The 21-year-old slugging backstop struggled late last year in High-A ball, but this season the power came through enough to earn him a callup to Bowie to end the year.
He’s a tank. A unit. A big kid. A hungry hamburger. Since joining the Orioles org in 2021, the 6’0, 225-lb. backstop Creed Willems has been known for his power, but he’d hit for concerningly low average … until this season? It’s still soon to say, but so far, so good in 2024 for the 21-year-old power-hitting catcher.
A former two-way player as a high schooler in Texas, Willems was already a TCU commit when the Orioles swooped in and took him in the eighth round of the 2021 Draft with an overslot deal of $1 million. It’s always a risk for high-schooler to make the jump to pro ball, especially for a catcher, and Willems struggled out of the gate in the Orioles system.
In 2022, he hit just .190 over a full season with Low-A Delmarva. In 2023, repeating at Delmarva, some things started to click and he started to attract buzz. Willems hit .302 with a beefy 1.057 OPS and 14 extra-base hits in 96 at-bats and earned himself a late-May call-up to High-A Aberdeen. But the jump hurt him again: he hit just .192 and OPS’d .586 at that level.
This year, it started off the same. Willems had a pretty cold spring, hitting .153 for Aberdeen in the month of May. But a blistering July (.286/.421/.500/.921) helped earn him a callup to Double-A Bowie on August 27, despite a short injury stint that month. Overall, Willems concludes his time at High-A Aberdeen with a .238/.332/.456/.788 line—what jumps out there is not the contact skills, but how he’s hitting for power.
Another thing now stands out about the Double-A Bowie callup: this was the first time as a pro that Willems didn’t struggle initially upon being promoted a level. Instead, he more than held his own, with a .262/.275/.492/.767 slashline and seven extra-base hits in 16 games. That is surely where he’ll begin next year’s season, probably with an assignment to focus on walks, which have improved some.
As you read this, Willems is likely to be taking his swings in the Arizona Fall League, and he’s walloping the ball—114.3 mph an hour, to be exact.
Creed Willems packs a wallop!
The @Orioles‘ No. 22 prospect laces a double to left field at 114.3 mph in the Fall League. pic.twitter.com/z8uZjOxppW
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) October 13, 2024
The winter Fall League is generally not where Orioles top prospects are sent. Instead, it’s for bubble prospects: players of some interest, but who needed a little opportunity to prove it. Heston Kjerstad, who missed lots of playing time as a prospect due to health issues, was a recent O’s participant. Anyway, Creed Willems has been both too raw and too much of a dark horse to be treated as a top prospect, but it’s possible that he is “the most interesting prospect” in the AFL contingent this fall.
Anyway, Willems, as mentioned, came at this pro ball thing with a disadvantage, being a backstop and so young when he was drafted. But as a left-handed-hitting catcher with plenty of raw power, he is a desirable baseball demographic, and, reports MLB, he has made great strides in his third season as an Orioles prospect.
[Willems] is strong and stocky, using a simple swing to drop his barrel on pitches to drive them with authority, especially ones low in the zone. His results improved this year with a revamped approach and better pitch recognition skills. He also walked more, making him a productive hitter despite ample swing-and-miss.
Willems had a strong enough arm as a high schooler to generate 90 mph velocity readings from the mound, and it’s still a weapon for him behind the plate even as questions remain about his receiving and blocking. He improved in both of those areas in 2023 while also seeing time at first base. If he continues his development behind the plate and with his approach in the box, he could develop into a power-hitting backstop at the highest level.
This season was the first he started to tap into his raw power since joining the Orioles org, with what MLB reports is a vastly improved approach at the plate and better pitch recognition. Willems’ defense remains a work in progress. There are those in the org who believe he has the chops to remain a catcher, with his strong arm, but he only threw out 19% of basestealers this season, which isn’t great.
As for Willems’ future, perhaps the most important question, as John Beers wrote of him last season, is about who’s in front of him on the organizational depth chart. Willems’ ceiling as a ballplayer has been compared to a left-handed hitting Mike Napoli or a stockier version of Brian McCann. But whether he gets to do any of that as an Oriole is less certain. Currently, Adley Rutschman remains a cornerstone of the franchise, despite his struggles this year, and waiting in the wings is Samuel Basallo, the Orioles’ No. 2 prospect and one of the most talented catching prospects in the game. “Climbing over one, let alone both of those players, to earn ABs in Baltimore will certainly be a tall task.”
So it may be that Willems’ fate is ultimately as future trade bait for this organization. It’s hard to peer into the crystal ball and be sure. What can be said is that, despite an expected slow start, Willems is controlling the things he can control, and being rewarded for it with a bump from an unranked prospect to the No. 22 slot in the entire organization, even as he continues to face pitchers above his age. The 21-year-old Texan will be the primary backstop for Bowie in 2025, and could still reach the big leagues as a 22 or 23-year-old, whatever team that should be for.
Previous 2024 prospect reviews: Heston Kjerstad, Frederick Bencosme, Justin Armbruester, Leandro Arias, Brandon Young
Tomorrow: Trace Bright