Samuel Basallo and Coby Mayo are top 30 prospects in all of the big lists to date.
The final month or so run-up towards spring training is prospect list season. Before the Orioles were good again, this was one of the more exciting parts of a baseball calendar because we could all dream about the good players who would arrive and bring better baseball around again. Those players have arrived and have made their impact. With these players in the majors, the O’s farm system looks a lot different.
How do things stand in the Orioles minors in terms of top talent right now? As of this week, there are four of the heavy hitters in prospect writing who’ve put out their top 100 prospect lists for the start of the season. One more, from ESPN, should come later in the week. Here is where current Orioles prospects rank on this year’s batch:
- MLB Pipeline: Samuel Basallo (13), Coby Mayo (14)
- Baseball America: Basallo (14), Mayo (29), Heston Kjerstad (81)
- Baseball Prospectus: Basallo (11), Mayo (14), Enrique Bradfield Jr. (46)
- The Athletic: Basallo (3), Mayo (18), Bradfield Jr. (82)
Kjerstad is on the BA list because they use different criteria for prospect eligibility than other outlets, who follow MLB’s standard for rookie eligibility. He is not eligible for consideration elsewhere.
This is a thinner group of Orioles than it was three years ago, when Adley Rutschman was at the top of almost every prospect list, Grayson Rodriguez was also in the top ten, and Gunnar Henderson, DL Hall, and Colton Cowser were regularly appearing across the top 100s as well. No one had even noticed Jordan Westburg was a strong prospect yet, and few would have thought that Jackson Holliday would be the #1 pick in that summer’s draft.
Since the arrival of this wave of talent in Baltimore coincided with the reversal of the franchise’s fortunes, it’s not a bad thing. The goal of stocking the farm, getting a winning team, was accomplished. The surge began in July 2022 and continued into 192 wins over the last two regular seasons. To be determined is whether the farm can remain stocked enough, even without the benefit of picking in the top five of each draft, to keep helping the Orioles be perennial contenders. There are three seasons to be played before the first of the Elias-assembled prospects, Rutschman, becomes a free agent.
There are still two very-high-ranked Orioles prospects. The catching prospect Basallo is in the top 15 everywhere and as high as #3 according to Keith Law’s ranking at The Athletic. Mayo remains a well-regarded prospect even after his tough first bit of MLB action last season. These are players who we can look forward to contributing soon, even if the exact path to MLB playing time given who’s already ensconced at their most likely positions is not immediately clear. Too many good players is a good problem to have.
The lists are divided on whether Enrique Bradfield Jr., the first round pick by the Orioles two years ago, should count as a top 100 prospect at this juncture. With Cedric Mullins set to become a free agent after this season, the question of whether Bradfield can smoothly slide in to that position at the MLB level in 2026 is one of the important ones for the end of this season. Will Bradfield be able to hit enough to make it so his substantial speed and defensive ability aren’t being dragged down by his offense? His performance in a month-plus of Double-A action last year was a nice step in the right direction.
Other post-2025 holes on the roster do not have such readily available answers on any of the top prospect lists. Eflin and one-year signees Tomoyuki Sugano and Charlie Morton will all be free agents after this season. That’s 60% of a five-man starting rotation. Mike Elias’s drafting strategy to date has not brought quality pitchers into the system. The next amateur pitcher signed by Elias to pitch for the Orioles will be the first one, and if it’s not Brandon Young, I don’t know who it will be.
What the Orioles are going to need to do in order to sustain success in the long run is show that they can hit on draft picks in the mid- or late-first round. Bradfield living up to the lists that believe in him would be good here, as would development from last year’s first round pick, Vance Honeycutt.
Cashing in on competitive balance or compensation picks will also be important, as will hitting on draft picks in the second round and beyond. Mike Elias got off to a great start with those late first round/early second round guys in picking Henderson and Westburg in consecutive years. This is not guaranteed to occur every year, with apologies to the Dylan Beavers fan club.
For beyond the second round, Mayo stands as the success story. He was a fourth round pick who received an overslot bonus. Managing this yearly is also not guaranteed. Later post-first round $1 million-plus signings haven’t paid off yet, with apologies to the Creed Willems fan club.
This theme continues into the international amateur prospect market. Basallo is the crown jewel of the effort. He looks like a very good crown jewel. Still, it is also apparent that the Orioles are not minting Basallo-level prospects each year, or even back half of the top 100 guys. They do not possess some special magic to let them do it. No one else has made such a leap. It is early to give up on most of these players entirely, but it will be helpful for the medium-term health of the farm system if they can start to get some value from guys other than Basallo. I don’t even know whose fan club to apologize to in saying this.
Other teams are not standing still in the meantime. A regular feature of this year’s round of prospect lists is the loaded set of Boston Red Sox prospects near the top. At Pipeline, three Red Sox who are set to arrive during the 2025 season are in the top 12. They traded two more top 100 prospects from that list to get Garrett Crochet into their rotation. These are strong reinforcements for a team that was already .500 a year ago.
The Orioles have not made any trade with such an immediate prospect cost as that Crochet deal. In general, Elias’s deals have not cost the team any players who are on top prospect lists right now. There’s one list with exceptions here: BPro is aggressive in ranking righty pitcher Jackson Baumeister (#60), part of the trade to the Rays for Zach Eflin, as well as lefty pitcher Moisés Chace (#101), traded to the Phillies for reliever Gregory Soto. The balance of those trades will look different if either of these players continues developing into a consensus top 100 prospect.
Put it all together, and what do we get? Any team would be envious of the position player core the Orioles have developed, and any team other than the Red Sox would be envious of Basallo and Mayo as the top two prospects in the system. The ability to fill in for free agent vacancies will be tested as soon as this offseason.
This is not a farm system that’s going to get the #1 ranking any more, as the team did for a while before graduating so many players to the majors. It’s still in solid shape. The Orioles could use someone who’s currently unexpected to develop into a top 100-level talent. It also remains to be seen how much of the value in the system could be depleted by trades made over the course of 2025. Hopefully when the dust settles, the big league team is still great and the farm is still in a place to help maintain the greatness.