There’s one more week left of A-ball, two more for AA, and three for AAA.
Now that we’re into September, minor league baseball is starting to wind down. The regular season schedule for both A-ball levels concludes after another week, with two more weeks to go for Double-A and three for Triple-A. Hopefully the prospects who are left in the minors can close out strong to give a higher platform from which they can start next season.
Unlike last season, it’s not looking like any of the full-season Orioles affiliates will be getting into their league’s postseason. (Orioles Orange of the Dominican Summer League qualified for their playoffs and lost in the first round.) Here’s how the teams and the top prospects on them fared over the past week.
Triple-A Norfolk Tides
- Last week: 3-3 at Jacksonville (Marlins)
- Coming week: vs. Charlotte (White Sox)
- Second half record: 24-33, ninth place (9 games back) in International League East. The Tides “tragic number” for elimination from a postseason spot is 6.
A common theme for this season is that the Tides pitching staff has really stunk. They defied that trend at least for this past week, allowing more than three runs in just one of these six games – and Norfolk still won the 12-7 slugfest where they gave up more than that. The losses were all games where the offense vanished: A 3-1 loss and a pair of 2-1 defeats.
It’s not hard to see why they struggled to score runs, since there aren’t many prospects left in this lineup and the ones who are left didn’t do much in the way of hitting over this series. Coby Mayo, since promoted back up to the Orioles, batted just 2-15 over four games before being promoted – and he had the best OPS for the week out of the prospect trio that also includes Samuel Basallo and Jud Fabian. Fabian went 4-22 across six games, while Basallo was 4-23 with ten strikeouts. The 20-year-old catcher did hit his first Triple-A homer as well.
Norfolk’s pitchers kept them in all of the games, even the ones they lost, and a couple of prospects were part of the reason why there. This includes increasingly-popular Brandon Young, who struck out six batters in a five-inning start where he allowed only one run. It also includes Justin Armbruester, who’s had a rough time overall this season (7.98 ERA) but had a fantastic outing over this series, striking out 12 batters in six innings with only one run allowed – that on a solo homer.
Not a prospect but still worth updating
- LHP Trevor Rogers – The current leader for “least favorite 2024 Orioles trade acquisition” bounced back from a hideous first Triple-A start to giving up just two runs on three hits in six innings this week.
Double-A Bowie Baysox
- Last week: 0-6 at Akron (Guardians)
- Coming week: vs. Harrisburg (Nationals)
- Second half record: 25-32, fourth place (14 games back) in Eastern League Southwest. The Baysox are already eliminated from a postseason spot.
The Baysox have now lost seven straight games, with a defeat at the end of their previous series to go along with the 0-6 week they just suffered. It’s not very hard to see why they went 0-6: They didn’t score more than three runs in any one of these games. If they had scored four runs, they would have won three of the games and sent two more into extra innings where who knows what would happen with the Manfred Man.
Prospects counted among the suspects here. Freshly-promoted Creed Willems walloped a pair of homers over his first week, which is good. The only problem is that those two homers were part of just four hits in 23 at-bats. Relatively recent arrival Enrique Bradfield Jr. had only two singles across 16 AB. Bradfield was lifted from Saturday’s game early due to an injury but back in the lineup the next day, so hopefully he’ll be full go for the rest of the season.
It wasn’t bad for everybody. 21-year-old infielder Frederick Bencosme sat at the top of the batting leaderboard for the week with six hits and three walks, plus a pair of stolen bases. He’s spent the whole year at this level, 2.5 years younger than the average competition, and has a .677 OPS. That’s not nothing, although he’s fallen from the most recent MLB Pipeline top 30 Orioles list. Dylan Beavers, now #6 on that same list, had four hits in 14 AB.
A trio of Bowie pitchers are on that top 30. The previous series went poorly for all of them: Patrick Reilly (acquired for Billy Cook) gave up three runs in four innings, Trace Bright gave up three runs in 3.2 innings while walking six batters, and Alex Pham gave up three innings too, in his case across 4.2 innings. Bright took the loss in that game and has an 0-11 record for the year, though with an ERA of 4.50, that’s harsh. One reason Bright has no wins is that he’s pitched five innings just three times in 24 starts.
High-A Aberdeen IronBirds
- Last week: 2-4 at Wilmington (Nationals)
- Coming week: vs. Jersey Shore (Phillies)
- Second half record: 31-29, fourth place (4 games back) in South Atlantic League North. The IronBirds “tragic number” is 3.
The outage for offense continues on down to this level, with the IronBirds scoring two or fewer runs in four of these games. They actually won two of them thanks to solid pitching, with 4-2 and 2-0 wins.
I’d like to offer at least one top prospect who did some good hitting over the past week, but the best I can do for you is infielder Aron Estrada at 6-18 with no extra base hits for a .333/.400/.333 batting line for the week. It’s not awful. He stole three bases and was also caught stealing twice. Outfielder Thomas Sosa also had six hits that were all singles, though he played an extra game and walked five times for a .261/.393/.261 line – less fun.
It’s a similar story for top prospect pitchers at his level. The best-ranked on the Pipeline list 21-year-old lefty Luis de León, who did not even make it out of the first inning in his start. Two hits and three walks led to getting the early hook with three runs allowed with only two outs recorded. Michael Forret would have fit in with that Bowie trio – three runs allowed in 4.1 innings, including seven strikeouts.
IronBirds season-to-date stats.
Low-A Delmarva Shorebirds
- Last week: 3-3 vs. Salem Red Sox
- Coming week: at Carolina (Brewers)
- Second half record: 27-33, last place (8.5 games back) in Carolina League North. The Shorebirds are already eliminated from postseason contention.
The biggest headline for the Shorebirds going into their final week is who won’t be playing for them. That’s because the Orioles have promoted the top five college position players they drafted in this year’s draft to Aberdeen for the last week of the minor league season. That group is: Vance Honeycutt, Griff O’Ferrall, Ethan Anderson, Austin Overn, and Ryan Stafford.
You might think that would mean there’s at least one amazing batting line to highlight among these five guys. That depends on how you want to define amazing. Overn, the third round outfielder, had five hits in five games, including a double and a homer, and he stole three bases – it was a .798 OPS for the week, which for Low-A this season is pretty good. The best of the rest of the list was Stafford’s .633 OPS for the week, and Anderson gets the bump after a 1-15. Results in a smattering of Low-A games aren’t that important anyway, but it’s fun when they’re good results.
Say something nice about a Delmarva Shorebirds pitcher challenge: Juan Rojas tossed 5.1 innings with no earned runs in his start this past week, striking out nine batters with only two walks. Rojas, the lowest-level guy of the Jorge López trade from two years ago, has pitched to a 4.11 ER and 1.232 WHIP in 16 games this season.
Shorebirds season-to-date stats.
**
Last week’s player of the week poll closed out with Basallo getting the win with 58% of the vote in a three-person poll. That’s the third time getting the weekly win for Basallo this year. It’s going to be a first-time winner this week, with this set of players standing out among the slim pickings: