The Orioles have the most top-heavy system in the American League, with six guys on the Top 100 or just-missed list, plus two more who were reasonably close. But the system thins out quickly after that, with a lot of future relievers and extra bats, plus a huge group of prospects who had disappointing 2021 seasons due to injury or poor performance.
Advertisement
To qualify for these rankings, players must still be eligible for the Rookie of the Year Award in 2022, which means they may not have more than 130 at-bats, 50 innings pitched or 45 days on an active roster heading into this season.
1. Adley Rutschman, C (Top 100 ranking: No. 1)
Age: 24 | 6-foot-2 | 220 pounds
Bats: Both | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 1 in 2019
Rutschman answered every possible question he could have answered in a superlative 2021 season, one that, in a world that wasn’t addled by service time considerations, would have ended with him in the major leagues. He hit .271/.392/.508 in Double A, more than earned a promotion to Triple A, and hit better there (.312/.405/.490), walking nearly as often as he struck out on the season. That performance would probably make him a top-20 prospect even as a right fielder, but that he did so as a strong defensive catcher in every aspect of the game is what makes him the No. 1 overall prospect.
Rutschman is an outstanding receiver and game-caller, with a plus arm and a long history of showing advanced feel for the less concrete aspects of the catcher’s job. His grandfather, Ad Rutschman, was a longtime coach at NAIA Linfield College and the only person to win national championships as a coach in both baseball and football; his father, Randy, also has extensive coaching experience, particularly working with catchers.
Adley shows exceptional selectivity at the plate, rarely chasing, with a strikeout rate that put him in the top 15 percent of all Double-A and Triple-A hitters last year. His right-handed swing could get long in college, but in a small sample last year, he had better results hitting right-handed than left-handed. The only thing I see that could hold him back is the wear and tear of the position. A switch-hitting catcher with power, plate discipline and excellent defense across the board? Orioles fans should march on Camden Yards if he’s not the Opening Day starter.
Advertisement
2. Grayson Rodriguez, RHP (Top 100 ranking: No. 14)
Age: 22 | 6-5 | 220 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 11 in 2018
Rodriguez’s 2021 stat line is just comical: He struck out 161 batters in 103 innings across High A and Double A, good for a 40.4 percent strikeout rate, which was the highest of any pitcher in the full-season minors last year. He walked just 27 batters, was hard to hit, and only gave up 10 homers. He couldn’t have dominated any more given the way that Baltimore used him. Rodriguez gets it done with a big fastball (96-99 mph), and you can see from hitters’ reactions that the ball gets to them faster than they expect, resulting in some ugly swings even on fastballs out of the zone. He works with four pitches, with the slider the most promising; his curveball lacks the power it should have, and at least at these levels, his changeup has come out more like a BP fastball, especially since it has more spin than those pitches typically have and doesn’t get the same kind of action. He’s built like a workhorse starter, and his long stride makes great use of his 6-5 frame, although his arm can be a touch late, catching up because he generates such great arm speed. As I’ve written before, the Orioles have heavily restricted Rodriguez’s usage, so that he’s never thrown more than 100 pitches in a pro game, and in 2021 he never threw more than 89. Will the stuff be different when he’s planning to throw 95-105 pitches every time out, and might face hitters three times? We’re still just speculating. That’s not his fault, though, and his performance last year was unimpeachable.
3. Colton Cowser, OF (Top 100 ranking: No. 52)
Age: 22 | 6-3 |195 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 5 in 2021
The fifth overall pick in the 2021 draft, Cowser became the highest drafted player in Sam Houston State history, and their first player taken in the first round since Glenn Wilson in 1980. Cowser had one of the best hit tools in the college class last year, maybe the best one, and then hit .347/.476/.429 for Low-A Delmarva in 25 games after he signed, with more walks than strikeouts. He has great bat speed and excellent hand-eye coordination, all of which should lead to high contact rates even as he moves up the ladder, but to get to power, he’ll have to make some mechanical adjustments, like creating some separation between his hip rotation and his hand movement, and keeping his weight back for longer. He has room on his frame to add some more strength, and he could end up a 20-25 homer guy with some tweaks. His floor as a corner outfielder who hits for a high average with some doubles power would still make him an everyday guy.
4. Gunnar Henderson, SS/3B (Top 100 ranking: No. 73)
Age: 21 | 6-2 | 210 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 42 in 2019
Advertisement
Henderson was the Orioles’ second-round pick in 2019, getting an over-slot bonus in the second round, but played just 29 games that summer and lost the 2020 season to the pandemic, so last year was his full-season debut. He crushed Low A for a month and a half before a promotion to High-A Aberdeen, where he showed power and patience but had more issues with contact, especially on offspeed stuff close to the strike zone. His swing can be grooved and uphill, which gives him more power but worse ability to adjust to different pitch speeds and locations. Henderson played about two-thirds of his games at shortstop in 2021 and the rest over at third base, since he spent a good part of the season playing with Jordan Westburg, who played the same two positions. At shortstop, Henderson looked perfectly capable, but at third base he was easily plus, maybe a 70 defender. He may not hit for much average with his current swing, but with 25-plus homers, some on-base skills, and elite defense at third base.
