In 2022, the Orioles had five players on the initial Baseball America and MLBPipeline.com top 100 lists when they were released before the season. That number was a whopping eight by each outlet in 2023 and last year, in advance of Opening Day, MLBPipeline.com ranked six Orioles in the top 100 and so did BA with Jackson Holliday at No. 1.
Before the 2022 season, Adley Rutschaman was No. 1 and before the 2023 season, Gunnar Henderson topped the lists.
It was never-before-seen prospect rankings success by the Orioles and no organization had ever produced three straight No. 1 players via Baseball America.
But now the numbers are down.
Baseball America ranks just three O’s on the pre-2025 top 100 and that includes Heston Kjerstad, who has lost prospect eligibility for several outlets. MLBPipeline.com ranks two in the top 100.
Jim Callis is senior writer for MLBPipeline.com and MLB.com and for a long time one of the very best in the business analyzing prospects.
He doesn’t see having fewer top 100 players as any shortcoming for the Orioles. He sees a club that has promoted many from the farm in recent years to win in the major league and also traded some prospects away to add players to help win.
“It’s cyclical,” Callis said during a phone interview this week. “We have not done our farm system rankings yet and I’m sure they will rank lower than they have recently. But these things are a snapshot in time.
“You just look at promoting guys like Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, Jackson Holliday and Grayson Rodriguez, just to name four. We could go on – Colton Cowser and Heston Kjerstad and Jordan Westburg. I’ll stop there.
“This is just a natural cycle. Especially with the rules in baseball the last 13 or 14 years with draft pools and international bonus pools. It’s not like before where you could win and if you also want to spend on the draft, you could.
“If you win now, you get lower picks and less money to spend on the draft. And penalties for overspending in the draft are very real, so nobody does it. This is just a natural extension of that.”
The latest rankings:
MLBPipeline.com – Samuel Basallo (13), Coby Mayo (14).
Baseball America – Samuel Basallo (14), Coby Mayo (29), Heston Kjerstad (81).
ESPN – Coby Mayo (8), Samuel Basallo (17), Enrique Bradfield Jr. (82).
The Athletic – Samuel Basallo (3), Coby Mayo (18), Enrique Bradfield Jr. (82).
Baseball Prospectus – Samuel Basallo (11), Coby Mayo (14), Enrique Bradfield Jr. (46).
Heading into the 2023 season, the MLBPipeline list had Henderson (1), Rodriguez (7), Holliday (12), Cowser (40), Westburg (74), Kjerstad (80), DL Hall (97) and Joey Ortiz (99).
All eight have played for the Orioles.
“It’s not that the Orioles are doing a worse job of drafting or developing players,” Callis said. “They are not picking at the top of the draft for several years in a row, plus they have moved so many guys up to the big-league level. If we were to track, say ,talent sent to the big leagues over the last three or four years, the Orioles would probably be right up there at the top.
“So sometimes fans see these lists and say, ‘Jeez, there are only two Orioles?’ But with the exception of those Braves teams that won all those division titles in a row and the Dodgers in recent memory, its very hard to maintain an elite farm system and an elite big league club at the same time. It’s pretty impossible.”
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