O's Matt Blood talks about the offense on the farm this past season

During my recent conversation with Matt Blood, the O’s vice president, player development and domestic scouting, we spent much of the time discussing what happened on the O’s farm in 2024.

He was honest to say the club was, to use his words “not celebrating” the farm offense from last season.

Sure, a lot went right and players like Samuel Basallo and Coby Mayo and others had plenty of special days and nights on the farm.

But overall, Triple-A Norfolk’s team OPS of .752 rated 13^th of 20 teams in the International League. Double-A Bowie (now Chesapeake) had a team OPS of .667 (ninth of 12 in the Eastern League). High-A Aberdeen was at .684 to finish seventh of 12 in the South Atlantic League. Low-A Delmarva, at .641, ranked 11^th of 12 in the Carolina League.

Like the big league club making some changes and adjustments on offense, the farm system may do some of the same moving forward.

“I think we are always looking to make adjustments and tweaks to our processes and always looking for ways to do things better,” Blood said. “We’re not changing directions or making any major changes. I think we’ve got really good people and we have our basic philosophies.

“But we’re adding good people, just like we’ve done at the major league level and the key is for us all to be on the same page. From the very top to the bottom on what our key principles are and the way we will go about things. Because we don’t want the players caught in between or confused as to what they should be focusing on.”

I asked Blood if he was pleased with the farm offense in 2024?

“We felt like there were many factors that went into it, but we did not feel like it was our best year,” he said. “We felt like there were things we’d like to do better. We’re not celebrating our offensive year on the farm, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t think it was a failure by any means. I think that we would like to find ways to improve, and we are constantly doing that.”

So what made the year not their best?

“I think other teams performed better than we did,” Blood said bluntly. “There are a lot of things that go into it. We lost players to the big leagues or to trades. You know, I think many of our higher level players were either promoted or traded. We lost a little in that regard. But internally and process-wise, we felt like our practice was still very good, but we’re going to look at our messaging and look at things we value. And we’re going to keep trying to improve little by little to where you know, we’re going to help get these players better and ready for the major leagues as best we can.

“I don’t have a specific answer to that. I think that a lot of factors went into it and it’s something we’re working on.”

Are there areas on the stat sheet the O’s want to generally see their hitters fare better at next season?

“I think we are always hoping for our hitters to swing at good pitches and to make consistent, hard contact and get on base and hit the ball hard. Those are the things we’re pushing, so, those are the areas we will strive to improve.

“I think you can talk about how those things occur and then also what you do in different situations in this game? How you go about messaging those things or training those things. In general, we are trying to swing at good pitches and trying to make consistent, hard contact that leads to getting on base or slugging.”