5. D.L. Hall, LHP (Top 100 ranking: No. 81)
Age: 23 | 6-2 | 195 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Left
Drafted: No. 21 in 2017
Hall was off to the best start of his career in 2021 when his elbow barked with a stress reaction — not a ligament tear, which means he didn’t need Tommy John surgery but still missed the remainder of the season after throwing just 31 2/3 innings. His stuff was as good as ever, with all three pitches at least flashing plus, his fastball still up to 96-97, his curveball still hard and sharp, helping him punch out 46 percent of the left-handed batters he faced. He’s very athletic, with the ability to repeat his delivery and field his position well; on nights when he keeps himself under control, he can be unhittable. It’s top of the rotation stuff if he stays healthy, and he’s expected to be ready to go for spring training, when we’ll see if he can pick up where he left off last June.
6. Jordan Westburg, SS/3B (Just-missed list)
Age: 22 | 6-3 | 203 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 30 in 2020
Westburg had a strange year, starting in Low A as a 22-year-old college product — granted, nobody played in 2020, but he was really too advanced for the level, so he destroyed it — and thus not reaching Double A until mid-August, so he didn’t have much time to make adjustments to better pitching. He’s a long-levered kid, listed at 6-3, and when he puts the bat on the ball it’s pretty loud, with the potential for 40 doubles and 20 homers if he hits enough to get to it. He crushes left-handed pitching, but has some trouble with right-handed breaking stuff, often guessing and missing fastballs in what might be curveball or slider counts. He has a real two-strike approach, though, getting wide and eliminating his stride to try to put the ball in play. Baltimore had him split time between shortstop and third base last year, with the former probably a reach but third base a no-doubt floor for him, and his arm will play anywhere.
7. Joey Ortiz, SS
Age: 23 | 5-11 | 175 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 108 in 2019
Ortiz started last year on the way up and almost certainly would have hit my Top 100 if he’d stayed healthy and maintained his production all year, thanks to a swing change that produced much harder contact. The summer after the Orioles drafted him in the fourth round, he had good contact skills, but no impact, whereas he started last year hitting the ball much harder without any loss in contact rate. He’s a plus defender at short and shouldn’t be impacted by the injury to his non-throwing shoulder. We only had a 35-game sample of his production with the new swing, and he never had to go around a league twice since the O’s promoted him to Double A in May, but if he does this all year I’d be surprised if he weren’t their shortstop by Labor Day.
Advertisement
8. Connor Norby, 2B
Age: 22 | 5-10 | 187 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 41 in 2021
Norby was the Orioles’ second-round pick after a year where he hit everything he saw for East Carolina, going .414/.484/.659 and missing a perfect 1:1 strike-to-walk ratio by just one walk. (We math people enjoy symmetry. Also prime numbers. I can’t explain why. They’re just so interesting.) And he went out and did the same in Low A after signing, with a .283/.413/.434 line in 26 games. He can hit, obviously, with a compact swing and approach that focuses on using the whole field, so there’s not a ton of power here, but he should get to 35-plus doubles and double-digit homers. He’s limited to second base by a fringy arm, but if he hits like this, so what? I thought he was a first-rounder in July, and the O’s did great to get him at pick No. 41.
9. Coby Mayo, 3B
Age: 20 | 6-5 | 215 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 103 in 2020
Mayo was their fourth-round pick in the pandemic draft, one of two high schoolers they signed by going under slot at pick No. 2 with Heston Kjerstad. Mayo is a huge kid, listed at 6-5, 215 pounds, and stronger than that already, with a wide setup and no-stride approach that might hurt his power output, although he already hits the ball very hard for a 19-year-old and it might just not matter how he’s setting up at the plate. The most surprising part of his first professional season was how advanced his plate discipline was, holding up even in a late-season promotion to Low A. He is already at the absolute top end for size when it comes to third basemen. Only two players who are at least his height and weight have played even a full season’s worth of games at third base, and Mayo is probably going to end up at least Kris Bryant’s size. If Mayo hits like this, with patience , very hard contact and above-average power, it won’t matter even if he’s at first base.
