A new season means a new MLB Pipeline prospect ranking. 

This week on “The Bird’s Nest,” Annie Klaff and I broke down some of the highlights from an updated top 30. You can listen to the full episode here: https://masn.me/6r1g411x

The Top Dogs 

Samuel Basallo and Coby Mayo are two of the top prospects in all of baseball. Two of the best 15 in the game per Pipeline’s top 100, to be exact, and No. 1 and No. 2 in the O’s top 30. Basallo, now the top prospect in Baltimore’s system, has turned heads down in Sarasota with his eye popping exit velocities and defensive improvements. However, the catcher still needs seasoning in Triple-A Norfolk after posting a .638 OPS in 21 games with the Tides. That’s to be expected during your age 19 season. As for Mayo, there’s not much left to prove offensively down in the minors. Continuing to progress defensively at both third base and first base is the next step in his development. 

The Speedsters in Center 

It is no secret that on those top 30 prospects lists, the Orioles have many more hitters than pitchers. But a recent article in Baseball America was interesting and enlightening about the O’s pitching on the farm. In several spots, Baltimore's farm pitchers scored well.

It was Baseball America’s Farm System Statcast Pitching Rankings, co-authored by Geoff Pontes and Dylan White. It is a deep dive into minor league pitchers, aggregating full-season pitchers data, metrics and stats for hurlers between ages 17 and 26.

The BA goal was “to more accurately understand which organizations have the highest quality of overall pitching talent.” And they were attempting to “view the developing pitching talent in each organization, not the team’s ability to stock quality MiLB free agents into Triple-A bullpens.”

In an all encompassing stat called “Stuff+” per BA it “is a blended metric of each organization’s STF+ (based on their internal model), per pitch Run Value, xwOBA, and pitch quality metrics such as in-zone whiff% and chase %. The resultant number was then scaled on a wRC+ scale where 100 is average and a standard deviation is 10 points.”

The Orioles organization ranked tied for third with the New York Yankees with a score of 114, behind only the Los Angeles Dodgers at 116 and Tampa Bay Rays at 119.  

The Orioles began their latest development camp this morning at the Ed Smith Stadium complex, with five of their top prospects working out until Feb. 14.

Outfielders Colton Cowser and Heston Kjerstad and infielders Jackson Holliday, Coby Mayo and Connor Norby are spring training invites receiving an opportunity to meet early with the major league staff and instructors.

Manager Brandon Hyde, co-hitting coaches Ryan Fuller and Matt Borgschulte, offensive strategy coach Cody Asche and strength and conditioning coach Trey Wiedman will be joined by Triple-A Norfolk manager Buck Britton, coordinator of instruction Jeff Kunkel, minor league hitting coach Brink Ambler and High-A Aberdeen development coach Ryan Goll.

Ambler served as Single-A Delmarva’s hitting coach in 2022 after his promotion from minors technology coordinator.

MLB Pipeline ranks Holliday as the Orioles’ No. 3 prospect after they selected him with the first overall pick in last year’s draft. Cowser is fourth, Mayo seventh, Kjerstad ninth and Norby 11^th.