Checking on some O's minor league stats leaders for the 2022 season

While just one of the four O's full-season minor league affiliates - high Single-A Aberdeen - made the playoffs this year, it was a banner season for the organization in player development. They had two players ranked as the No. 1 prospect in the sport and both Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson made the majors and did well when they got there.

The Orioles prospects list was noted for both the quality and depth it showed this season. That was seen by the Orioles being ranked as the No. 1 farm at midseason by Baseball America, MLBPipeline.com and ESPN.

Today let's take a look at a few stat categories for both hitters and pitchers and see which players were among the top five O's this year for those stats. Later we'll take a look at more stat categories.

OPS (min, 250 PAs)

.946 - Gunnar Henderson
.886 - Connor Norby
.884 - Kyle Stowers
.874 - Colton Cowser
.852 - Jordan Westburg

This is a star-studded list with some of the biggest names on the O's farm. Gunnar got off to an electric start this year at Double-A and his plate discipline skills got better and so did some other stats. What a year he had. 

Norby led the org in homers and showed all-fields power. He's on the verge of a top 100 ranking I would think. Stowers cut down on his strikeouts at Triple-A in the never-ending quest to cut down on swings and misses. Cowser played at three levels and had a solid finish at Triple-A, with a .768 OPS in 27 games. Westburg filled up the stat sheet and was the O's Minor League Player of the Year.

Runs

114 - Colton Cowser
101 - Gunnar Henderson
96 - Jordan Westburg
92 - Connor Norby
91 - Joey Ortiz

Only two players in all of the minors scored more runs this year than Cowser, so he finish tied for third on the national list of leaders. Henderson tied for ninth on that list nationally for runs scored.

Hits

153 - Joey Ortiz
144 - Jordan Westburg
142 - Colton Cowser
133 - Connor Norby
127 - Cesar Prieto

For Ortiz, 36 of those hits came in his last 26 games after he got a late-season promotion to Triple-A, where he recorded a very impressive .967 OPS for the Tides.

Here are some pitching leaders for the Orioles and with each category, I went with a minimum of 60 innings pitched to qualify for the list. All stats were found at FanGraphs.com.

ERA 

2.62 - Grayson Rodriguez
2.89 - Noah Denoyer
3.10 - Ryan Long
3.25 - Peter Van Loon
3.41 - Adam Stauffer

K per 9 innings 

14.62 - DL Hall
13.11 - Ignacio Feliz
12.96 - Grayson Rodriguez
12.43 - Noah Denoyer
12.15 - Mike Baumann

WHIP

0.93 - Noah Denoyer
0.99 - Grayson Rodriguez
1.07 - Justin Armbruester
1.10 - Ryan Watson
1.23 - Connor Gillispie

Very impressive for Denoyer that he and Grayson are the only pitchers on all three lists. He is currently pitching for the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League.

Denoyer was a heckuva pickup by the Orioles when they signed him in August of 2019 as a non-drafed free agent as he went unselected in a then 40-round draft.

This year, between Aberdeen and Bowie with one game also in the Gulf Coast League, he went 5-2 with a 2.89 ERA and with 99 strikeouts over 71 2/3 innings.

I wrote about Denoyer around midseason as a pitcher flying under the radar. He throws his fastball between 91 and 94 mph and O's director of player development Matt Blood noted then how Denoyer had worked hard on the shapes of and delivery of his secondary pitches. He used a mix of analytics and coaching help to get better.

“He’s just making good strides this year toward developing his entire arsenal,” Blood said then of Denoyer, 24. “He’s been refining some of the shapes of his pitches and he’s been locating them. He has done great work with our pitching staffs in Aberdeen and Bowie. He’s been a real nice development success story so far.

"With Denoyer, they have identified how his pitches needed to be refined and he, to his credit, attacked that and has worked on it. He has gotten those pitches more refined and has executed that in the games. That’s the development goal for him.”