K, 1 SB, 21 AB (AA Bowie)

Rizer is in the midst of the first real slump of his professional career. This is when his meager walk rate (4.8% over 125 plate appearances with AA Bowie) really comes back to bite him. When hes driving the ball and the hits are falling in it doesn’t seem like a big deal but when that isn’t the case he doesn’t have the patience to still get on base despite it. He isn’t hitting for any power (.111 ISO in AA) and his strikeout rate has steadily increased at every stop up the ladder (16.8% in short A, 17.6% in low A, 25.4% in high A, and now 28.8% in AA). AA pitchers have adjusted to his ambush style approach at the plate so now its up to him to re-adjust. Overall he is down to a .256 batting average and .672 OPS on the season with Bowie but that is still only 16 percent worse than league average (84 wRC+). If you expect things to even out coming out of this slump (which I do) then you can probably assume he is around a league average hitter at this level right now. With the ability to play all three outfield positions that leaves him pretty much where he was projected to be after getting drafted out of TCU in 2019.

Maverick Handley – .118/.118/.176 (.294), 1 R, 1 double, 2 RBI, 17 AB (A+ Aberdeen)

This is a bit of a cheat but I actually wanted to praise Handley in addition to acknowledging his struggles. I could’ve easily put Gunnar Henderson on here for the second week in a row after he batted .059/.227/.059 (.286) over 17 at bats, finally getting his first hit in high A but nothing else other than four more walks. He also struggled in the field at shortstop when I saw him on Saturday. Back to Handley, he put the finishing touches on a great come from behind walk off victory while I was there celebrating my son’s sixth birthday hitting a two run double into the right center field gap. Aberdeen was down 3-0 heading into the bottom of the ninth inning and they managed to score four runs to win it in exciting fashion. It was the first walk off I’ve ever witnessed live and by far the loudest crowd I’ve ever heard at a minor league game. Following the fireworks on the field there were fireworks celebrating the holiday weekend to cap it off. Unfortunately that was only one of two hits Handley had for the whole week. On the season he is batting .181 with a .601 OPS. He has a decent 11.2% walk rate, has lowered his strikeout rate from 35.9% in 2019 to 29.1%, and has a 75 wRC+. As a defense first backup catcher prospect I’m not sure how important his offensive numbers are in the long run but if he can at least hit enough to break the Mendoza line that would help. But he was a hero to a bunch of kids for one night in July and nobody can take that away from him.

Yusniel Diaz – .083/.185/.125 (.310), 3 R, 1 double, 2 RBI, 24 AB (AAA Norfolk) Diaz is like the opposite of TT Bowens on this list this week, they basically just traded places. The positive – he stayed healthy and he has a low .245 BABIP so his .206 batting average and .615 OPS over a short sample size of 76 plate appearances is at least a little bit luck driven. He is walking a little bit less than usual (7.9%) and his ISO is a career low .132 when we know he has plenty of power and hits the ball hard. The bad – everything else. He had a single, a double, and three walks. That’s it. He struck out 33% of the time for the week (eight strikeouts over 24 at bats). He did steal a base but that’s not really a part of his game. It’s a little bit of poor timing to be slumping for a guy who Orioles fans would’ve sworn they’d see in the majors by this point. There was prospect fatigue for Diaz a year ago so its hard for fans to keep in mind that he is still only 24 years old with enough talent to be an everyday corner outfielder in MLB. I would still bet that he makes his major league debut before the end of the 2021 season even if it is just a taste when rosters expand in September. As long as the Orioles starting outfield of Cedric Mullins, Austin Hays, and Anthony Santander are healthy and with the team it doesn’t make sense to have Diaz come up and sit on the bench. DJ Stewart and Ryan McKenna are better fits for that role. But if Santander or Trey Mancini are traded before the July 30 deadline maybe he can fit into a rotation between DH and the outfield.