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

Adley Rutschman.278/.552/.667 (1.218), 8 R, 1 double, 2 HR, 6 RBI, 10 BB, 3 K, 18 AB (AA Bowie)

Breathe easy Orioles fans, it appears Adley Rutschman is who they say he is. After a middling first week of the season with the bat the catcher broke out in a big way in his second week of AA ball. He was clearly seeing the ball much better, going from three walks and nine strikeouts in week one to 10 walks and only three strikeouts this past week. He is working the count and waiting for his pitch to drive which he did to the tune of a double and two homeruns. Overall his average is only sitting at .231 but with an on-base percentage of .444. Not too worried about the average. He hits the ball hard, the hits will fall. He may not get to the level of hit machine and teammate Terrin Vavra who is sitting with a .382/.533/.676 line after two weeks. Jahmai Jones and Rylan Bannon are the next men up when it comes to the Orioles infield but Vavra is hot on their heels and has better tools to cement himself as the long term answer at second base for the big league team. This time a year from now I think Birdland will be abuzz with the hype of Rutschman and Vavra hitting the Orioles lineup around the same time.

Gunnar Henderson.435/.481/.739 (1.221), 7 R, 4 doubles, 1 HR, 13 RBI, 1 SB, 23 AB (A Delmarva)

The Delmarva infield is absurd. To be fair they have guys who would be a level or two higher if 2020 was a normal season and they just got done playing one of the worst minor league teams in baseball for a week straight but they are hitting on all cylinders. Henderson is the headliner. Recently popping up on top 100 lists like Baseball America and MLB Pipeline, the Orioles 19 year old second pick in the 2019 draft after Adley Rutschman is showing off his bat speed and confidence with flying colors. The rave reviews coming out of the alternate site last summer appear to be for very good reason. This week his outs were hit hard and driven to the wall in some cases. The biggest question for him is if he can stick at shortstop long term but if he cannot, maybe one of his fellow Shorebird infielders can. 2020 second round pick Jordan Westburg had a similar week with the bat and is sitting on an OPS over 1.000 for the season. Anthony Servideo (third round pick in the same draft) has 17 walks in 10 games for a .521 on-base percentage despite hitting just .231 over 29 at bats and is the best regarded defender of the trio. Undraft free agent first baseman from last year’s draft JD Mundy is crushing the ball and outfielder Hudson Haskin’s bat came alive this week as well.

Grayson Rodriguez1-0, 1.80 ERA, 5 IP, 3 H, 0 BB, 11 K, 0.60 WHIP (A+ Aberdeen)

Last week it was DL Hall enticing O’s fans with his potential as a front line starting pitcher, this week its Grayson Rodriguez. Gray-Rod (I guess that’s what we’re going with…) gave up a homerun to the first batter he faced but settled down to completely and utterly dominate the Hudson Valley Renegades. He was freezing hitters with his secondary pitches and blowing an upper 90’s fastball past them. The ball jumps out of his hand. Over three starts to start the year he has a 1.46 ERA and 23 strikeouts over 12.1 pitches compared to just four walks. Its to the point where the Orioles are going to have to move him up to AA Bowie soon in order to challenge him. Hes one of the best pitching prospects in baseball and pitching like it. I’m hoping to get out to see him in person this week in Aberdeen because it may be my only chance to do so. Back to Hall, he started the week with another super impressive outing (nine strikeouts, no walks over five innings) but had a bit of a blowup to end it leaving his ERA at 3.75 ERA entering week three.

Ice Cold

Richie Martin .095/.296/.095 (.392), 2 SB, 21 AB (AAA Norfolk)

I’m trying to be patient with Martin. I keep telling myself to keep it in perspective that he was in over his head in 2019 as a rule 5 draft pick going from AA to the majors but he made strides in the second half of the season. That he missed 2020 with an injury and then again some valuable time in the spring. That he only has 45 at bats this season and a pretty good 8/14 walk to strikeout ratio. Its interesting how a slow start or slump from a player you’re high on is just that but when it’s a guy you’re not as keen on its confirmation bias. I’m fighting that in this case. The glove seems legit at shortstop for Martin but I’m not confident he will ever hit enough to be anything more than a bench bat on an injury depleted team. Hes making strides slowly and is still only 26 but I just don’t know. With a storm of middle infielders surging up the system its going to take more than a solid glove and increasing on base skills to hold on to a 40 man roster spot. He needs to show something this year to survive the 40 man this coming offseason and even more so in 2022 with the likes of Henderson, Westburg, Servideo, Joey Ortiz, and Adam Hall doing their thing.

Cadyn Grenier.063/.167/.063 (.229), 2 R, 16 AB (AA Bowie)

I’m not as willing to be patient with Grenier as I’m trying to be with Richie Martin. Yes, he was a second round pick out of national champion Oregon State in 2018 and flashes some leather at shortstop but he just hasn’t proven that he can hit at the professional level. There is some raw power in his bat but when you strikeout more than 30% of the time and have a batting average in the low .200’s its going to be hard to tap into it. The sheer quantity of middle infielders climbing the ladder like I mentioned above with Martin are even more relevant to Grenier’s standing within the organization. They’re only a level or two below him, are producing at a much higher level, and have much more potential. Cadyn has some skills that will keep him in baseball for pretty much as long as he wants to continue playing it at the minor league level and maybe he gets a cup of coffee on a major league roster eventually but I think the clock is ticking when it comes to the time he has left in the Orioles talent pipeline (registered trademark Mike Elias).

Garrett Stallings1-1, 7.36 ERA, 7.1 IP, 7 H, 2 BB, 5 K, 1.23 WHIP (A+ Aberdeen)

Stallings was the pitcher the Orioles received in return for shortstop Jose Iglesias from the Angels in a trade over this past offseason. He started his Orioles (and minor league) career with back to back tremendous five inning, no walk (OK, one in his second start), four strikeout starts. I was ready to sing his praises coming out of his second start of the week but instead he pitched like Matt Harvey in New York against the Mets on Sunday. All seven hits he gave up this week came in the second start over 2.1 innings. The good news is he still only walked one batter. He doesn’t have the best natural stuff in the Orioles farm system despite a velocity increase over the winter so he has to command it. Obviously he was still around the plate in his most recent outing but perhaps too much so. There is good reason to be patient with Stallings beyond the normal ‘it’s the second week of the season, short sample size’ reasons. He was drafted in 2019 but didn’t pitch for the Angels despite being healthy (they have a conservative pitching philosophy coming out of the draft) and obviously missed 2020 so these are the first professional appearances of his career. He pitched in competitive college games for Tennessee but it’s been two years.

Bob Phelan
Bob Phelan

BSL Analyst

Bob is a co-host of ‘On the Verge’ an Orioles podcast focused on the O’s farm system here on BSL. He used to run the baseball blog ‘The Oriole Report’ before transitioning to podcasting about movies, TV, Video Games, and MMA. ‘The Redbox Report’ movie podcast was started in 2013 followed by ‘The Redbelt Report’ MMA podcast in 2016. Bob has also written for Konsume.com and BaltimoreSportsReport.com and delivers mail for a living in Baltimore County. Follow him on Twitter @TheOrioleReport.

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