What could full year look like for Westburg? (Basallo named MLB's top catching prospect)

As the Orioles wonder what their 2025 season might look like, they may also ponder what a full year with Jordan Westburg in the lineup could look like?

Westburg played 68 games in 2023 with an OPS of .715 and played 107 last season with an OPS of .792 when he was an American League All-Star.

If we combine those two years he has played in 175 games as an Oriole, taking 675 plate appearances. That is about a full season’s worth, for instance Gunnar Henderson took 719 plate appearances in 2024.

So over those 675 PAs, Westburg has hit .263/.312/.455/.767 and all four seem easily within reach for him or better during a full and healthy year. In those PAs he has hit 43 doubles, seven triples, 21 homers, scored 83 runs, stole 10 bases and drove in 86 runs.

All those numbers also seem within reach and maybe better for Westburg over a full year. It could be production to really help an already good lineup. 

The guy is just an emerging, solid talent, who could be a perennial All-Star and when he was out last year the Orioles really missed him.

The Orioles played 109 games through last July 31 when he got hit in the hand and then did not return until late in the season. They went 65-44 (.596), a 97-win pace and as a team produced a .774 OPS and scored 5.1 runs per game through that date.

He then did not return until Sept. 22. Through Sept. 21, without him, the Orioles went 21-25 (.457), a 74-win pace while producing an OPS of .686 and scoring 4.2 runs per game.

Westburg is also a clutch player as we have seen and had a .923 OPS last season when batting with runners in scoring position. In what baseball-reference.com deems as high leverage spots, he hit .400 with an OPS of 1.105. These are situations that can dramatically change win probability.

Basallo is No. 1: O's catching prospect Samuel Basallo, ranked as the No. 13 prospect in the top 100 by both MLBPipeline.com and Baseball America, is the top catching prospect in the sport. That is the assessment of MLBPipline which ranked its top 10 catching prospects on Tuesday with Basallo at No. 1.

This is no huge surprise but another nice accolade for the player that turned 20 on Aug. 13 of last season. A season when he spent 106 games with Double-A Bowie (now Chesapeake) and his last 21 at Triple-A Norfolk, where he is expected to begin this season.

Over 127 games, Basallo hit .278/.341/.449/.790 with 25 doubles, 19 homers, 68 runs and 65 RBIs.

Basallo produced an .820 OPS with Bowie with 16 homers and 55 RBIs. He hit just .222 with the Tides but batted .297 with an .810 OPS his last 11 games, after going 7-for-44 his first 10 games.

After the season, the player that was named Carolina League MVP in 2023, was named the Top Prospect in the Double-A Eastern League, the first Baysox player to get that honor since Adley Rutschman in 2021. He played in the All-Star Futures Game in July.

As the Orioles, and the rest of MLB, release some signings today from their latest class of international amateurs, the shining star of the O's international program, signed for $1.3 million in 2021, gets another honor.