10. Kyle Bradish, RHP
Age: 25 | 6-4 | 220 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 121 in 2018
Bradish sat consistently in the mid-90s as a starter last year, with a slider that flashed plus and a promising curveball, with a max-effort, straight-over-the-top delivery that could give him a side job as the body double for an Iron Mike pitching machine. He’s about 99 percent likely to end up a reliever, where that delivery would be an asset because it’s such an unusual look for hitters.
11. Heston Kjerstad, OF
Age: 23 | 6-3 | 205 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 2 in 2020
Advertisement
Kjerstad missed all of 2021 while recovering from myocarditis, and he hasn’t had a game at-bat of any sort since before the pandemic, progressing to taking live batting practice in the fall. I have no idea how to rank him, given all the missed time, and the not insignificant concerns when he was drafted about his swing and miss. He did show very strong batted-ball data as an amateur, and the hope is that he’s regained all of that strength while recovering, so he could hit the ground running to start his age-23 season, and I can go back to making jokes like “Kjerstäd: IKEA item, death metal band or Orioles prospect?”
12. Mike Baumann, RHP
Age: 26 | 6-4 | 235 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 98 in 2017
Baumann had an elbow injury at the alternate site last year but didn’t undergo surgery, so the Orioles managed him extremely carefully in the first half of the 2021 season. His velocity crept back up, from 92-94 mph earlier in the year to 94-96 mph later, then back a little bit toward 92-95 mph in his brief major-league tenure, still with 45 command and control. His two breaking pitches are still fringy, with the curveball a bit better than the slider, after some hope they’d improved during his alternate site outings last year. It’s possible that he was taking it easy on those pitches out of concern for the elbow. Either way, he’s about 60-40 to be a reliever at this point between his command and lack of an above-average second pitch, as well as the question about what workload he can handle.
13. Kyle Stowers, OF
Age: 24 | 6-3 | 200 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Left
Drafted: No. 71 in 2019
Stowers hit 27 homers last year across three levels with a .383 on-base percentage, but there is way too much swing and miss in his game right now, which was increasingly evident as the 23-year-old moved up from High A — where he was old for the level— to Triple A. He does make hard contact when he puts the bat on the ball, with power the other way as well as to his pull side. And he’s a solid-average defender in a corner. It’s a contact issue – he misses in the zone and he chases, and it’s on all pitch types – that keeps him from being the type of prospect the stat line might imply.
14. Terrin Vavra, 2B
Age: 24 | 6-1 | 200 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 96 in 2018
Vavra missed more than half of the year with a back strain but returned to post a pretty Vavra-esque line in 40 games in Double A, hitting .248/.388/.430 – less average than you’d expect, but with contact, walks and some doubles power. The Orioles had him play some centerfield last year to add some versatility, and he’s such an instinctive player that he should be able to move around the diamond, giving him more of a chance to get regular playing time as a super-utility player who gets on base and hits a bunch of doubles.
Advertisement
15. Drew Rom, LHP
Age: 22 | 6-2 | 170 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Left
Drafted: No. 115 in 2018
Rom was the Orioles’ fourth-round pick in 2018, and blossomed into one of their best pitching prospects, working with a four-pitch mix and very good deception, and showing good ability to spin the ball to make up for just average fastball velocity. He really hides the ball well, showing it very late from a low three-quarter slot. And I love that he throws a split-change – too few lefties throw any kind of splitter. He’s 6-2 and still has room to fill out. If he gains a little more velocity, it could make him a fourth starter.
16. Cesar Prieto, 2B
Age: 23 | 5-8 | 175 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Right
The Cuban infielder Prieto just signed with the Orioles last month for $650,000, just a year after his last season in Cuba’s Serie Nacional ended with a .403/.464/.579 line. He’s 5-8, but strong and has a short, compact swing that should let him hit for average with doubles power. The pitching in Cuba has been down for some time, so I’d rather see him face better quality pitching before running him up the list too much, but it does look like he can hit.
17. Kyle Brnovich, RHP
Age: 24 | 6-2 | 190 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 241 in 2019
Brnovich has an extremely short, high-effort arm action that seems … I mean, I hate saying a guy’s going to get hurt, but I haven’t seen many pitchers throw like this, and I think it’s because, if they do, they get hurt. It’s also incredibly deceptive, as hitters don’t see the ball until the last possible moment before he brings his arm out front, and to his great credit, he throws a lot of strikes.
18. Adam Hall, SS
Age: 23 | 5-11 | 165 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 60 in 2017
Long a personal favorite of mine, Hall missed the 2020 season completely, unable to come to the Orioles’ alternate site due to travel restrictions in his home Canada. The time off showed, as Hall’s pitch recognition seemed to have regressed since 2019, resulting in a career-high strikeout rate of 29.6 percent and a reduced walk rate. He’s still a plus runner and can play shortstop, but last year he played more second base and some centerfield because the Orioles had several other players who needed reps at shortstop and also were hitting. Hall will be 23 in May, so the clock is ticking, and if he doesn’t start making more contact with some more doubles power, he’s going to be hard-pressed to even hit a utility ceiling.
