During a season where the Orioles have the current top record in the American League and are headed to the playoffs, plus the No. 1 ranked farm system, we also saw some confirmation and validation recently that the Orioles' international program is also starting to make some noise.
The biggest noise and it was real loud, came from 19-year-old catcher Samuel Basallo from the Dominican Republic. Signed by the club in January of 2021 for $1.3 million, he rose three levels this season, starting at Low Single-A Delmarva, moving to High-A Aberdeen and ended the year with Double-A Bowie.
Then he moved into top 100 prospects lists and flew up the rankings. Now he is rated No. 43 nationally by Baseball America and No. 46 by MLBPipeline.com and No. 5 on the O’s top 30.
This week, Basallo was named the Most Valuable Player and top MLB prospect in the Carolina League. He hit .313 with a .953 OPS in 114 games across three levels. In 83 games with the Shorebirds-only he hit .299/.384/.503/.887 with 12 homers and 60 RBIs.
On top of all that, Basallo led a group of seven Orioles prospects recently selected in the Dominican Winter League draft. The six teams draft 16 rounds. The seven selections tied the O’s for most among any MLB organizations, along with the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets also with seven.