Three years later, how does this draft class look for the Orioles?
Mike Elias is probably never going to top the 1-2 punch of his top two draft picks from his first ever draft with the Orioles, the 2019 draft that brought Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson into the fold. We’re now three years out from the 2021 draft, which has its own duo that we can hope will be contributing to continuing an era of success for O’s: Colton Cowser and Connor Norby.
The 2021 draft saw the Orioles with a first pick at fifth overall, which is where they landed based on their performance in the pandemic-impacted 60-game season from 2020. Had that team had the opportunity to play closer to a 162-game schedule, they might have failed their way higher in the draft. That’s not how it worked out. The O’s were 14-14 through 28 games. They didn’t even finish in last in the AL East, not that the legion of people who complain about the Orioles only being good now due to the tanking era ever credit this.
Along with the fifth pick, the Orioles had the fifth-highest signing bonus pool to spread out among this draft class. The team had a modest addition to its draft budget and the opportunity to select an additional end-of-second-round talent with a Competitive Bonus Round B pick.
One other notable thing about this draft is that it’s the first one that MLB set up to coincide with the mid-July All-Star break. That’s now become the norm. Before this, the annual amateur draft took place in early June, before the College World Series had even finished being contested.
How does this draft class look at this point? I’ll take a look at each of the four players who received a signing bonus of at least $1 million in this class, plus a quick run through a handful of later-round picks who’ve managed to muster at least some interesting performance at the Double-A or Triple-A level by now.
Colton Cowser
- Pick: First round, #5 overall
- Signing bonus: $4.9 million (roughly $1.2 million under slot)
A lot of the pre-draft excitement for fans who wanted to engage in it revolved around what seemed to be a “Big Four” of high school infielders: Marcelo Mayer, Jordan Lawlar, Brady House, and Kahlil Watson. Mayer was taken at #4 by the Red Sox, who were one game worse than the O’s over those 60 games in 2020. The O’s had their pick of the rest and they went in a different direction entirely, selecting Cowser from a school that’s not a big conference powerhouse: Sam Houston State.
As a reminder, the choice to make an under slot pick in the first round was not an instance of the team being cheap. (I get the feeling. The specter of Matt Hobgood still haunts us all.) Under the draft bonus pool system that has been in effect since 2012, the money can be allocated elsewhere, and the Orioles did this, just like they did the year before when going under slot for Heston Kjerstad, which later allowed them to draft and sign Coby Mayo.
Heading into the draft, Cowser was mostly not recognized as one of the top 6-8 players in the draft class. His biggest boosters were at FanGraphs, where he was the #6 prospect, with a scouting report that included this:
Cowser has the best bat-to-ball skills in this draft. He tracks pitches with laser-guided precision, is able to make mid-flight adjustments to breaking balls, and he’s adept at hitting pitches on the outer third to the opposite field. … he’s a plus runner capable of playing in center field.
Cowser got to make his debut with the Orioles last season. He did not take flight immediately, playing in 26 games and batting just .115/.286/.148 before being sent back down to Triple-A. He was back as the only rookie to make the Opening Day roster this year and smoked the league to finish the month with a 1.004 OPS. Harder times have come since the league adjusted; he OPSed .580 in May and .679 in June.
There’s still a lot of red on Cowser’s Statcast page. Red is good. Even after a couple of down months, his overall season numbers reflect a guy who swings hard and hits the ball hard, who doesn’t chase outside the strike zone often, and who uses his speed to great effect in the outfield. On the downside, he swings and misses within the zone a lot and has struck out a lot.
Changeups appear to be a particular problem. It’s not like Cowser doesn’t know it. Earlier in the season, he shaved his beard and joked that he hadn’t seen his chin or a fastball all month so he thought he’d change the one he could control.
Even after two months of struggle, he is at 1.3 bWAR and 2.1 fWAR for the season. That’s partly because he’s added so much value back with his defense and also because offense being down in the league this season means Cowser’s .740 OPS overall is above average.
What about the three of the Big Four the Orioles passed on? Lawlar debuted with Arizona late last year and took a rough 14 game cup of coffee. He was still a top 15 prospect headed into this season but has been hurt for most of the year. With the Orioles infield being what it is, I don’t suffer heartburn over not having Lawlar.
House is in Double-A with the Nationals. He rated in the 50-60 range on most lists before the season. Watson, drafted by the Marlins and traded to the Guardians, lost his top prospect shine though he’s now at Double-A as well and performing comparably to House. Watson has a .741 OPS to House’s .734.
Connor Norby
- Pick: Second round, #41 overall
- Signing bonus: $1.7 million (roughly $100,000 under slot)
A persistent post-draft rumor was that the Orioles wanted to draft then-Florida outfielder Jud Fabian here. The Red Sox took him at #40. Boston did not sign Fabian and the Orioles got Fabian in the 2022 draft, which doesn’t exactly squash the rumor. In 2021, they pivoted to Norby, taking someone mostly seen as a second round talent near the top of the second round.
Norby’s big pre-draft booster was The Athletic’s Keith Law, who ranked him 25th in the class:
He has a compact swing and uses the whole field well, with wrist strength to drive the ball the other way. Norby is a second baseman and projects to stay there, and his bat should make him at least a regular at that spot, even if he doesn’t come into much power.
By the start of this season, Law was a bit less enthusiastic in assessing Norby, no longer being sure he’ll stick at second base (Law and other evaluators have always noted Norby as not having a strong arm) and having more questions about Norby reaching his power when facing higher-level pitching.