Advertisement
19. Logan Gillaspie, RHP
Age: 25 | 6-2 | 220 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Signed as a free agent in June 2021, almost two years after the Brewers released him, Gillaspie showed explosive stuff in his three months in the Orioles’ system and a short stint in the Fall League. He has hard boring action to his mid-90s fastball and can show a power slider with hard tilt, along with an action changeup and a curveball. He doesn’t repeat his delivery, even to the point of inconsistency with his arm slot and release point, so it’s unlikely he’ll get to average command, but he has a real chance to help the team in the bullpen in the near future.
20. Hudson Haskin, OF
Age: 23 | 6-2 | 200 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 39 in 2020
Haskin is tooled-up, but hits with a bizarre, narrow stance, getting no power from his legs, with a performance last year driven by his “ability” to get hit by pitches – 20 times in 83 games – helping him to a .381 on-base percentage between Low A and High A despite just a 9 percent walk rate. He’s a plus runner who has the range for center and could be a quality extra outfielder or bench piece if he gets his lower half into his swing more.
Others of note
Second baseman Jahmai Jones had a disastrous run in the majors last year, taking way too many pitches in the zone, especially fastballs, that he needs to attack. He’s gotten better at second base and is certainly playable there at least part-time, and his power/speed combination would give him a good run as at least an extra player, but he has to make better decisions at the plate. … Carter Baumler is back from Tommy John surgery, and the Orioles’ fifth-round pick from 2020, a projected right-hander who could spin a curveball but was a long way off even before the surgery. … Centerfielder Reed Trimble, the Orioles’ pick with their competitive balance selection after the second round, is a 55 runner who’ll stay in center and can show plus power when he gets his arms extended. The trouble with Trimble is his recognition of offspeed stuff – he chases way too many of those pitches out of the zone, especially changeups. … Third-rounder John Rhodes hit .251 with an hit-by-pitch-inflated .397 on-base percentage for Kentucky last spring, despite a reputation as one of the better pure hitters in the college class. He was young for the draft, turning 21 a month after he was selected; and doesn’t get any power from his legs right now, hurting his overall contact quality. The corner outfielder has a good approach and is a great candidate for a rebuild at the plate with player development’s help. … Lefty Kevin Smith was wobbly all year, with below-average command and control the moment he got to Double A, and then ran completely out of gas in September, walking 19 batters in his last 13 innings of the season. He’s got the above-average breaking ball to get lefties out, but still doesn’t have enough changeup for right-handers, so all signs are pointing to a relief role at best. … Outfielder Yusniel Diaz was hurt for most of 2021, dealing with turf toe and a quad injury, and hit just .157/.225/.251 in 54 games in his first taste of Triple A. He’ll be 25 this year and hasn’t played 100 games in a season since 2017, while also never hitting as well as he did before the Orioles acquired him in the Manny Machado trade in 2018. … First baseman Tyler Nevin‘s huge week in the majors papered over an awful year in Triple A, where the big right-handed hitter hit a whopping .227/.305/.392, making plenty of contact and doing a whole lot of nothing with it. That’s two years in a row (counting 2019) of poor performance for someone at a position where you have to hit, and he’ll be 25 in May. … The Orioles have been active in Latin America again after abandoning the international market for several years before the arrival of Mike Elias, and the first two significant prospects from their efforts, catcher Samuel Basallo and shortstop Maikol Hernandez, should be in the Florida Complex League this year and could be in the team’s top 20 next winter.
2022 impact
Rutschman should be their Opening Day catcher. Grayson Rodriguez isn’t far off from the rotation, although the way the Orioles manage his workload, we may not see him in Baltimore until June or so. Baumann and Jones have already appeared in the majors and could be up and down this year, as could Vavra. I do think a healthy D.L. Hall will end up in the big leagues since he’s already on the 40-man. It’s more of a longshot given how little he played last year, but if Ortiz is healthy and picks up where he left off at the plate, he’ll be the best option for shortstop within a month.
The fallen
I liked Cadyn Grenier quite a bit out of high school and still thought the Orioles did well to take him 37th overall in 2018 out of Oregon State, but the shortstop has never hit in pro ball, and his .226/.336/.354 line for Double A Bowie last year as a 24-year-old indicates he’s not even a potential utility infielder.
Sleeper
Because I think Ortiz is going to end up getting big league time, probably enough to disqualify him for 2023 rankings, I’ll go with Norby.
(Photo of Adley Rutschman: Joe Robbins / Getty Images)
