The 2020 season wasn’t expected to offer much to Orioles fans. The very occasional win, the expectations of another high first round draft pick. Perhaps some hilarious tweets. Surprisingly though, the Orioles have, to date, been remarkably competitive. The short season has revealed a solid bullpen, a wealth of talent at catcher, and literally tens of Anthony Santander homers. It’s been good! And now things are about to get even better with the call up of top prospect Ryan Mountcastle. Who is Mountcastle (besides a player who should obviously wear a red suit and ride to his position on the field atop a trusty steed)? Let’s take a collective gander.
(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)
Baltimore took Mountcastle out of Paul Hagerty High School in Oviedo, Florida with the 36th pick in the first round of the 2015 MLB draft, one pick before the Astros dropped four large on Daz Cameron. Mountcastle was a shortstop in high school (weren’t we all) but has gradually slipped down the defensive spectrum as he’s moved up the minor league ladder. That remains one of two big questions Mountcastle will have to answer with his development. More on that later.
All of 23 years old, Mountcastle has hit well in the minors, especially his last two seasons. In 2018, he hit .297/.341/.464 in a full season of Double-A as a 21 year old. He followed that up with a .312/.344/.527 performance in Triple-A last season with 25 homers. In short, it’s the bat, stupid. Mountcastle is simply a good hitter, and that has carried him through the minors to now. Scouts like his hit tool (meaning his ability to make good contact), and when you add his above average power, you have the makings of a very good hitter. He hits, he hits with power, and he hits with power to all fields. This is what makes Mountcastle so promising.
No prospect or player (or writer!) is perfect though, so what does Mountcastle have to work on? At the plate, he’s not especially patient. His walk rate is quite small over the breath of his minor league career. That’s problematic, though not because walks are some kind of magic but because of what it says about the way he hits. Mountcastle’s lack of walks suggests he isn’t particularly good at identifying which pitches are balls and which are strikes. To date he’s been good enough to hit both when offered, but major league pitchers are good enough to exploit that weakness, to get him to swing at pitches outside the strike zone. That will likely lead to more weak contact and more swings and misses. That hasn’t happened yet, but it’s something to watch for as major league pitchers develop a book on Mountcastle.
The other concern is his defense. Teams will find a place on the field for good hitters but players who are bad defenders hurt their teams and their own value. There are questions about Mountcastle’s defensive ability that he will have to answer. There is nothing wrong with an average defensive left fielder who can really hit, so if Mountcastle develops into that, it’s a huge win for the Orioles, but if he can’t play the outfield like some scouts are worried he might not be able to do, that forces him to first base or DH. Neither is a death knell for his career but it limits the number of good bats the Orioles can stack through their lineup, and puts a lot of pressure on him to perform at the plate.
So Mountcastle isn’t a top-tier prospect (though that doesn’t mean he can’t become a top-tier player), but he is a talented one and certainly a reason to watch Orioles games for Orioles fans. Certainly his first three games in orange and black have been appointment television. But what strikes me about Mountcastle isn’t anything to do with the player himself. It’s what it says about where the organization is going and what expectations they are setting for themselves this year. A week ago I wrote about the trade deadline and some players the Orioles might target to improve their chances of making the playoffs this season. It’s not a stretch to say that bringing up Ryan Mountcastle right now in the middle of this playoff chase is tantamount to a trade deadline acquisition. Even with the above questions about him, Mountcastle is undoubtedly one of the best baseball players in the Orioles organization and any team looking to win baseball games would pull him out of the minor leagues and put him into the starting lineup immediately. And, shock of shocks, that’s what the Orioles have done!
A few weeks ago we were worried the organization would look at the standings, shrug, and do nothing. Hey, if you hold Mountcastle in the minors all season and then a few weeks into 2021, you get another year of team control out of it. This doesn’t mean they’re on the verge of trading for Trevor Bauer or Mike Clevanger, but it does signal some kind of understanding of where the team is right now, and more than that, a desire to improve. It’s that desire that is notable.
Nobody wants to watch a bunch of placeholders all season long struggle to keep their heads above water both in the standings and on the organizational ladder, but that’s what 2020 promised Orioles fans. Instead, the addition of Mountcastle stands as a shining beacon in contrast to that expectation. Mountcastle would be worth watching on his own, even if the team was 6-22 instead of 14-14, just for a first glimpse into the exciting future O’s fans have been promised. The fact that he improves an already interesting team in playoff contention? Just another reason to follow this surprisingly interesting team.
Orioles Analyst
Matthew Kory is a Orioles / MLB Analyst for BSL. He has covered baseball professionally for The Athletic, Vice Sports, Sports On Earth, FanGraphs, and Baseball Prospectus. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, two boys, and his cats, Mini Squeaks and The President. Co-Host of The Warehouse.