Some context for a safe and logical offseason, plus the minor league coaching staffs are finalized.
Good Morning Birdland!
The baseball season is slowly inching closer. That will become ever apparent in the week ahead as the Orioles hold their annual Birdland Caravan from January 30 through February 1. Once that wraps up, we will be less than two weeks away from pitchers and catchers reporting, and that is when the ball really starts rolling towards Opening Day.
For now, however, we must squeeze the final drops of offseason juice out of what we have in front of us. That now includes MLB Pipeline’s annual refreshing of their prospect lists.
So far, Pipeline has put out Top 10 lists for every position group, and they have now released an overall Top 100. Still to come is a roll out of each team’s Top 30 prospects—that’s the one I tend to find the most interesting, but to each their own.
The recently-signed Dodgers prospect Roki Sasaki is atop their overall list, an understandable call considering he has already proven himself at a level higher than Triple-A. Sasaki is expected to spend 2025 in the bigs, but his innings load will probably be curtailed. While Cy Young consideration may be off the table in his first season stateside, Rookie of the Year should be in play for the 23-year-old, if all goes well.
The Orioles are represented on the Top 100 by just two names, but they are big ones. Samuel Basallo is 13th (the highest-ranked catcher), and Coby Mayo is 14th (the highest-ranked third baseman).
Clearly, the Orioles farm system is not as chock full of talent as it was a couple of years ago when they had handfuls of players on this list. That’s for good reason. The guys that used to be on there are now producing at the big league level.
Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg, and Colton Cowser have all found their footing in Baltimore. Jackson Holliday and Heston Kjerstad hope to do the same in 2025. The O’s don’t currently have the volume of highly-regarded “prospects” they used to, but they do still have a ton of young, impactful players on their 40-man roster.
That said, the fact that Basallo and Mayo are the only ones on the Top 100 for the Orioles is a nice illustration of why Mike Elias has approached this offseason in the manner that he has.
The Orioles’ GM has made his views on how to build out an organization quite clear. He believes in cultivating a self-sustained talent “pipeline.” This pipeline, he hopes, never runs dry, and therefore the organization never has to undergo another significant rebuild under his watch. They will be perennially competitive, with some expected variance.
In recent years, that has worked out. The Orioles have churned out Rookie of the Year candidates in three straight seasons, and produced three consecutive competitive seasons for the major league squad. But there is clearly a thinning of minor league talent that is not being replaced at quite the rate at which it is being used. That has possibly made Elias a little uncomfortable, and he has acted accordingly.
The Orioles could have afforded to add an “ace” pitcher this season, but it would have been expensive in more ways than one. Trading for someone like Garrett Crochet may have cost one of Basallo or Mayo—the White Sox acquired Kyle Teel (32nd on Pipeline’s list) and Braden Montgomery (55th) from the Red Sox in the deal. Signing Max Fried or re-signing Corbin Burnes would have lost them a compensation pick. The same goes for the idea of bringing back Anthony Santander rather than adding Tyler O’Neill.
Instead, the Orioles have opted to navigate this offseason with an eye on the future. Their farm system is largely unchanged from the end of last year—apart from some Rule 5 losses. Meanwhile their 2025 draft has a chance to be transcendent.
As it stands, the Orioles would have three of the first 31 picks in the 2025 draft, and five of the first 71. For comparison, their third pick in 2024 didn’t come until 61st overall, and their fifth was 127th overall.
Of course, MLB’s draft is something of a crapshoot, even compared to the other major sports leagues. First-round flameouts are common, and multiple late-round nuggets can be found every single year. But what is really different for MLB is the structure of their signing bonus pools.
In general, the earlier you pick and the more picks you have, the larger your overall bonus pool. Teams can use this pool in whatever fashion they wish. Sometimes that means signing someone “under slot” so that you can encourage another prospect to fall in the draft and then get an “over slot” bonus later on. Elias and his crew have been quite savvy with that process to this point.
The bonus pools will not be finalized for a while. But the Orioles are set up to have a pretty darn beefy one, especially for a playoff team that is expected to be quite good again in 2025.
This is a powerful tool in Elias’ hands. Henderson was an over-slot signing in 2019. Mayo was an over-slot signing in 2020. Scouting of the players aside, those deals are somewhat easy to make happen when holding the first and second overall picks, respectively, in those drafts. The bonus pools get heavily inflated in those instances. But the Orioles could pull off something similar this summer with such a huge volume of picks.
Constantly adding high-ceiling young talent to the organization is integral to Elias’ theory of the case. He needs to bring those players in and develop them so that he can either package them in a trade (ha! imagine) or eventually promote them to replace the major league players that are aging and performing their way into more expensive contracts.
Links
Basallo (No. 13), Mayo (No. 14) crack 2025 Top 100 Prospects list | Orioles.com
Here are some more Orioles-specific notes from Pipeline’s newly-released Top 100 list. It also reminded me that “Spring Breakout” game comes during the spring. The event debuted in 2024, and seemed like a cool experiment. It’s back on in 2025.
Very grateful for my time here as it comes toward an end | Steve Melewski
Steve Melewski revealed on Friday that he is not being retained by MASN beyond January. That’s a bummer. Opinions of Melewski always seem to be mixed among the Orioles faithful, but I did always appreciate the minor league updates and interviews he would provide. He sounds confident that he will land elsewhere. Hopefully that is the case.
Orioles cultivating ‘fresh feel’ for minor league coaching staffs in 2025 | The Baltimore Banner
A nice rundown of all the coaching changes that have happened in the Orioles’ organization this offseason. In general, there is stability. Most of the movement is from staff moving up a level, oftentimes staying on pace with players they have already worked with. Perhaps the biggest change was at Triple-A, where Tim Federowicz was brought on as manager, replacing Buck Britton, who himself was promoted to the big league staff.
Orioles birthdays
Is it your birthday? Happy birthday!
- The late Richie Lewis (b. 1966, d. 2021) was born on this day. He was a journeyman pitcher that began his MLB career with a two-game cameo on the 1992 Orioles and finished it with a two-game cameo on the 1998 Orioles. In between he played for four other organizations.
- Francisco Meléndez is 61 years old. He made his way into nine games for the Orioles in 1989, his final MLB action.
- Wally Bunker is 80 today. The right-handed pitcher spent parts of six seasons with the Orioles from 1963-68. By far his best season was ‘64, when he went 19-5 with a 2.69 ERA, finished second in voting for Rookie of the Year (behind Tony Oliva) and even earned some down-ballot MVP votes.
This day in history
2005 – The Orioles miss out on coveted free agent Carlos Delgado as the slugger chooses a four-year, $52-million offer from the Marlins over potential deals with the O’s, Rangers, and Mets.