O's prospect Creed Willems on his solid '24 season and how mental skills work helped

For Orioles top 30 catching prospect Creed Willems, some mental skills work this year help his physical talents play and show more often.

One can help the other and for Willems in 2024, it did.

The lefty-hitting catcher, who turned 21 in June, played 98 games this past season, the first 82 with High-A Aberdeen and the last 16 with Double-A Chesapeake. He missed about a month starting July 9 due to a left hamstring issue. He then played well for Surprise in the Arizona Fall League. It was a solid season that sets him up to make a run at Triple-A maybe in the second half of next year if he can handle Double-A pitchers and his own hurlers when back behind the plate.

He is ranked as the club’s No. 22 prospect by MLBPipeline.com and No. 25 via Baseball America.

“I thought it went really well. Other than the month of May, had a really tough month (with a .612 OPS),” he said in a recent phone interview. “But, worked on what I needed to work on. Pushing through the highs and lows and just keep a steady head. I was really proud of what I did this past year.

“You always want to be better and always want to grow more, but I would say I was excited how the year went and just want to build on that for next year.”

Strong mental preparation and a few tweaks in that department helped him, he said.

“Yeah, my first year it was all about launch angle and exit velocity and I really got into a mindset of telling myself I had to hit the ball hard at a perfect angle. For me the mental skills aspect really helped me. Having our mental skills coach (Diamyn Hall) this past year, I would talk to him every single day.

“He kind of taught us this breathing technique, kind of a mental reset. So, in between pitches I do that. And I started writing right above my hands on my bat. It says S-T-Y-A which stands for stick to your approach. In between pitches, you see that and you are reminded of your approach every pitch,” he said.

In his 98 games during the regular season with Aberdeen and Bowie, he hit .243/.322/.462/.784 with 21 doubles, two triples, 17 homers and 65 RBIs.

Often a pull hitter, Willems worked hard this year to stick with an up-the-middle and left-center approach. Use the whole field and become a more complete hitter.

“Just really trying to build on the approach aspect. In recent years, that has been one of my downsides,” he said. “I would have an approach before the game and then the game starts, and it goes out the window. That was one thing I worked on with our mental skills coach this past season. Really try to figure out how to stick to that and have little, small reminders.

“For me that is to get the right pitches to hit and locations on where the pitch needs to be. My whole approach is thinking about left and left-center because I am such a pull hitter. Just by nature. I am not trying to pull everything and when I do often, I am way early and hit foul balls. So, been working on my approach of going to the opposite field. Tried to learn from other lefty hitters and just talk to them, guys that have similar approaches.”

A coach told him visual cues could help with his left-center approach. So, at Aberdeen’s Ripken Stadium in 2024, he would see an ad on the outfield wall to shoot for.

An approach reminder right on his bat and another on the outfield wall.

“When I take BP, I feel like if I have visual cues on the wall, typically I was a little better with my BP rounds. When you can see and focus on, ‘That’s my path’ you can really hone in on one thing," he said. 

Willems made plate discipline improvements also from 2023 to 2024 with Aberdeen, increasing his walk rate year-over-year from 8.4 to 10.7 while lowering his K rate percentage from 27.7 to 20.9.

MLBPipeline gave Willems a 65 grade for arm and 45 for fielding. One story from the AFL noted he had a 1.90 pop time when throwing out an attempted base stealer.

Willems notes, good pop times are great, but good throws that get outs are the goal.

“In high school I was anywhere from 1.8 to 1.95. For me, pop times are great, but if I threw a 1.85 or 1.9 that is not a good throw, it doesn’t do anything. Need to put a good throw on it. For me it’s what can I do to get that out,” he said.

By the way, here is a random Willems note: During a pre-draft workout ahead of his draft year, he hit a homer that one-hopped the Oriole Park Warehouse. He said he never actually saw that ball, but others told him that is exactly what happened.

If he keeps progressing and has another solid season, he might get another shot at that Warehouse at some later time.