Eight Orioles minor leaguers, plus Bowie manager Roberto Mercado, will be with the Surprise Saguaros in the AFL.
As of Sunday, the minor league seasons were over for the year. That’s not quite the end of prospect baseball in 2024, with the Arizona Fall League still to come starting next month. On Wednesday morning, rosters were announced for this year’s league action. Eight Orioles minor leaguers will be joining the Surprise Saguaros alongside prospects from the Rangers, Royals, Guardians, and Astros. Team assignments change every year.
The Orioles contingent consists of five pitchers and three position players. Additionally, Bowie manager Roberto Mercado will serve as the Saguaros manager. The pitchers are: Righties Zane Barnhart, Tyler Burch, Preston Johnson, and Houston Roth, and lefty Juan Rojas. The position players are: Outfielders Jake Cunningham and Douglas Hodo III, and catcher Creed Willems.
Not included is top Orioles prospect Samuel Basallo, which is not surprising given the kinds of players who are typically sent to the league. Top prospects don’t often appear there in general, which just 14 of MLB Pipeline’s top 100 list making any roster. Two of these guys will be teammates of the O’s prospects on Surprise: Royals first baseman Jac Caglianone, picked 6th overall just this year, and Guardians outfield prospect Chase DeLauter, a mid-first round pick last year.
In the Mike Elias era, the team has not sent out prospects who’ve already reached Triple-A unless there was an injury involved that caused them to miss time. The level of competition is lower than Triple-A, for the most part.
A year ago, the most interesting prospect in the AFL contingent might well have been super-utility guy Billy Cook, who has since been traded to the Pirates. Cook and pitcher Trey McGough were both traded in July. This year, that title goes to Willems, who is Pipeline’s #22 Orioles prospect and the only one of the group who is ranked in the system’s top 30. Maybe some players from this group are future trade bait as well.
This year’s AFL play begins on October 7. Hopefully, we’ll still be more focused on the Orioles in the postseason by then. The AFL season wraps up on November 14, with a short playoff over the next couple of days after that.
A bit about each of these players, listed in alphabetical order by last name:
RHP Zane Barnhart
This 22-year-old righty was born in Towson and eventually drafted by the Orioles from Hillsdale College in the 17th round of last year’s draft. He’s pitched exclusively in relief since joining the organization and split this year between Low-A Delmarva and High-A Aberdeen, with most of that work coming with the IronBirds. Barnhart, listed at 5’10”, struck out just more than a batter per inning, though like many O’s minor league pitchers, there was also an elevated walk rate (5.6 BB/9 at Aberdeen).
RHP Tyler Burch
The Orioles acquired Burch from the Phillies three years ago in exchange for Freddy Galvis. Now 27, the 6’2” Burch missed most of the season with an unspecified injury, returning to his highest level (Double-A) in time to pitch in just two games there. Burch has now been at Double-A for four seasons, dropping a combined 4.59 ERA and 1.449 WHIP. One never knows when a late-blooming reliever might have the late bloom, but he doesn’t look like someone the O’s need to protect from the Rule 5 draft.
OF Jake Cunningham
Picked in the fifth round by the Orioles a year ago, the now-22-year-old Cunningham has seen other outfielders from that draft class race ahead of him while he batted a combined .220/.312/.308 between Delmarva and Aberdeen this season. He also stole 29 bases in 34 attempts. Everything except for that and the walk rate is rough. If he can show something in the AFL, that could be the start of a boost to his stock. It’s happened before.
OF Douglas Hodo III
It’s Hodo’s birthday today. Happy birthday! He’s 24 now, escaping from Blink 182’s “nobody likes you” age. He was a sixth round pick by the Orioles two years ago and, like Cunningham, has seen later outfielders race past him. Hodo played across three levels this season, wrapping up with a two-week stint with Bowie. His combined batting line: .242/.382/.388. He saw action at all three outfield spots. A fourth outfield future doesn’t seem too aggressive of a prediction.
RHP Preston Johnson
A seventh round pick by the Orioles two years ago, the 6’4” Johnson spent the entirety of this season with Aberdeen, mostly being used in a multi-inning relief role. Neither the ERA (4.72) nor WHIP (1.518) look very good. What does look good is the fact that he struck out more than 30% of all batters he faced. Like seemingly every other O’s minor league pitcher, that came along with a huge walk rate; despite the gaudy strikeouts, his K/BB ratio is only 1.95.
LHP Juan Rojas
The youngest player who was a part of the Orioles trade return from the Twins for Jorge López is still just 20 years old. The 6’0” Venezuelan lefty has still not made it above Delmarva, so this will be a more advanced set of competition than he’s seen to date. Rojas struck out 64 batters in 53.2 IP for the Shorebirds this season, and again following the O’s pitcher pattern, walked too many dudes (30).
RHP Houston Roth
A 29th round pick by the Orioles all the way back in 2019 – you know it was a while ago because the 29th round doesn’t even exist any more and hasn’t for four years. This is the first year of Roth’s career where he was exclusively used in relief. That went better for him than starting, as he posted a 3.35 ERA and 1.303 WHIP with the Baysox this season, with 65 strikeouts in 48.1 IP. At 26, he’s old for that level. Elias has been known to add dark horse relievers to the 40-man roster after seeing them in the AFL, so Roth will be playing to be the next one of these.
C/1B Creed Willems
Willems was an eighth round Orioles pick three years ago, with the team giving him an overslot $1 million bonus. After struggling with Aberdeen over a sample size covering most of the 2023 season, Willems repeated there to start for 2024 with things going a lot better – a .788 OPS in 82 games. That got him a promotion to Bowie over the final few weeks, where the 21-year-old more than held his own – .768 OPS over a 16-game sample. That was notable because he’s typically struggled at every new level. May not be a catcher in the future as he threw out just 19% of runners this season, and knowing he was back there, they ran a lot.