Norby arrived with the Orioles for a short stint earlier this season that coincided with Jorge Mateo being placed on the injured list for a concussion. He hit a homer in Toronto as one of his three hits in 14 at-bats. The O’s infield is just loaded, and in the long run it seems like Jackson Holliday will be at second base.
Where does that leave Norby? He’s played a good bit of corner outfield at Norfolk, but the O’s outfield seems to be loaded too. He has been blasting the Triple-A competition and continues to do so, hitting .295/.382/.527 with 15 homers in 72 games there.
Orioles fans would like it if Norby could be the headliner in some deal for a quality starting pitcher. That depends on how other teams view him. A belated 2024 Orioles prospect list posted by FanGraphs a couple of weeks ago put Norby as merely the #19 guy in the system. If that’s more like how the league views him – or at least the part of the league that might deal a starter and/or a reliever – then Norby won’t be headlining much.
To date, the best picks from the second round of this draft are a pair of University of Virginia teammates. Cincinnati took pitcher Andrew Abbott, who’s had big league rotation success last year and this year and already has 5.9 career WAR. Mike Elias has still to this day not drafted and signed a pitcher in the second round. Third baseman Zack Gelof went to the Athletics. Gelof was worth 2.6 WAR in his rookie year with just 69 games played, though his bat has tailed off for 2024 and he’s only added another 1 WAR in 71 games.
John Rhodes
- Pick: Third round, #76 overall
- Signing bonus: $1.375 million (about $550,000 over slot)
Rhodes was a draft-eligible sophomore from the University of Kentucky, which is why the Orioles had to use a bit of their extra slot money to sign him in the third round. The O’s liked Rhodes more than the mainstream media writers. Law didn’t have Rhodes ranked in his top 101 for the class and Rhodes was #134 on MLB Pipeline’s top 250.
A couple of years ago, Rhodes was of interest to me after he dropped a .259/.389/.417 batting line over a couple of months with High-A Aberdeen, earning a midseason promotion to Double-A in his age 21 season. It’s 2024 and Bowie is still where Rhodes is. His .744 OPS at Bowie last year isn’t enough to break him into the mix of exciting Orioles outfield prospects and this year he’s doing even worse.
Players who were drafted from the college ranks in 2021 will be eligible for this year’s Rule 5 draft. Rhodes has not done much for the Orioles to try to fit him onto the 40-man roster after the season, and unless his trajectory changes, it’s hard to imagine him being taken by another team either.
Creed Willems
- Pick: Eighth round, #227 overall
- Signing bonus: $1 million (about $800,000 over slot)
The Orioles used most of the slot savings from Cowser to sign Willems, the lone high school player the Orioles drafted in the 20 rounds of the draft. He is a big dude and scouting capsules about him have a tendency to go into euphemisms that remark about his weight.
We kind of got spoiled by Gunnar Henderson turning into such a huge prospect and great player, winning the Rookie of the Year award in his age 22 season. There are slower development paths that can still result in eventual big league value. Willems is certainly on a slower path. He made a full-season affiliate debut with Delmarva in 2022 and struggled there, so he began at Low-A in 2023 also. Willems earned a midseason promotion to High-A but stalled there again, so that’s where he began the 2024 season.
For the first month of the season, it looked like Willems might be doing the same as the year before, where things clicked after repeating. He had a .971 OPS at the end of April before falling back to earth in May. Things rebounded again in June, so his overall batting line of .232/.316/.452 is… well, it’s not interesting, but it’s not uninteresting.
Willems has thrown out just 18% of runners when behind the plate, and it’s a real track meet: That’s 69 steals allowed in only 319.1 innings caught. Consider that Rutschman has over 500 innings on defense and opposing runners have stolen 35 bases. Maybe Aberdeen’s pitchers suck at holding runners. Maybe Willems still needs to develop his catching ability. Maybe he never will develop that ability and he’ll have to break in as a first baseman if he’ll ever break in anywhere.
Within the last week, Willems was placed on the injured list due to a hamstring injury. Get well soon.
Other picks who have ever been interesting
The thing about having a 20 round draft, which was even more true back when the draft used to be 40 and even 50 rounds, is that most of the guys are not going to make it. They are largely drafted as filler for the minor league rosters, players who will have a good attitude while the real prospects get their work in and move up.
It’s not fun to constantly harp on this reality, so I try not to do it. I also try not to waste any of my fan energy on guys who will never be anything. If a later-round pick hits Double-A and starts putting up some good (or even good enough) results there, that’s my line where I start to take notice. These are the guys I had an eye on going into this season:
Billy Cook – 10th round pick hit 24 homers in 108 games for Bowie last year, then went on to put up nice numbers in the Arizona Fall League. He’s playing as a kind of super-utility guy and has OPSed .802 in 60 games for Norfolk. Currently on the IL due to a hamstring injury. I think this year might have gotten Cook into the “protect from the Rule 5 draft” mix.
Justin Armbruester – 12th round pick had a 3.09 ERA and 1.085 WHIP at Bowie between the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023. I took notice. It hasn’t gone well for Armbruester since I started paying attention. His ERA at Norfolk this year is over 8, his BB/9 is 5, and he’s allowed 20 homers in 70 innings.
Alex Pham – 19th round pick posted a 2.67 ERA and 0.989 WHIP in 12 games at Bowie after earning a midseason promotion last year. He’s back at Bowie this year with the ERA near 6 and a WHIP of almost 1.5, though he’s struck out 90 guys in 67.2 IP, so I won’t judge anyone who still wants to believe there’s something here.